Doctor Who News, Articles, Cast and Crew Interviews

[iiradned]

You gotta feel for Tennant's kid... his dad AND his granddad were Doctor Who... that has to put a lot of pressure on him.

David and Georgia have 3 (girl, boy, girl) kids together and he adopted her son from a previous relationship.

The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot had a lot of Davison's family in it. His daughter( a pregnant Georgia), son-in-law (the 10th Doctor), two sons, grandson( the boy playing at the Doctor Who Experience) and granddaughter (Barrowman's younger "daughter").

[Alan]

Class in Australia
Monday, 26 September, 2016 - Reported by Marcus

http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2016/09...australia.html

ABC Australia has confirmed the new Doctor Who spin-off, Class, will broadcast in Australia, shortly after its UK debut.

The first two episodes of the series will be released on iView as soon as they becomes available in the UK. Class is due to be released on BBC Three sometime on Saturday 22nd October.

In addition the episodes will be screened on ABC2 on Monday, 24 October

Class is a young adult series set in Coal Hill Academy. The first episode will feature current Doctor Peter Capaldi.

Class has also been confirmed for transmission in Canada on 22 October. BBC America will also screen the series, but have not yet confirmed an airdate.

[Alan]

Doctor Who's Tardis is voted the nation's favourite home
The Doctor has the most desired crib on TV
By Ellie Harrison
Monday 26 September 2016 at 1:56PM

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2016-...favourite-home

Britons have voted for Doctor Who’s Tardis as their favourite home on TV, beating mansions, castles and central New York apartments to the top of the list.

Perhaps we Brits just have a penchant for good and efficient storage space. Not to mention time travel.
The research – conducted by Yale – put Downton Abbey’s Highclere Castle in second place and in third was the white mansion Southfork Ranch which featured in the eighties drama Dallas.

The dream: Highclere Castle

But in reality, most Brits say their digs actually resemble Victor Meldrew’s house from One Foot in the Grave.

The reality: Victor Meldrew's House

The Tardis even beat Rachel and Monica’s apartment in Friends, and the most famous address on the list – 221B Baker Street, London – home to Sherlock Holmes.

See the nation's top 20 favourite fictional homes below
1. The TARDIS (Doctor Who)
2. Highclere Castle (Downton Abbey)
3. Southfork Ranch (Dallas)
4. Rachel and Monica’s apartment (Friends)
5. Chatsworth House (Pride & Prejudice)
6. Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment (Sex in the City)
7. Del Boy’s flat (Only Fools and Horses)
8. 221B Baker Street (Sherlock)
9. Frasier’s penthouse (Frasier)
10. The Good’s home (The Good Life)
11. Tracey Island (Thunderbirds)
12. The Banks family mansion (The Fresh Prince of Bel Air)
13. Mrs Brown’s home (Mrs Brown’s Boys)
14. Father Ted’s home on Craggy Island (Father Ted)
15. Red Dwarf (Red Dwarf)
16. The Addams family mansion (The Addams Family)
17. Flintstone House (The Flintstones)
18. Winterfell Castle (Game of Thrones)
19. The Royles’ home (The Royle Family)
20. Evergreen Terrace (The Simpsons)

[Alan]

Class Cast Q&A | BBC Exclusive
Published on 26 Sep 2016

Watch the cast of BBC Doctor Who spin-off, Class, take part in a previously live-streamed Q&A on YouTube.

[Alan]

Doctor Who? What's Peter Capaldi doing on the set of Casualty?
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2016-...et-of-casualty

[BruTak]

Doctor Who? What's Peter Capaldi doing on the set of Casualty?
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2016-...et-of-casualty

I could be completely way off base here, but I'm going to hazard a guess and say it's something to do with Children in Need night next month.

[Alan]

Class drops on BBC Three this October

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2016/class

• Grab your tickets now!

The Doctor Who family is growing, and it’s fantastic to be able to welcome the young new cast of Class in to the Whoniverse.Peter Capaldi

Date: 23.09.2016 Last updated: 23.09.2016 at 17.00
Category: Drama; BBC Three; Wales; BBC Worldwide

The wait is over! Today BBC Three confirm the new YA drama, Class, written by Patrick Ness, will drop its first two episodes on BBC Three on Saturday 22 October.

Coal Hill acts like a beacon across all of space and time to any being who might want to use it for mischief….you’ll have to be on your guard.

• Class drops on BBC Three, Saturday 22 October with the first and second episode For Tonight We Might Die and The Coach with the Dragon Tattoo
• Peter Capaldi appears as the Doctor in the opening episode
• Class World premiere details announced - Thursday 20 October

Peter Capaldi will join the cast of exciting new talent in the opening episode of the series, For Tonight We Might Die. Coal Hill School holds some very dark and deadly secrets in its shadows… but who will survive?

Commenting on his involvement with the new Doctor Who spin-off series, Peter Capaldi, says: “The Doctor Who family is growing, and it’s fantastic to be able to welcome the young new cast of Class in to the Whoniverse.”


It’s a new term at Coal Hill Academy, and students are preparing for their Autumn Prom. But when the school comes under attack, four alienated students must form an unlikely alliance to defeat them. And this incursion is only the beginning.


Charlie (Greg Austin), April (Sophie Hopkins), Ram (Fady Elsayed) and Tanya (Vivian Oparah), assisted by their physics teacher Miss Quill (Katherine Kelly), are charged with a great responsibility by the mysterious alien known as the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) to guard against the creatures of nightmare that want nothing more than to find a way through to Earth and take it for their own.


Patrick Ness has created intriguing and complex characters that have to navigate their way through more than just teenage hormones, exams and detention. Joining them as series regulars are Jordan Renzo (Chosen, Troubled), Pooky Quesnel (The A Word, Accused), Nigel Betts (Boy Meets Girl, Doctor Who). The first two episodes also feature Ben Peel (The Fall, Vampire Academy), Anna Shaffer (Harry Potter, Hollyoaks), Paul Marc Davies (Doctor Who, Torchwood), and Shannon Murray (The Totally Senseless Gameshow).


YA writer and Class creator Patrick Ness, says: “At last, we can tell you a little more about Class! Though there are still many, many secrets to come. Many. Like, a lot. But of COURSE, the Doctor is in episode one! That’s how these things are done. Truly, though, I can't wait for everyone to see the show; we've worked so hard and I'm so proud of it. Soon, soon...”


Damian Kavanagh, Controller, BBC Three, says: “We know lots of BBC Three fans are Doctor Who fans so Class on BBC Three is a perfect fit. It’s nice to be back as part of the Doctor Who family.”


From Writer Patrick Ness, Director Ed Bazalgette (Poldark, Doctor Who), Producer Derek Ritchie, and Executive Producers Patrick Ness, Steven Moffat and Brian Minchin, the BBC Studios Wales production, co-produced with BBC America and BBC Worldwide.


To watch the Class cast YouTube and Facebook streamed Q&A again, please visit the Class website bbc.co.uk/class


For more news and updates, follow the official BBC Class accounts:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Snapchat

CM5

Grab your tickets now!

An exclusive World premiere of the first episode will take place at Rich Mix on Thursday 20 October, the home of Coal Hill Academy, Shoreditch, with doors opening at 6pm.

Tickets are limited and are now available via the BBC Shows and Tours website bbc.co.uk/showsandtours.
Drawn at random, successful applicants will be allowed a maximum of one pair of tickets each.

[Alan]

Patrick Ness Introduces Class
Published on 29 Sep 2016

Writer and creator Patrick Ness introduces Class, our new spin-off show. Watch the full Class livestream: https://youtu.be/VzQ8gZ01yac

[Alan]

Digital Pinball Game Released
Monday, 03 October, 2016 - Reported by Marcus

http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2016/10...-released.html

Farsight Studios have released their digital recreation of the 1992 Doctor Who Pinball Machine.

The table has been released for iOS, Google Play, Steam (Mac/Windows), Mac App Store, Amazon and Ouya. The table is inspired by the TV series and features the original Doctor Who theme song, TARDIS, Doctors, companions, and villains from the series.

The digital version of the table was produced after a Kickstarter campaign raised over $56,000, enough to purchase the the licences allowing Farsight studios to develop the replica of the machine.

The innovative game, designed by Barry Oursler and Bill Pfutzenreuter, tasks the player with rescuing each of the original 7 Doctors from the Master, each one adding a new dimension to the ruleset. Multiball is played via a 3 level "Time Expander" mini playfield that raises up to reveal more targets, allowing players to defeat Davros and his Daleks and restore Earth's time to normal.

Preview on Twitch

[Alan]

Doctor Who Wins BAFTA Cymru Award
http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2016/10...mru-award.html

[Alan]

This is how you can get a job working on Doctor Who
The BBC series is looking for a new script editor – are you the perfect candidate?

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2016-...-on-doctor-who





By Thomas Ling
Monday 3 October 2016 at 1:00PM

What do you need to get a job on Doctor Who? Sonic screwdriver proficiency? Ability to work individually or with an unidentified race of killer aliens? TARDIS licence (full, clean)?

None of the above are apparently necessary, according to the latest Doctor Who job you can apply for via the BBC’s careers service. However, you will need a keen interest in writing if you want to become the show’s new script editor.

That's right, the BBC1 sci-fi series is looking for an experienced script editor to work in the BBC Wales studios in Cardiff.

Just think, an opportunity to read through scripts before they're filmed, and, crucially, write your name into Doctor Who history – perhaps even literally.

So, if you can "generate creative ideas and story ideas of the highest standard consistent with the series", then best start polishing your CV.

If you don’t fancy that role, then keep an eye on the BBC careers service website for more Who jobs. Or bookmark the BBC work experience programme for openings.

Just remember who sent you there when you become the next Doctor.

[Alan]

Doctor Who's new companion Pearl Mackie: 'I have no time-travelling experience!'
It’s three months until she makes her debut – but there’s already a frenzy of speculation. Meets the Brixton girl about to go galactic

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-r...nion-interview

Stuart Jeffries
Wednesday 5 October 2016 18.10 BST

A few hours after Pearl Mackie was unveiled as Doctor Who’s new companion, a fan posted a selfie on Facebook dressed as her character. Given that all he’d had to go on was a brief trailer of Mackie and the Doctor cowering from Dalek unpleasantness, you had to admire his handiwork. “I couldn’t believe he’d managed to look like me so quickly,” says Mackie. “Purple jacket, big afro – he nailed it, man.”

It was the 29-year-old Londoner’s first brush with the strange world of Doctor Who fans. Nothing like that happened when she appeared in the West End in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Nor when she played Anne-Marie Frasier on the BBC’s daytime soap Doctors. Still less when she sang in a band called Freddie and the Hoares.

This will become your new normal, I tell Mackie, over coffee in Brixton Market, near the flat she shares with a friend. We survey the Monday lunchtime crowd: the fishmonger, the passing evangelist urging us to mend our ways, the man with a huge dog named Lenny. In less than three months, I say, when the Doctor’s new companion is introduced in the Christmas special, these people will be queuing up to take selfies with you.

“It’s already happening,” says Mackie. “The other day, I was in my friend’s shop just over there and this French guy comes in. I say, ‘I don’t work here, but someone will be with you in a minute.’ He says, ‘Non, non, non! You are Pearl Mackie, yes? Can I take your picture?”

You can see the Frenchman’s point. Apart from Theresa May becoming PM, no appointment of a British woman this year has excited so much fuss. When Jenna Coleman announced she was abdicating as the Doctor’s galaxy-hopping assistant to go back in time and become ruler of a much less interesting realm (playing the lead in ITV’s hit show Victoria), she almost broke the internet.

Fans worried. Could Peter Capaldi’s Doctor cut it without Coleman’s Clara? Who could fill her shoes? Casting director Andy Pryor and his team looked at 70 people, met 50, recalled 10, and honed that to a final five, who read – with Capaldi – a new scene. Among those on the shortlist to play Bill, the new assistant, was Mackie, a graduate of Bristol Old Vic theatre school.

“I turned up in T-shirt, jeans and some yellow boots and I felt out of my depth,” she recalls. “It was the Soho Hotel – so posh!” No matter. She had read the part in advance and felt she already understood the character. “I knew I could bring her to life. She’s funny and geeky and vulnerable. There’s a goofiness to her and a big heart. She gets things wrong, she has a temper. I thought, ‘I know her. I could play her.’”

In that trailer, Bill very sensibly queries why Daleks shout exterminate! “Why not kill!?” she wonders. Old hand Capaldi points out that if they say “exterminate!” it gives the two of them more time to run away. Good point. The trailer certainly showcases Mackie’s disarming discombobulation at time travel. “I think the two characters complement each other,” she says. “I don’t have a lot of experience travelling through space and time, you see.”

I scarcely recognise Mackie when I first meet her. Bill’s goofy expression and untamed afro have gone. Instead, there’s Heather Small big hair and Puma x Rihanna creepers. She looks happy with her lot. “I am, man. I’m having the time of my life. This is the biggest part I’ve ever had.” It has certainly created a frenzy of speculation. Could writer Steven Moffat have created prime-time TV’s first time-travelling trans character? And if not, why not? Will Mackie, who has a fine singing voice, duet with Capaldi when he does his Blues Brothers bit? Or, better, will she unplug his guitar and hide his shades? And what’s Bill’s backstory?

Mackie proves hopeless at answering these questions. But then she’s been warned by two BBC minders at the next table that if she blabs one iota of storyline, she’ll be thrown down a wormhole to Gallifrey and exterminated by aliens. As a result, the interview is a bizarre fencing bout, with her parrying elegantly. Why’s she called Bill? “Can’t say.” Your predecessor was a teacher, what’s Bill’s job? “Can’t say.”

All she will tell me is that she enjoys bringing her stage-combat skills to the fight scenes and has already done one of her own stunts. Frustrated, I serve up a patsy question: who’s your favourite Doctor? “I haven’t got one. The thing is, it wasn’t on when I was a kid.” Mackie is one of those unfortunates who were too young to savour the first era of Doctor Who between 1963 and 1989, and too old to enjoy the reboot from 2005 onwards. “I was 15 or 16, and it wasn’t my thing. I was going through my rebellious phase.” Which means what precisely? “I was, erm, hanging out.”

By that stage, though, Mackie was already destined to become an actor. She had an epiphany at the age of five when her mum was plaiting her hair at home in Brixton. “I was watching Judy Garland in Meet Me in Saint Louis and I said, ‘I want to do that!’ She was like ‘OK’ and kept combing.” But there was a problem for the mixed-race Londoner. “I didn’t see many people who looked like me on TV. There were hardly any strong black women.”

All this is no doubt true, but if she’d been watching Doctor Who in 2007, she’d have got a kick out of seeing Freema Agyeman, the British actor of Iranian and Ghanaian ancestry, as Martha Jones, the Doctor’s then companion. Martha was a black time-traveller tackling race issues not just in modern times but – in a memorable episode called The Shakespeare Code – in London in 1599. “I guess,” she says. “There is some sort of similarity between me and Freema, but Bill is very different from Martha.”

Mackie contrasts the relative dearth of black or mixed-race acting role models with the black women singers she grew up with and loves. “I’ve always been attracted to music, and women like Aretha Franklin, Beyoncé, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald and Tina Turner showed the path, in a way. They’re all tough women, but not afraid to be vulnerable. They made me feel someone like me could do that.”

Perhaps it’s a surprise that she became an actor rather than a singer, particularly as she has a lovely voice (you can hear her singing The Lady Is a Tramp on SoundCloud). How would she describe Freddie and the Hoares? Classic soul, angry jazz, feminist hip-hop? “Nah. Folk really. My auntie says we’re like Mumford and Sons.” I would not have guessed that.

We’re getting along delightfully until I ask a question that floors Mackie. I’d been trawling her tweets and found that, when Prince died earlier this year, she outed herself as a big fan. So, Pearl Mackie, answer this. What’s the next line of the following: “Starfish and coffee, maple syrup and jam”? She looks tortured, as if I’d asked her to give pi to 35 decimal places. “I don’t know! I love him, but I guess I don’t know the lyrics so well.” The answer, incidentally, is: “Butterscotch clouds, a tangerine / And a side order of ham.” I hope to hear Mackie sing it one day.

Although the new series won’t be screened until next year, the role has already turned Mackie’s life completely upside down. “I’ve never worked so hard. We filmed four of the 12 episodes in Cardiff. I have a flat there so I don’t have to travel all the time. Work, innit? I feel like I’ve joined a big family.”

[Alan]

“Doctor Who”-themed Brooklyn bar in the running for ‘America’s Best Bathroom’
http://brooklynreporter.com/story/br...best-bathroom/

[Alan]

Does this new Class clip contain a secret callback to Doctor Who?
An old threat from the sci-fi series seems to be returning
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2016-...-to-doctor-who

[Alan]

Doctor Who - Peter Capaldi & Steven Moffat Canadian Interview 5/10/16