Doctor Who: Kerblam! had an official rating of 7.46 million viewers, according to figures released by the Broadcasting Research Audience Board, BARB.

7.23 million watched the episode on a conventional TV set. However the BARB 4-Screen Dashboard shows that an additional 120,000 watched on their PC, 61,000 watched on a Tablet device and 52,000 watched on a smartphone These figures make Doctor Who the 9th most watched programme of the week ending 18th November.

Top for the week was Sundays edition of I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here getting 14.17 million watching.

Kerblam! had an Appreciation Index score of 81, again scoring higher with female viewers.

Rose Tyler, as played by Billie Piper, is returning for a new Doctor Who audio spin-off, and she’s bringing along her family and friends.

Rose Tyler: The Dimension Cannon,is a new audio series made by Big Finish Productions in association with BBC Studios. It follows Rose’s journey through dying parallel worlds and also stars Camille Coduri as Rose’s mum Jackie, Shaun Dingwall as her dad Pete, Mark Benton as alien investigator Clive Finch and Elli Garnett as Caroline Finch.

Producer David Richardson tells how the series came about.
The four episodes follow Rose’s mission to seek out the Doctor, the only person who can save the doomed multi-verse.

1. The Endless Night by Jonathan Morris
2. The Flood by Lisa McMullin
3. Ghost Machines by AK Benedict
4. The Last Party on Earth by Matt Fitton

The series has its own distinct tone. Focusing on the era of Russell T Davies, there are no alien threats or villains to defeat. Instead these amazing stories capture and showcase the beautifully rich human characters of Doctor Who.

Billie Piper shared her excitment at returning to the role.
From the worlds of Doctor Who, Rose Tyler – The Dimension Cannon will be released in September 2019, available for pre-order now on CD at £25 on CD and £20 on download.

Doctor Who: The Witchfinders was watched by 5.66 million viewers, a share of 27.9% of the total TV audience, according to unofficial overnight figures.

The rating makes Doctor Who the fourth highest rated programme for Sunday and the 19th for the week ending 18th November.

Highest for the day was ITV’s celebrity show, I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here which had 9.73 million watching. Strictly Come Dancing - Results Show had 8.86 million viewers, while Dynasties, the David Attenborough series had 6.79 million. The BBC Drama The Little Drummer Girl had 2.29 million.

The week was dominated by I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, which took seven out of the top ten places for the week, each episode getting over 8 million watching. Strictly Come Dancing still took top position for the Saturday show getting 9.98 million viewers.

Coronation Street and Emmerdale pushed The Doctor down to 19th place on the overnight figures.

Final figures should be available next Monday.

The actor George A Cooper has died at the age of 93.

George A Cooper was known to a whole generation of children for playing the caretaker, Mr Grifiths, in the children's drama Grange Hill, appearing in 103 episodes between 1985 and 1992. He appeared in Doctor Who in 1966, playing Cherub in the First Doctor story The Smugglers.

George Alphonsus Cooper was born in Leeds in 1925. After training as an electrical engineer and architect he was called up for National Service, working for the Royal Artillery in India. During that period he became interested in performing and on his discharge joined Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop in Manchester. To avoid confusion with American actor George Cooper he used his middle initial in his stage name.

His first appearance on television was in 1946. Over the next fifty years, he was a regular on the screen developing a career out of portraying slightly bumbling authoritarian characters. In 1964 he won a recurring role in ITV's Coronation Street playing businessman Willie Piggott who famously tried to bribe Ken Barlow to give his son Brian a pass on his tech exam.

He had regular roles in Z-Cars and Dixon of Dock Green. In 1960 he appeared in the West End play Billy Liar playing the father of the title character, later reprising the role in the 1973 television series. He appeared in comedies such as Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, Sykes and Mind Your Language.

In 1985 he took on the role of no-nonsense caretaker Eric Griffiths in the incredibly successful children's drama Grange Hill, playing the role for seven years and earning a place in the hearts of a generation of children.

His last TV appearance was in a 1995 episode of Casualty.

George A Cooper died at a nursing home in Hampshire last Friday. He is survived by his son Adam.

Candy Jar Books have announce the official release of The Lucy Wilson Mysteries novel Curse of the Mirror Clowns, which will be celebrated with a book launch on Saturday the 24th November from 11 until 3 o’clock at Heroes, Aliens and Monsters Comics in Tonypandy, featuring the book's author, Chris Lynch alongside Kangazang illustrator and author Terry Cooper.

Chris says of Curse of the Mirror Clowns:

Terry Cooper, often found impersonating Captain Jack Sparrow all over South Wales, is author of the science fiction trilogy Kangazang!, the third installment of which was recently launched at Cardiff Film and ComicCon; he will be signing copies of the book and CD (voiced by Sixth Doctor Colin Baker).

Head of publishing Shaun Russell states that:

BBC Books have announced the publication of a very special novelisation for January next year:

The novelisation is based on the script for an idea by Tom Baker and Ian Marter to take Doctor Who to the big screen, with them reprising their roles of the Doctor and Harry alongside Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah. Despite their enthusiasm for the project, a lack of funds to produce the project eventually led to it being abandoned.

The script itself was thought lost until a copy was discovered in 2006 at the British Film Institute where it had been donated to by former Doctor Who producer John Nathan Turner before his death in 2002. It has been adapted by James Goss, who has previously novelised fourth Doctor adventures penned by Douglas Adams for BBC Books.

Speaking about the project, Tom said:


The novelisation will also be released as an audiobook by BBC Audio on the same day, read by Tom himself.

A number of new publicity images to promote this week's episode of Doctor Who, The Witchfinders

Episode 8 Trailer | The Witchfinders | Doctor Who

This episode will debut on BBC One at 6.30pm.

Main Broadcast Details
United Kingdom	BBC One	Sunday 25th November	6.30pm BST
United States of America	BBC America	Sunday 25th November	8.00pm EDT
Canada	SPACE	Sunday 25th November	8.00pm EDT
Australia	ABC	Monday 26th November	6.00pm AEST

Full listings here

Seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy is joined by Jessica Martin reprising her role of Mags for a new series of audio adventures from Big Finish.

In this trilogy of tales the punk werewolf circus performer, first seen in 1988’s Doctor Who story The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, joins the Seventh Doctor to embark on a positively gothic series of adventures. They’ll encounter werewolves, vampiric creatures and angry mobs of villagers, ticking every hammer-horror convention with a Doctor Who twist.

The Monsters of Gokroth by Matt Fitton will be released in April 2019. An Alien Werewolf in London by Alan Barnes will be released in May 2019, and The Moons of Vulpana by Emma Reeves will follow in June 2019.

Jessica Martin, actress, singer, impressionist and illustrator, who plays Mags, talked about returning to the role on audio: Jessica Martin has not only returned to the character for these audio adventures, but also has illustrated new comic adventures for Mags, in a new story from Titan Comics, Hill of Beans, written by Richard Dinnick.

Script-editor and writer of many of the Doctor Who audio adventures created by Big Finish, Alan Barnes, told us about bringing back Mags as a fully-fledged companion Director, Samuel Clemens (making his directorial debut in these releases), tells us more about the stories These three Doctor Who Main Range adventures will be available at £14.99 on CD or £12.99 on download on their release in April, May and June 2019, all available from bigfinish.com. All CD purchases unlock a download option via the Big Finish app and the Big Finish website.

The Doctor Who Appreciation Society, DWAS has released a half hour documentary showing the installation of a William Hartnell heritage plaque at Ealing Studios last month.

The video features interviews with family and friends of William Hartnell, and also includes the Carney family unveiling the plaque itself. Other videos and interviews from past DWAS events are also available.

The funds for the plaque were raised by DWAS members and other fans. It is still possible to support the fundraising.

Twenty mini-plaques were produced and three of these remain available. The last three have been signed by family, friends and colleagues of Hartnell who attended the unveiling. Each has a DWAS Certificate of Authenticity attached and the Society is now auctioning number 1 of 3 at their eBay site.

Also available to buy rather than bid on, are DWAS postcard sets and a limited reprint of Cosmic Masque issue 1, the original fan fiction magazine from 1977.

The DWAS Plaque fund raises the money needed for the plaque, installation and ceremony. Any surplus funds raised will be donated to a charity chosen by the Carney family.

William Hartnell Plaque Unveiling At Ealing Studios, October 2018