Christopher Eccleston returns to Big FinishBookmark and Share

Wednesday, 15 September 2021 - Reported by Marcus
Christopher Eccleston (Credit: Tony Whitmore / Big Finish)

Big Finish Productions have confirmed the second series of Doctor Who –The Ninth Doctor Adventures starring Christopher Eccleston, due to be released throughout 2022 and into 2023.

Last year, Big Finish announced the Ninth Doctor’s return to Doctor Who, with his inaugural series of full-cast audio dramas currently delighting audiences and critics alike. Now, Christopher Eccleston returns to the TARDIS for twelve more adventures in time and space, across four brand new box sets.

Each volume is now available for pre-order exclusively at the Big Finish website(www.bigfinish.com), with prices starting at just £19.99.

Christopher Eccleston said:

Just before Christmas in 2020, I walked into a small recording studio in an industrial estate in North London. Me and the sound engineer looked at each other and we smiled and said, ‘Let's go!’ Then I started playing the Ninth Doctor again, and I loved it.

It's been one of the great joys for me of the past year. It's a lovely way to do it, so I'm coming back to record more.

Big Finish Chairman Jason Haigh-Ellery said:

I am so glad that Christopher has enjoyed his time with us so much that he has agreed to continue his travels in the TARDIS. Bringing the Ninth Doctor back to the Doctor Who universe has been one of the few enjoyable parts of the past year and I am so glad that the adventures will continue!

Producer David Richardson added:

I’ve spent most of my summer weekends sitting in the garden, iPad on my lap, reading the scripts for The Ninth Doctor Adventures–Series Two. Happy days indeed. No spoilers but expect emotional, character-based stories, and lots of adventure –going deep into Earth’s past and into the far future.

From an old railway station to the seas of Titan, to a very unusual furniture store in the present day, it’s another trip of a lifetime –and I can’t wait to be back in the studio again in October, where we will bring these words to brilliant life. Recording the first season with Chris was one of my happiest times at Big Finish, and I feel privileged to be going back for more.

Doctor Who fans worldwide can now pre-order the second series of the Ninth Doctor Adventures, which are available in three formats –collector’s edition CD, digital download or limited edition gatefold triple LP vinyl –exclusively from the Big Finish website at bigfinish.com.

 





FILTER: - Ninth Doctor - Christopher Eccleston

Doctor Who Magazine: Issue 563Bookmark and Share

Thursday, 1 April 2021 - Reported by Marcus
Doctor Who Magazine: issue 563 (Credit: Panini)

The latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine is now available. 

 

Highlights of the new issue include:

 

  • An exclusive in-depth interview with Christopher Eccleston – his first with DWM in 16 years!
  • Former showrunner Steven Moffat on writing for the Ninth Doctor.
  • A preview of Ravagers, the new box set of audio adventures starring Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor.
  • Jonathan Morris explores the gaps in our knowledge of the Ninth Doctor – where could new adventures take place in his timeline?
  • Collectivity celebrates the merchandise released in 2005 after Doctor Who’s revival.
  • DWM tracks down some of the real soldiers who formed part of UNIT in the 1960s and 70s.
  • Members of the Doctor Who Restoration Team reveal the secrets of making old episodes look better than ever for their release on Blu-ray.
  • Apocrypha remembers BBC Books’ 2005 novel The Monsters Inside.
  • The Fact of Fiction looks back at 2005’s Father’s Day.
  • Reviews of the Season 8 Blu-ray box set and the new Target novelisations
  • Sufficient Data crunches Doctor Who’s numbers.
  • Previews and reviews, news, prize-winning competitions, Time and Space Visualiser and more.

 

Doctor Who Magazine Issue 563 is on sale from store.panini.co.uk and WH Smith from Thursday 1 April, priced £5.99 (UK).

Also available as a digital edition from pocketmags.com priced £4.99.





FILTER: - DWM - Christopher Eccleston

Christopher Eccleston returns to Doctor Who For Big FinishBookmark and Share

Sunday, 9 August 2020 - Reported by Marcus
Christopher Eccleston  (Credit: BBC)

Big Finish Productions, in association with BBC Studios, today announced the long-awaited return of Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor in a brand new series of audio adventures.

First seen on screen in 2005, Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor introduced a whole new generation of fans to Doctor Who.

Now he's back, with a brand-new series of twelve full-cast audio adventures in space and time, due to be released across four box sets, starting with volume one in May 2021.

Christopher Eccleston said:

After 15 years it will be exciting to revisit the Ninth Doctor's world, bringing back to life a character I love playing.
Story details, writers and additional guest cast are being kept under wraps at present but this Doctor Who audio series promises to be, once again, the trip of a lifetime.

Big Finish’s Chairman, Jason Haigh-Ellery said:

I first talked to Christopher about returning to the role of the Doctor at the Gallifrey One convention in February this year. Christopher said he was enjoying meeting the fans and was pleased that his Doctor was remembered so fondly. I am so pleased that Christopher has decided to return to the role with us – and I'm excited to welcome him to the Big Finish family as we discover the new adventures of the Ninth Doctor.

 

Big Finish’s Creative Director, Nicholas Briggs, added:

Working with Chris was a very special time for me. The beginning of my Doctor Who TV career. So, writing for and directing him feels incredibly exciting. He’s such a powerful performer and it’ll be amazing to work with him again.

Doctor Who fans worldwide can now pre-order all four volumes, which are available in three formats – collector’s edition CD, digital download or limited edition gatefold triple LP vinyl – exclusively from the Big Finish website.

Each of the four volumes in Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures will be released as a 4-disc collector’s edition box set or download containing three brand-new full cast audio adventures, plus a selection of behind-the-scenes extras.

Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures is now available to pre-order. Find out more and get your copy exclusively at the Big Finish website

 

 





FILTER: - Ninth Doctor - Christopher Eccleston - Audio - Big Finish

Eccleston to attend Gallifrey One ConventionBookmark and Share

Thursday, 26 September 2019 - Reported by Marcus
Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston has been announced as a guest at the annual Gallifrey One Convention to be held in Los Angeles early next year.

The appearance will see the actor attend both days of the convention, now in its thirty-first year.

Christopher Eccleston has for many years been reluctant to discuss his time in Doctor Who. He was cast as The Doctor when the series returned in 2005, but only served for one year. The manner of his departure was controversial with the BBC at the time having to apologise for a press release issued on his departure which was inaccurate over the reasons the star left the series.

Eccleston said the incident at the time left him feeling bitter. In recent years he has been more amenable to discussing his role as the Doctor and in his recent autobiography, he paid tribute to the show's fans.
Yes, I have felt bitter, and yes, I have felt betrayed, but I know also that Doctor Who was the best thing that, professionally, ever happened to me, not so much a learning curve as a plunge down a well and a long climb towards the sunshine I see now,

These days, I feel nothing but positive about the show, to the extent I have even started doing conventions, something I’d been wary of because I always wanted to earn my money from acting.
Eccleston has recently released a new memoir I Love the Bones of You: My Father And The Making Of Me, a gritty account of his life, his battles and his relationship with his father, who suffers from dementure. In the book, the actor discusses his mental health, revealing that he has lived with eating disorders and had considered suicide. He revealed that while making Doctor Who he was suffering from anorexia.
People love the way I look in that series, but I was very ill. The reward for that illness was the part. And therein lies the perpetuation of the whole sorry situation.
A spokesperson for the eating disorder charity Beat praised the actor's courage speaking about having anorexia.

In the UK Christopher Eccleston will be discussing the book at a special event being held at the Lowry Theatre in Salford Quays on Monday 14th October.





FILTER: - Christopher Eccleston - Ninth Doctor

Christopher Eccleston - I Love the Bones of YouBookmark and Share

Friday, 14 September 2018 - Reported by Marcus
Simon & Schuster UK are to publish Christopher Eccleston’s memoir, detailing the Ninth Doctor's acting career as well as the impact of dementia on his family.

The book, I Love the Bones of You, will detail the actor's life, growing up in working-class Salford, brought up to be 'factory fodder' in the north-west. He will talk about his desire to perform which led him to his film debut playing Derek Bentley in the 1991 film Let Him Have It

He will talk about his breakthrough role in the BBC drama series Our Friends in the North and his time as The Doctor when Doctor Who was relaunched in 2005.

Eccleston will also discuss the loss of his father, who suffered from dementia and describe the struggles his family had to cope with the condition over the past decade of his father's life.
My dad’s dementia started with problems with short-term memory, He became obsessed for instance with the length of the grass at my house. He used to come and tell me that we needed to cut the hedges. He would say that again and again in a loop, and I used to snap at him because at the time I did not understand dementia.

The most traumatic experience is when people with dementia realise they are ill. I saw my father pass through that and fight it with all his will. He was on his knees, repeating: ‘What’s happening to me, what’s happening to me? I am Ronnie Eccleston.’ It was devastating.
Iain MacGregor, publishing director of non-fiction at Simon & Schuster UK said
Like many, many people across Britain today, Chris bears the pain and loss of a dear parent who was taken by this incredibly vile condition. He wanted to not only record his father’s journey, but to celebrate his life, and that of his family also. We are privileged he has decided to take this journey with Simon & Schuster UK
I Love the Bones of You is due to be published in September 2019.




FILTER: - Christopher Eccleston

Eccleston talks About Doctor WhoBookmark and Share

Tuesday, 20 March 2018 - Reported by Marcus
Christopher Eccleston (Credit: Getty Images)Christopher Eccleston has been talking to the media about his time on Doctor Who, explaining some of the circumstances of his departure.

The actor has told Radio Times how difficult he found making the series, revealing that there was a breakdown of trust between the show's producers, including Russell T Davies, and himself as early as the first period of filming.
My relationship with my three immediate superiors, the showrunner, the producer, and co-producer, broke down irreparably during the first block of filming and it never recovered. They lost trust in me and I lost faith trust and belief in them.
Eccleston left the series at the end of the first year, with his departure announced shortly after the first episode aired, but the circumstances of his departure have always been a subject of much speculation. Until now neither the actor or the production team have given their take on the issues involved.

Eccleston admitted some of the problems may have been caused by his taking on a role very different to any he hat attempted before.
Some of my anger about the situation came from my own insecurity. They employed somebody who was not a natural light comedian.

I think that if you're setting up a huge series like that the director has to be impeccable in setting the tone. Billie [Piper], who we know was and is brilliant, was very, very nervous and very, very inexperienced. So, you had that, and then you had me. Very, very experienced, possibly the most experienced on it, but out of my comfort zone.
When Eccleston left the series the BBC put out a statement saying the actor had left after fearing becoming typecast, a statement later retracted with an apology from the Corporation to the actor for not consulting him prior to issuing the statement.

Eccleston himself has never talked about his departure until now, saying he wanted to concentrate on the fact he had played the part rather than on his reasons for leaving.
When I left, I gave my word to [then-showrunner] Russell T Davies that I wouldn’t do anything to damage the show. But they did things to damage me. I didn’t criticise anybody. I didn't issue a statement.
He told the Guardian last week that the BBC had tried to damage his career.
I gave them a hit show and I left with dignity and then they put me on a blacklist. I was carrying my own insecurities as it was something I had never done before and then I was abandoned, vilified in the tabloid press and blacklisted. I was told by my agent at the time: ‘The BBC regime is against you. You’re going to have to get out of the country and wait for regime change. So I went away to America and I kept on working because that’s what my parents instilled in me. My dad always said to me: ‘I don’t care what you do – sweeping the floor or whatever you’re doing – just do the best job you can.’ I know it’s cliched and northern and all that bollocks, but it applies
Eccleston said that his relationship with Russell T Davies, who he previously worked with on the 2003 series The Second Coming, had been destroyed by the experiences on Doctor Who saying that he “never will have” a working relationship with the screenwriter again.

Eccleston was speaking ahead of the release of his new series, the BBC One drama Come Home.




FILTER: - Christopher Eccleston

50th Anniversary Script Starring Eccleston to be publishedBookmark and Share

Saturday, 10 February 2018 - Reported by Marcus
A Second Target for Tommy (Credit: Nigel Parkinson / Obverse Books)
One of the most intreguing 'what-ifs' of the modern era of Doctor Who, could be solved with the publication of a new book from Obverse Books.

Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary was marked by the television story The Day of The Doctor, which starred David Tennant and Matt Smith and the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors, but also featured John Hurt as the War Doctor, the missing incarnation of the Doctor.

What is not so well known is that the original hope of the producers was to reunite the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors with their Ninth incarnation played by Christopher Eccleston

Eccleston declined to feature in the story, but not before scripts were written by showrunner Steven Moffat. Excerpts from these scripts are now to be released as part of a new charity book.

The Second Target for Tommy is a charity book designed to raise money for Tommy Donbavand, a writer who having overcome throat cancer, developed a tumor in his lung. As a result, he continues to be unable to do the school visits which previously generated much of the income needed to support his family.

As well as including the draft script for the Christopher Eccleston scene in Doctor Who’s 50th Anniversary Special, Day of the Doctor, the book will feature stories from over two dozen writers.

Every penny of profit raised will go to support Donbavand while he works on making a full recovery.

The book is a sequel to A Target for Tommy, released in August 2016

More about Donbavand's battle with Cancer can be found on his blogTommy vs Cancer

The new book can be ordered from Obverse Books.




FILTER: - Christopher Eccleston - WHO50

Christopher Eccleston to play MacbethBookmark and Share

Tuesday, 12 September 2017 - Reported by Marcus
Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston is to play Macbeth in the 2018 summer season for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

The actor is to make his RSC debut playing the Scottish King at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon, in the season which runs from 13 March until 18 September 2018.

In joining the RSC the actor follows in the footsteps of Tenth Doctor David Tennant, who played Hamlet in 2008 season at Stratford. Eccleston himself played Hanlet in the 2004 West Yorkshire Playouse production of the play.

The contemporary production of what is described as Shakespeare’s darkest psychological thriller, will be directed by Polly Findlay and will also star Niamh Cusack as Lady Macbeth.

The actor actively sought the role according to RSC artistic director Gregory Doran
Christopher Eccleston rang and said 'I know you're going through all the plays in the canon, when you get to Macbeth can I play him please?
The production will be broadcast live to cinemas on April 11th, 2018

Priority Booking opens from 25 September. Public booking opens on 23 October on the RSC website.




FILTER: - Christopher Eccleston

Share The OrangeBookmark and Share

Sunday, 7 February 2016 - Reported by Marcus
Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston fronts the latest campaign from Alzheimer’s Research UK #sharetheorange.

The project features stop motion animation from award winning studio Aardman, to demonstrate how the diseases that cause dementia, most commonly Alzheimer’s, physically attack the brain. Through damage caused by the disease, the brain of a person with Alzheimer’s can weigh around 140 grams less than a healthy brain – about the weight of an orange.

Eccleston, whose father Ronnie died with vascular dementia following a 14-year battle with the disease, said
We have to think differently about dementia. We have to stop believing dementia is an inevitability; something that simply happens to us all as we grow older. If we don’t, we’re never going to truly fight it.

Dementia is caused by diseases and diseases can be beaten. We’ve tamed diseases like cancer and heart disease and a diagnosis of either is no longer a certain death sentence. People with dementia deserve this same hope. This film aims to show that dementia is caused by physical processes that scientists can put a stop to.

While scientists fight dementia in the lab, by sharing the film anyone can fight the misunderstanding and fatalism that surrounds dementia in our society.




FILTER: - Christopher Eccleston

Doctor Who - The Ten Christmas SpecialsBookmark and Share

Thursday, 1 October 2015 - Reported by Chuck Foster
BBC Worldwide have announced a new boxed set of Doctor Who adventures, this time featuring the Christmas Specials that have aired so far...

Doctor Who: The Ten Christmas Specials (Credit: BBC Worldwide)Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without Doctor Who! Doctor Who - The Ten Christmas Specials marks the tenth anniversary of the Timelord’s return and this special limited edition boxset contains all ten Christmas Specials, plus a set of five graphically illustrated Christmas Cards, an exclusive bonus feature fronted by Rufus Hound which features personal reflections from Peter Capaldi and Steven Moffat and a souvenir booklet.

In this action-packed box-set, featuring Christmas specials starring Tenth Doctor David Tennant, Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith and Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi, the Doctor must save the world from an array of monsters including Killer Santas, The Sycorax, Rachnoss, The Wooden King & Queen and The Dream Crabs.

The set is out in the United Kingdom on DVD and Blu-Ray from 19th October.




FILTER: - BBC Worldwide - Blu-ray/DVD - Christopher Eccleston - David Tennant - Matt Smith