Doctor Who News, Articles, Cast and Crew Interviews

[Alan]

I was looking at the article and didn't see any mention of River Song. Was it because she wasn't in the TARDIS as much as those on the list?

I'm not sure why she isn't on the list. The Doctor's had a lot of female friends and companions so I suppose that not everyone can be included. But in my eyes River Song isn't a companion. Nor is Grace Holloway. To be a companion they need to be travelling with the Doctor in the TARDIS or in Bessie (the Doctor's car during his 4-year exile to 1970's Earth for those not in the know) more than once and on a regular basis.

[Alan]

From the BBC's Official Doctor Who Twitter account:

Doctor Who Official?
Verified account @bbcdoctorwho
Just some of the women who make time and space a reality! Happy #InternationalWomensDay #DoctorWho



6:40 AM - 8 Mar 2018

[Alan]

Doctor Who Audio Recordings Archived
Friday, 09 March, 2018 - Reported by Marcus

http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2018/03...-archived.html



Graham Strong, the man responsible for the survival the high-quality audio recordings of many missing Doctor Who episodes, has donated his collection to Mark Ayres of the Doctor Who Restoration Team, in order to be properly archived.

Strong started recording the audio from the series when he was just 14, using a domestic reel to reel, quarter-inch, tape recorder, the only way of preserving audio recordings at the time. The first recordings were made via a basic crystal microphone, hanging over the television speaker with a plant pot placed on the top of the T.V. to keep the microphone in place.

Following The Daleks' Master Plan, episode 7, Strong, a keen electronics student, managed to wire the audio input into the Tape recorder, directly to the audio output of the Television set. A highly dangerous procedure that breaks every rule of electrical safety but one that resulted in recordings that were crystal clear.

In fact, the surviving recordings are so clear that they often exceed the quality available on the surviving film prints of the episodes, and as a result, a number of DVD's of early episodes contain audio taken from Strong's recordings rather than the film print.

Strong was one of a small number of early fans who recorded audio from the now missing stories. However, he is believed to be the only one to record directly from the Television, resulting in the superior quality of his recordings.

[Alan]

Dorka Nieradzik 1949 - 2018
Friday, 09 March, 2018 - Reported by Marcus

http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2018/03...1949-2018.html

Makeup Designer Dorka Nieradzik has died at the age of 68.


Dorka Nieradzik worked on thirty episodes of Doctor Who, covering nine stories between 1980 and 1988.

Her first story was as Makeup Artist on the Fourth Doctor story The Leisure Hive. One of her first tasks was to age the leading actor, Tom Baker, using a mixture of makeup, prosthetics, and hairpieces. She then covered the final Fourth story, Logopolis, designing the Watcher, the ghostly apparition that helped the Doctor regenerate.

For the Fifth Doctor, she worked on the stories Four To Doomsday and Time-Flight, turning renowned actor Stratford Johns into a large frog-like creature as well as disguising Anthony Ainley's Master as the alien Kalid.

She designed the Makeup for three Sixth Doctor stories, Vengeance on Varos, Revelation of the Daleks and Mindwarp, presiding over the demise of the companion Peri, before working on two Seventh Doctor stories, The Happiness Patrol and Silver Nemesis.

Dorka Nieradzik was born on March 5, 1949 in Tarnowskie Góry, Silesia, Poland as Dorka Dorota Malgorzata Nieradzik, moving to Scotland, the home of her mother, at an early age. She began her career in the theatre working as a wardrobe assistant before winning a place as a BBC Makeup training course.

At the BBC she worked on most genres of programme, with credits as diverse as Last of the Summer Wine and Top of the Pops, EastEnders and Only Fools and Horses...., Yes Minister and the Dennis Potter drama's Cold Lazarus and Karaoke.

She later worked on the feature films Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Duplicity, The Boys Are Back and Shoot 'Em Up as the personal stylist for the actor Clive Owen.

She won a Bafta award in 1995 for Makeup on Cold Comfort Farm and in 2000 was honoured her with a special BAFTA award for her contribution to the industry. In 2004 she was made MBE for services to drama.

Dorka Nieradzik died on 12 February 2018. She is survived by her father, her sister Anushia, and brother, David,

[Alan]

Ken Dodd 1927-2018
Monday, 12 March, 2018 - Reported by Marcus

http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2018/03...1927-2018.html

The comedian, singer and actor Ken Dodd has died at the age of 90.


Ken Dodd is best known for his sixty-year-long career as a music hall style entertainer but made a few forays into drama, one memorable appearance playing the Tollmaster in the 1987 Seventh Doctor story Delta and the Bannermen.

Kenneth Arthur Dodd was born on 8 November 1927 in the Liverpool suburb of Knotty Ash, the son of a coal merchant. His first job was as a door to door salesman, traipsing around the suburbs of Liverpool selling pots and pans to housewives.

The stage beckoned and after a long stint as an amateur, he turned professional in 1954, appearing in Nottingham as Professor Yaffle Chucklebutty, Operatic Tenor and Sausage Knotter. Within four years he was topping the bill in the home of variety, Blackpool.

After a decade of touring the northern clubs, he ventured south making his London debut at the London Palladium in 1965, when he topped the bill in an extraordinarily successful 42-week run.

His first successful single came in 1960, Love Is Like A Violin. In all, he had 19 UK Top 40 hits including the song Tears, which topped the UK charts for five weeks in 1965 and remains one of the UK's biggest selling singles of all time. For the next two decades, he was a regular on Television and Radio as well as continuing with a punishing schedule of stage appearances.

In 1989 came the court case which may have ended his career. He was accused by the Inland Revenue of tax evasion and committed for trial at Liverpool Crown Court. Details of his eccentricity emerged with tales of £336,000 hidden around his house. It emerged that he had 20 bank accounts in Jersey and the Isle of Man, and made regular 'cash and carry' flights to deposit money in them which was not declared to the Inland Revenue.

He was acquitted by the Jury swayed by the arguments of his defense counsel George Carman QC, who remarked: Some accountants are comedians but comedians are never accountants. He was however faced with a reported £2m bill for legal fees and tax he had previously promised to pay.

From that point, the Inland Revenue became a feature of his act as did his reputation for never being able to leave the stage. Some of you are optimists, he'd tell his audience at the start of a show, you've booked your taxis for half-past 12.

He was still touring well into his eighties and in 2016 was awarded a knighthood by the Queen for services to entertainment.

Ken Dodd married his partner of 40 years, Anne Jones, two days before he died in the same house in which he was born.

[Teddybrown]

http://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/ecclest...exit-87182.htm
Christopher Eccleston talks more about his controversial exit

[DigiFluid]

That's not really about his exit per se, more about the time afterward...

[Alan]

Michelle Ryan will reprise her Doctor Who role in a new spin-off from Big Finish
Lady Christina is back after 10 years away.

http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/doctor-...ho-big-finish/

© BBC

By Morgan Jeffery
15 March 2018

Michelle Ryan's Lady Christina de Souza is the latest Doctor Who character to land their own spin-off from Big Finish.

Ryan will front a new four-part series, The Adventures of Lady Christina, to be released in September.

Thrill-seeking cat burglar Lady Christina was introduced in the 2009 Doctor Who special 'Planet of the Dead' and was last seen soaring towards new adventures on a flying double decker bus.


© BBC

Now listeners can find out what happened next in a new set of audio plays, which will pit her against the Slitheen and pair her with none other than Donna Noble's mother Sylvia (Jacqueline King).

Warren Brown (Luther, Strike Back) will also appear in the series, reprising his role of Sam Bishop from Big Finish's UNIT series.

"Being asked to revisit the role of Lady Christina was a very easy decision," said EastEnders and Merlin actress Ryan.

"Adventure, a sunny climate and mind-boggling scenarios are included in the scripts, everything I remember of my Doctor Who experience.

"Alas no David Tennant, but there's a host of new characters to help along the way. I love that we get to see a little more of her heart in the stories, that she does care about the greater good whilst also satisfying her curiosity for life."


© BBC

The Adventures of Lady Christina's senior producer David Richardson added: "Lady Christina de Souza was a standout guest character in Doctor Who. When she disappeared off in her flying bus, I wanted to know what happened next – and as it turns out, so did [the character's creator] Russell T Davies!

"Russell very generously embraced the idea of us giving Lady Christina her own audio spin-off, and Michelle Ryan was delighted about the prospect of returning."

The Adventures of Lady Christina is available for pre-order now at £23 on CD or £20 on download from bigfinish.com and will remain at this price until general release, when it will be available for £35 on CD or £30 on download.

[Teddybrown]

http://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/ecclest...ture-87252.htm
Christopher Eccleston opens up a bit more

[DigiFluid]

Steven Moffatt publishes Christopher Eccleston version of The Day of the Doctor

[Alan]

Steven Moffatt publishes Christopher Eccleston version of The Day of the Doctor

All things considered...I'm glad that Eccleston turned it down. To show a Doctor that's fought the Time War for centuries and ready to end it all needed someone older, grizzled, tired and battled-hardened by events and Steven Moffat's creation of the War Doctor and casting the late, legendary and dearly missed John Hurt in the role was both the right thing to do and the perfect casting for the role.

I think it was a great idea to show the younger and newly-regenerated War Doctor in The Night of the Doctor and then fast forward centuries and having him as a much older individual on the last day of the Time War in The Day of the Doctor to show how long he's fought and how tired and weary of it all he was.

[Teddybrown]

Doctor Who Infinity trailer.

[DigiFluid]

All things considered...I'm glad that Eccleston turned it down. To show a Doctor that's fought the Time War for centuries and ready to end it all needed someone older, grizzled, tired and battled-hardened by events and Steven Moffat's creation of the War Doctor and casting the late, legendary and dearly missed John Hurt in the role was both the right thing to do and the perfect casting for the role.

I think it was a great idea to show the younger and newly-regenerated War Doctor in The Night of the Doctor and then fast forward centuries and having him as a much older individual on the last day of the Time War in The Day of the Doctor to show how long he's fought and how tired and weary of it all he was.

I agree. Looking back now, a few years later, I'm not sure Eccleston would've fit all that well into the story they wrote. I think it could have been interesting if they'd had the role filled by McGann too, but ultimately I'm very happy with the creation of the War Doctor and Hurt's portrayal.

[DigiFluid]

Big Finish: The Time War 2

Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor attempts to survive a burning cosmos with companion Bliss and some exciting new cast members in a universe at war in Big Finish’s Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor: The Time War 2.

The second series of this epic range has just wrapped and The Time War recommended in July this year — and are we in for a treat!

Along with Paul McGann and Rakhee Thakrar as Bliss, are Nicholas Briggs playing the Daleks and Jacqueline Pearce who returns as Cardinal Ollistra — a key player in Gallifrey’s battleplan in the Time War.

Also joining the Time War as Cardinal Ollistra’a right-hand officer is Nikki Amuka-Bird playing Tamasan, who Doctor Who viewers will recognise as the Glass Woman from the BBC TV Doctor Who Christmas Special, Twice Upon a Time.

As the Time War gets more treacherous, the Time Lords become more desperate and they’ll use anything and anyone at their disposal... the Twelve (previously the Eleven played by Mark Bonnar in Doom Coalition and Ravenous) enters the Time War, played by Julia McKenzie.

And a villainous species returns...last seen in TV in the Third Doctor era of Doctor Who (and appearing in the Big Finish tales Return of the Daleks and The Romance of Crime), the Ogrons enter the Time War.

The four new adventures in The Time War 2 are:
Lords of Terror by Jonathan Morris
Planet of the Ogrons by Guy Adams
In the Garden of Death by Guy Adams
Jonah by Timothy X Atack

Writer Guy Adams talks more about the casting of Julia McKenzie as the Twelve, “There are very few times in my life when, while looking at ways to improve something, I haven’t thought: ‘It needs more Margaret Rutherford.’ Naturally the Dame is immortal and yet conveniently impossible to hire, so while I approached the character of the Twelve with her in mind I was painfully aware we were unlikely to get her.

“No matter! Look who we got instead! I mean, there are very few times in my life when, while looking at ways to improve something, I haven’t thought: ‘It needs more Julia McKenzie.’ Everything needs more Julia McKenzie, one of our finest, most charismatic actors. I am already stood outside the studio waiting to offer her cups of tea and eternal servitude.”

The Eighth Doctor: The Time War 2 will be released in July 2018, and The Time War 3 and The Time War 4 will be released annually thereafter.

(Source)

[Alan]

Big Finish: The Time War 2

Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor attempts to survive a burning cosmos with companion Bliss and some exciting new cast members in a universe at war in Big Finish’s Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor: The Time War 2.

The second series of this epic range has just wrapped and The Time War recommended in July this year — and are we in for a treat!

Along with Paul McGann and Rakhee Thakrar as Bliss, are Nicholas Briggs playing the Daleks and Jacqueline Pearce who returns as Cardinal Ollistra — a key player in Gallifrey’s battleplan in the Time War.

Also joining the Time War as Cardinal Ollistra’a right-hand officer is Nikki Amuka-Bird playing Tamasan, who Doctor Who viewers will recognise as the Glass Woman from the BBC TV Doctor Who Christmas Special, Twice Upon a Time.

As the Time War gets more treacherous, the Time Lords become more desperate and they’ll use anything and anyone at their disposal... the Twelve (previously the Eleven played by Mark Bonnar in Doom Coalition and Ravenous) enters the Time War, played by Julia McKenzie.

And a villainous species returns...last seen in TV in the Third Doctor era of Doctor Who (and appearing in the Big Finish tales Return of the Daleks and The Romance of Crime), the Ogrons enter the Time War.

The four new adventures in The Time War 2 are:
Lords of Terror by Jonathan Morris
Planet of the Ogrons by Guy Adams
In the Garden of Death by Guy Adams
Jonah by Timothy X Atack

Writer Guy Adams talks more about the casting of Julia McKenzie as the Twelve, “There are very few times in my life when, while looking at ways to improve something, I haven’t thought: ‘It needs more Margaret Rutherford.’ Naturally the Dame is immortal and yet conveniently impossible to hire, so while I approached the character of the Twelve with her in mind I was painfully aware we were unlikely to get her.

“No matter! Look who we got instead! I mean, there are very few times in my life when, while looking at ways to improve something, I haven’t thought: ‘It needs more Julia McKenzie.’ Everything needs more Julia McKenzie, one of our finest, most charismatic actors. I am already stood outside the studio waiting to offer her cups of tea and eternal servitude.”

The Eighth Doctor: The Time War 2 will be released in July 2018, and The Time War 3 and The Time War 4 will be released annually thereafter.

(Source)

I hope that in one of those future Time War-era sets that they make room for an appearance by The Master or The Rani or The Monk...or even all three. Of course we already know The Master's fate, but it would be very interesting to learn what became of the other two.