A biography of Doctor Who's first producer is to be published next January. Drama and Delight: The Life and Legacy of Verity Lambert is being written by Richard Marson and will be brought out by Miwk Publishing Ltd.

Not only was Lambert the show's first producer, it was also her first TV programme as a producer, having been poached from commercial rival ABC by drama boss Sydney Newman. At the time, she was also the youngest and only female drama producer at the BBC.

Lambert went on to have a hugely successful and influential career in TV production, becoming a head of drama herself - at Thames Television - and later setting up her own production company. She received an OBE in the 2002 New Year Honours for services to film and television production, and that same year also saw her presented with BAFTA's Alan Clarke Award for Outstanding Contribution to Television. She died of cancer in 2007 at the age of 71.

Marson wrote for Doctor Who Monthly/Magazine between 1983 and 1988, and after graduating from the University of Durham in 1987 joined the BBC, progressing from floor assistant to producer/director. Along the way, he worked on many iconic programmes including Top of the Pops, That's Life!, Going Live!, and Wogan. He went freelance in 1994, with stints at companies such as Planet 24, Chatsworth, and LWT. A return to the BBC in 1997 to direct series of Record Breakers and Tomorrow's World led to his appointment as a producer on Blue Peter in 1998, where he remained for almost a decade. He spent four years as the programme's editor.

In 2007, he was the executive producer of BBC Four's Children's TV On Trial, while more recently he produced and directed the 90-minute documentary Tales of Television Centre for the same channel. He is currently with TwoFour, producing a major 15-part "fixed-rig" documentary (where the cameras are stationary) for CBBC called Our School.

Marson is the author of several books, including Inside Updown: The Story of Upstairs, Downstairs, Blue Peter 50th Anniversary, and JN-T: The Life and Scandalous Times of John Nathan-Turner, which caused a media stir when it was published last year.

Veteran BBC costume designer Ken Trew, the man who designed the Seventh Doctor's costume as well as revamping the Third Doctor's costume and creating the first costume for The Master, played by Roger Delgado, has died at the age of 77.

Kenneth Trew was born in Newport, South Wales and attended Newport College of Art. He left college and worked in repertory theatre as a set designer before moving to London. He joined The Festival Ballet for six months, which included a tour to Barcelona and Lisbon. It was during this tour that he applied to become a Costume Designer at the BBC. He joined the corporation in 1964 as a dresser and at the end of 1965 became an Assistant Designer working on such productions as Z Cars.

His first involvement with Doctor Who was on The Myth Makers (1965) with William Hartnell, which was recorded at Riverside Studios. He assisted Designer Bobi Bartlett on the Patrick Troughton, Cyberman story The Invasion (1968).

Trew designed the opening story of Jon Pertwee’s second season, Terror of the Autons (1971) introducing a more colourful version of Pertwee’s costume originally designed by Christine Rawlins.

Producer John Nathan-Turner used Trew regularly in the 1980s for the Peter Davison story Snakedance (1983) and the first part of Trial of A Time Lord – The Mysterious Planet (1986) with Colin Baker. He established the look of The Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy for Time and the Rani (1987), and then worked on Remembrance of the Daleks (1988), The Curse of Fenric (1989), Ghost Light (1989) and Survival (1989). He was also the designer for the Children in Need Special Dimensions in Time (1993).

Other design work included A Very Peculiar Practice, Bergerac, The Prisoner of Zenda, Strangers and Brothers, The Onedin Line and Anna Karenina.
The designer died on 11th January of Sporadic CJD, a very rare condition affecting only 1-2 in every million people each year in the UK.

Pam Trew, Ken’s wife said, I always knew that Ken was one in a million!

The fiftieth anniversary episode of Doctor Who was the most accessed programme on the BBC iPlayer for the whole of 2013.

The Day of the Doctor topped the chart with 3.2 million people accessing the episode at some point. The episode had 0.3 million more requests than the second placed programme, episode 1 of Bad Education, the comedy series about the worst teacher ever to grace the British education system.

The Christmas episode, The Time of the Doctor, which saw Matt Smith leave the series, was accessed 1.95 million times in the week following transmission, enough to make it the 32nd most requested programme of the year and the most requested programme for Christmas week. Mrs Brown's Boys, which came top of the Christmas broadcast ratings, had 1.36 million requests.

Nearly a million people downloaded the iPlayer mobile and tablet apps over the Christmas period, meaning over 20 million now have the service on their mobile device.

All ten episodes of Doctor Who that premiered in 2013 made the top 50 programmes on iPlayer for the year. The Bells of Saint John came in at number 5 on the chart, with 2.64 million requests during the couple of months it was available. The Rings of Akhaten was 15th with 2.31 million requests. At 23 was The Name of the Doctor which had 2.06 million requests. Cold War was 33rd with 1.95 million requests, Hide was 35th with 1.92 million requests, Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS was 39th with 1.89 million requests, Nightmare in Silver was 40th with 1.89 million requests and The Crimson Horror was 43rd with 1.83 million requests.

Overall, the 2013 episodes were requested over 19 million times during the year. The 2012 episodes were also available on iPlayer for part of the year and were requested a total of 2.39 million times. The 14 episodes from Series Six were requested 4.51 million times and Series Five 0.67 million times.

Production on the eighth series of Doctor Who in the 21st Century is now in full swing, with filming taking place in Cardiff at the Roath Lock studios and on location in Cardiff. The BBC have announced details of the first couple of episodes to be filmed, alongside the first official image of new Doctor Peter Capaldi alongside Jenna Coleman:


Arriving on set in Cardiff to begin filming, Peter Capaldi said:
Steven Moffat, Lead Writer and Executive Producer, added:
Ben Stephenson, Controller of Drama Commissioning, said:
Charlotte Moore, Controller BBC One, commented:

Moffat has written the first episode of this series, which is directed by Ben Wheatley. Wheatley is a newcomer to Doctor Who, but his previous work includes The Wrong Door and Ideal. The director will also undertake the following episode, which has been written by Phil Ford, whose previous credits include The Waters of Mars for Doctor Who, as well as several episodes of Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. Other confirmed production crew include Brian Minchin (The Time of The Doctor) as executive producer alongside Moffat, and the return of producers Nikki Wilson (The Waters of Mars, The Sarah Jane Adventures) and Peter Bennett (several episodes from Series 5 and also Torchwood: Children of Earth).

Filming is expected to continue until August 2014.

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As reported above, filming has commenced on location in Cardiff, which revealed other characters involved with the opening episode.

Gareth Roberts has revealed that he will be returning to the Doctor Who team this year. Issue 139 of Quench, a Cardiff student lifestyle magazine, features an interview with Roberts and reports that he is "currently working on the new Peter Capaldi episodes for Doctor Who Series 8". The whole interview can be found here.

Roberts has written five episodes for Doctor Who in the past: The Shakespeare Code, The Unicorn and the Wasp, Planet of the Dead, The Lodger and Closing Time, as well as writing a number of episodes for spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures. Outside the Whoniverse, his other writing credits include Wizards vs Aliens and Emmerdale.

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Gareth Roberts is currently the fourth writer confirmed for Peter Capaldi's debut season, joining Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and Neil Cross.

Fifty years ago today on Doctor Who the companion Barbara Wright - as played by Jacqueline Hill - became the first of the TARDIS crew to encounter a Dalek, in the cliffhanger to the episode The Dead Planet.

At the time, only Barbara saw it in full and she didn't know that it was a Dalek either. The 6.9 million TV viewers could only see a plunger - as wielded by assistant floor manager Michael Ferguson - advancing menacingly on her, but this tantalising glimpse of an unknown alien horror, coupled with Barbara's piercing scream and sheer terror at what she had encountered, became an iconic moment in the programme.

The following episode would see the full introduction of the creatures that would become an instant hit with audiences and make the show a genuine talking-point, propelling it to international success and guaranteeing its longevity.

To mark today's special anniversary, though, the official site has uploaded a video of current showrunner Steven Moffat looking back at the 1975 story Genesis of the Daleks. It follows the release by the site earlier this week of a video of Moffat praising the 1988 adventure Remembrance of the Daleks. Both of them were recorded last year as part of a series in the run-up to the broadcast of Asylum of the Daleks.



Following the popularity of our An Unearthly Series feature that marked the 50th anniversaries of milestone events leading up to the broadcast of the show's first episode, Doctor Who News will be celebrating significant moments in time relating to the series after its début on 23rd November 1963.

Details have been revealed for the DVD and Blu-ray releases of The Time of the Doctor - with Region 2 getting a two-disc set comprising all the Eleventh Doctor's Christmas specials as well as extra content from this year's offering, which sees Matt Smith bow out as the Doctor.

To be released on Monday 20th January as a box set and entitled The Time of the Doctor + Other Eleventh Doctor Christmas Specials, the Region 2 contents will be as follows:

• The Time of the Doctor
• The Snowmen (The 2012 Christmas special)
• The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe (The 2011 Christmas special)
• A Christmas Carol (The 2010 Christmas special)
• Behind the Scenes of The Time of the Doctor - We take a peek behind the lens on this cracker of a Christmas special. With Matt Smith, Orla Brady, Jenna Coleman, Steven Moffat, Danny Hargreaves, Jack Hollington, Sheila Reid, James Buller, and Elizabeth Rider.
• Farewell to Matt Smith - Narrated by Alex Kingston, this compelling special looks back at Matt's extraordinary tenure as the Eleventh Doctor, featuring highlights from the show and copious interview footage with Matt, his cast mates, writers, producers, guest stars, and celebrity Doctor Who fans.
• Tales from the TARDIS - A look back at the full, 50-year history of Doctor Who. Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith and past Doctors David Tennant, Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker, Peter Davison, and Tom Baker tell what it was like to be the Doctor, how they got the job, and how it changed their lives. With companion actors Jenna Coleman, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill and more, this special offers a unique insight into the world's longest-running sci-fi series.

The BBC Shop is also doing an exclusive T-shirt and DVD/Blu-ray offer for the release.

The one-disc Region 1 DVD/Blu-ray of The Time of the Doctor will be released on Tuesday 4th March, comprising this year's Christmas episode and the extras Behind the Scenes of The Time of the Doctor, Farewell to Matt Smith, and Tales from the TARDIS. None of the previous Christmas episodes will be included.

With the 50th anniversary of the first appearance of the Daleks on TV screens fast approaching, a video tribute by Doctor Who's current showrunner Steven Moffat to their last story during the classic era - Remembrance of the Daleks - was posted today by the BBC on the programme's official site.

In the piece, he says of the 1988 four-parter: Moffat's comments were recorded last year as part of a mini series in which he talked about the Daleks in general to publicise their return in Asylum of the Daleks and, in subsequent video posts, looked at what he considered to be the best and most significant Dalek adventures.

BBC Worldwide have released the artwork, trailer and details for the forthcoming DVD of the second Doctor story The Moonbase, which is due for release in the United Kingdom early January next year.

The DVD was originally due to be released this October, with animated versions of episodes 1 and 3. However, this was later put on hold to allow further work on the animation to be completed.

Starring Patrick Troughton as the Doctor, Michael Craze as Ben, Anneke Wills as Polly, Frazer Hines as Jamie and guest-starring Patrick Barr, Andre Maranne and Michael Wolf, The Moonbase was originally screened in February and March 1967, and with episodes 1 and 3 animated it will become the earliest complete Troughton story available on DVD. Special features on the DVD include:

• Fully remastered Episodes 2 and 4.
• Newly animated Episodes 1 and 3, with original off-screen soundtrack recordings.
• Commentary on Episodes 2 and 4: a traditional commentary with actors Anneke Wills, Frazer Hines and Edward Phillips and Special Sounds creator Brian Hodgson.
• On Episodes 1 and 3, a series of interviews featuring writer Kit Pedler's daughters Lucy Pedler and Carol Topolski, archive interviews with producer Innes Lloyd, assistant floor manager Lovett Bickford, and Cyberman actors Barry Noble, Derek Chaffer and Reg Whitehead. Moderated and linked by Toby Hadoke.
• Lunar Landing – Cast and crew look back on the making of the story. With actors Anneke Wills, Frazer Hines and Reg Whitehead, plus production assistant Desmond McCarthy.
• Photo Gallery – Production, design and publicity photos from the story.
• Coming Soon – A trailer for a forthcoming DVD release.
• Radio Times listings.
• Programme subtitles.
• Subtitle production notes.

The DVD is available to order at amazon.co.uk and amazon.com.

Director Douglas Mackinnon has today announced on Twitter that he will be returning to Doctor Who for series eight in 2014, the first to star Peter Capaldi as the Doctor.

Mackinnon - who previously helmed The Sontaran Stratagem and The Poison Sky  for series four in 2008, and The Power of Three and Cold War for 2012-13's series seven - also confirmed that he will be directing two episodes of series eight. He begins pre-production work on his episodes on Monday, with actual shooting taking place next year.