Christian Cawley's Blog, page 149

Don’t Miss A Day In The Life Of Simon Fisher-Becker!

Simon Mills is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Dearest Kasterborites! Here at Kasterborous Towers we aim to do a good deed every day.

Yesterday I resisted the urge to slap an idiot. That was my good deed for the day! Anyway, today’s good deed is to give a shout out to a small charity event being held in Penarth to support Penarth Arts and Crafts Ltd, which is redeveloping Penarth Pavilion.

This event is “A Day in the Life of Simon Fisher-Becker” which is being organised by a local science fiction fan group “Timeless” and is the second recent event in the “A Day in the Life of…” series of events which originally ran from 1997 to 2001 but was resurrected last year with “A Day in the Life of Louise Jameson”. As this was a big success the decision was made to run another event on Sunday 25th January 2015 with Simon Fisher-Becker as the guest and his one man show, “My Dalek Has a Puncture”, as the highlight of the day.

The day will include a special one-off regeneration of the Quiz of Rassilon by Michael Snooze, and a writers panel with David Llewellyn and Scott Hancock.

Simon’s one man show “My Dalek Has A Puncture”, is the main feature, followed by a question-and-answer session, autograph signings, charity raffle and dealers’ table.

If you are in the Cardiff/Penarth area then I strongly urge you to attend this event as the price of admission (£12 for adults and £8 for children) is worth paying just to see Simon Fisher-Becker’s show – everything else is a bonus AND you’ll be supporting a local arts charity. Win-Win!

If you don’t know anything about Simon’s show then check out my review. You won’t regret it as the show is hugely inspirational whilst also very intimate – and you’ll get to meet the man himself! As an added bonus, the event takes place in Penarth, where location filming happened for various Doctor Who stories including The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon. Why not go location scouting while you’re there?

There haven’t been very many tickets sold so far but a lot of people have said they are interested – it would be a huge shame if the event gets cancelled so please, once again, I exhort you to please support this event and the charity. Here are the details:

“A Day in the Life of Simon Fisher-Becker”

25th January 2015 11.30am to 6pm

Penarth Pier Pavilion, The Esplanade, Penarth CF64 3AU

Tickets: £12, £8 concs. Tel: 029 2071 3201. www.penarthpavilion.co.uk/events

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Is Doctor Who Being Removed From Netflix?

Thomas Spychalski is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Today we truly live in the digital age.

Physical media products have begun their slow crawl to join the eight track and VHS tapes in the grave. From cloud services to video games being downloaded straight to your console of choice, physical copies of multimedia products are becoming less and less common.

One area this revolution has taken hold most strongly is with streaming or video on demand services like Netflix, Hulu and Crackle, which seems to be running on full steam by letting you watch the latest episodes of you favorite shows and films on devices from your computer to your smart phone and a fraction of the price of most cable and satellite packages.

Although business models vary, there is one skeleton in the closet of these services, which is that the content you enjoy daily is available at the whim of the service itself.

Doctor Who has reached new heights of popularity across the world since it’s revival with it’s last series becoming one of the strongest yet in America, showing that despite the nagging whines of complaints and tabloid nonsense that the programme is as viable as ever.

This means that when a streaming giant like the US version of Netflix might pull the plug on the entire back catalog of modern Who on the first of Febuary of this year, it is big news. Maybe not enough to set Twitter on fire, but enough to generate quite a bit of heat.

Petitions have been created, outrage has been posted and shared and tweeted and some folks are holding their plush TARDISes a little tighter at bedtime.

Before you go and commit swearing atrocities that might make Malcolm Tucker blush, let’s take a second to think about this.

First the bad news. It appears this ‘doomsday date’ not only effects Doctor Who, but also almost every other BBC programme on the American Netflix website besides Sherlock. So no Red Dwarf, no Top Gear, no Fawlty Towers and no Torchwood as well.

Thing is this is just a bit of history repeating as there was a similar scare in 2013 and lo and behold, the series and it’s companions were still available to stream until today.

So why is there a date that ticks down to the Doctor’s doom?

Most likely due to negotiations between the BBC and Netflix itself. As much as we would like to think that everything good lasts forever all those good things also cost money and someone must get paid at some point to keep those titles available.

Some have speculated that perhaps the streaming service Hulu has negotiated for exclusive rights as they carry the revamped Doctor Who as well, although this may be bad news for those who do not wish to have adverts appear while getting their Who fix. Hulu uses ads on almost all of it’s catalog, even if you pay for the Hulu Plus service rather then view them for free by predetermined dates.

Most likely this is just a minor bump in the road for Who fans using Netflix in the States and the date plastered on the BBC shows on the website are just there in case by some slim chance they do not renegotiate the rights to stream them there will not be an outcry of unfair practices to their subscribers…

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New Doctor Who Title Sequence Fan Built Concept Video

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

We all love a new Doctor Who title sequence, don’t we? In fact, we love them so much that when they’re really striking, the BBC Wales production team take notice, as seen with the clock-motif Series 8 titles, based on a sequence created by a fan.

In fact, it’s probably safe to say that this example of fan creations transcending their original intention and being used by the real show has lead to an increase in the quality – if not the volume – of fan-built title sequences.

One such example is by CloisterProductions, and you can see it above.

Designed around the idea of shards of glass, this sequence is partially inspired by Dark Eyes 4 but also has echoes of Primeval‘s anomalies. The creator of the video has given some detail to the planning process, which we’ve reproduced here; you may be surprised at how quickly it was put together:

I started the sequence back on November 16th. I rendered out a short test, of a glass vortex with the TARDIS spinning through it, simple enough. I then developed that idea, and over a couple of days had about 10 seconds finished. However, these 10 seconds of footage didn’t make it to the final product, for many reasons, but I hadn’t decided that at the time.

Next, I produced a section for the names, again not featured in the final thing, but remained fairly similar to what was included. I then produced the section for the logo and final section where the TARDIS spins and fractures the whole of the screen, both of these were included in the final sequence.

I then went back and, as I said, replaced the two sections I felt were lacking, firstly the name section. The unused name section had a nice, but bulky font, which I felt didn’t fit the sleek, precise feeling of ‘glass’, which led me to change it to a thinner typeface. The whole environment of a glass vortex, nebula and stars stayed virtually the same though, but with a few changes here and there.

I then decided, literally 4 days ago, that the first section had to be replaced too, as I previously mentioned. It was far too busy and had, to my misjudgement, way too much Trapcode Shine, and the TARDIS dominated most of the screen, which I wanted to also rectify. So whilst I was away from home for Christmas, I literally drew on a piece of lined paper what I felt could replace it, which was uploaded to my Facebook page, the link of which is down below. I drew layers of space, with fractures through every one of them, behind which were planets, nebula and stars. I was happy with the idea, and the next day when I arrived back home, I produced the new planet section which features at the beginning of the sequence, which has gone through a number of changes over the last few days. I have failed to mention the logo sequence in detail, mainly because there isn’t really much to it, aside from the logo being stacked, a suggestion passed to me by a good friend Ronan Goron, who you’ll notice in the ‘Special Thanks’ list at the end.

A number of friends gave me suggestions for the sequence, for which I am very grateful, but without a very close friend Ned Warren, who manages Gwylock1 (a channel which I co-manage), who produced a new theme rendition and also sound design for the titles and the post title sequence scene, the sequence certainly wouldn’t be as fluid as it is.

Remember, if you like the video, share it with your friends, and follow CloisterProductions on Facebook. We’re possibly liking it more than the real title sequence (it certaily has moments of brilliance) – but what do YOU  think?

The post New Doctor Who Title Sequence Fan Built Concept Video appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Tom Baker To Skype USA Doctor Who Convention!

Jonathan Appleton is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Coming in March, there’s a rare chance for convention goers in the USA to see no less than three Doctors at one event when (Re)Generation Who hits Maryland.

Appearing in person on the weekend of March 27-29 2015 will be Doctors six and seven, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy. In a neat, very twenty-first century solution to the problem of getting star guests to appear at events across the Atlantic, Tom Baker will make a special appearance via Skype on the Saturday for a Q&A.

The Hunt Valley Inn in Cockeysville, Maryland is the venue for said event, and aside from the Time Lord talent on display, other guests scheduled to appear include Deborah Watling, Nicola Bryant, Sophie (Aldred) Henderson and Terry Molloy.

Book your place and you can get hold of an exclusive Tom Baker ‘commemorative career retrospective autograph’ to collect on the day (numbers are limited so don’t delay!). The convention will feature various vendors and an Artist Alley where independent artists and creators can display their wares.

Registration for (Re)Generation Who is now open with adults’ early bird prices staring at $70. Head over to the event website for full details and booking.

Via Penn Live.

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Last Christmas Concept Art Shows Facehuggers Influence

Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Facehuggers!

The 2014 Christmas special, Last Christmas, wore its influences on its sleeve – even name-checking a few. “There’s a horror movie called Alien?” the Doctor asks in an already-iconic line. “That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.”

Concept art for the Kantrofarri – better known as Dream Crabs – was even more visually-similar to the creatures from Alien, Millennium FX’s Rob Mayor describing them as “a cross between a jellyfish and a crab.” He goes on to admit the Dream Crabs are homage to the classic facehuggers:

“I can’t lie, that was a reference, but it’s such a classic film that as soon as you have spider-like creatures running around, attaching themselves to people’s faces, you can’t help but make that comparison. We were quite mindful that we didn’t draw too much on that, because it’s a film we’ve all grown up with and Alien is a key influence in our line of work.”

The images are surprisingly sinister and we can’t underestimate Millennium FX’s work: just look at the concept designs for Series 8, including an even creepier Teller and very disturbing ruminations on the Cybermen skeletons in Dark Water.

We have the Radio Times to thank for these peeks behind-the-scenes, and the full gallery – it’s well worth a look – reveals the various stages the Kantrofarri went through before terrorising kiddies on Christmas Day: these go from initial illustrations through to final models, laid out on a table before attaching themselves to the heads of guest stars!

We’ve a while to wait for the next series of Doctor Who. Millennium FX’s Kate Walshe agrees that the Dream Crabs are scary – “But hopefully [Series 9] is going to top it!”

The post Last Christmas Concept Art Shows Facehuggers Influence appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who Series 8 Concept Artwork Revealed

Jonathan Appleton is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

A newly released gallery of concept art for Series 8 sheds fascinating light on Doctor Who’s production design. The images, prepared by Millennium FX designers, show how the special effects house went about realising the monsters and aliens the new Doctor would encounter in his first run of adventures. It’s fair to say that those involved relished the opportunity to (as the showrunner didn’t quite put it) Hinchcliffe things up…

“I think since Steven took over the tone was always a little darker,” Rob Mayor of Millennium FX says. “If you look back to when Russell T Davies was running the show, even though it was still sinister, there were lots of bright colours. And the creatures echoed that as well. They were quite bold – you had the Juddoon and the Cat Nuns – there was a certain amount of playfulness in them. When Steve took over it got slightly darker. Even the colour palate we’re playing with is darker, more muted with a lot more blues, greys and browns.”

There are certainly some dark and troubling images in the collection, which is perhaps most interesting for illustrating (sorry) how much things can change between the early concepts for an episode and the end result we see on screen. Somewhere out in space there’s a parallel world where viewers were treated to the likes of the Hunter, a gruesome skull-headed robot and a skeleton with bits of flesh literally hanging off…

Breathless

In creating the half-faced man for Deep Breath, designer Kate Walshe says the team were always mindful of the need to operate within a budget:

“Obviously his head is clockwork and has wheels running in it, but we thought we’d give him a mask to cover that up sometimes, so they wouldn’t have to go to the ends of the Earth with the VFX. But in the end they didn’t want to pull their punches, they wanted to go the whole hog.”

Hunter of Sherwood

It seems that early drafts of Robot of Sherwood presented an altogether more terrifying adventure than the knockabout merriment we saw in episode three. Tremble as your eyes behold the fearsome Hunter! Walshe is giving nothing away as to what this cut character was capable of. Perhaps this is for the best if any of us are to ever get to sleep again…

“When a script first comes through it has all these amazing ideas and concepts and locations in it, but the reality of what we can shoot within a TV schedule is really tight. By the time we got to prep, the script and structure had changed. The Hunter was a character who never made it into the episode, but I can’t reveal what he did.”

Psi Fi

Steven Moffat was a hard man to please when it came to getting the look of Time Heist’s futuristic hacker Psi just right, as evidenced by Millennium’s repeated draft sketches. Check out the different versions alongside the surely HR Giger-influenced early designs for the Teller.

“Steven was really insistent about getting a certain look. We kept producing stuff and not getting it quite right for him,” sighs Walshe, rolling her eyes. “Normally we do something, then one or two variations, and then we’ll nail it. But with Psi we did 20 or so variations.”

Schoolroom Blitz

When it came to the Skovox Blitzer, that inter-galactic vandal who likes nothing better than blasting up classrooms, Mayor reckoned they could allow themselves a little wiggle-room:

“Unless it’s something very specific in the script, you basically cast a wide net then gradually you see what appeals to people and what strikes a chord. Then we start to hone down and refine the design from there. There’s no point in doing a selection of sketches that are kind of the same.”

Chunky Not Spindly

Practical concerns accounted for the appearance of the spiders-that-weren’t-really-spiders-but-space-bacteria in Kill The Moon:

“Originally, they wanted incredibly spindly legs, kind of like spider crabs,” says Walshe, shaking her head at the naivety of these artistic types. “To build something that could actually function on set would have been so problematic for us, so we tried to push them in a way that was possible for us, with slightly chunkier legs.”

Are You My Mummy?

It’s surely no surprise that the team’s design for Mummy on the Orient Express’s Foretold, gloriously gruesome as it was, received fairly short shrift from producers, no doubt mindful of the risks of inspiring a revived Clean Up TV campaign that would have made Mary Whitehouse seem like Beau Peep:

“This was the only concept we did, and it’s nothing like what ended up on screen. We had been told there was this episode coming up and we did this design based on a kind-of alien mummy, with much more flesh on display,” says Walshe, clearly relishing the memory. “We showed it at the meeting and they were like…’No, no, just do a mummy’.”

Dead in The Water

The prospect of depicting the dead as rotting cadavers for the season-ending two-parter clearly prompted some behind the scenes debate. As Walshe says:

“It was a really tricky concept, because obviously they’re people’s relatives, but really for the skeletons to operate the Cyber-costumes they should have had some muscle structure.” You can almost sense her disappointment at not being allowed to present the truly terrifying ‘Mausoleum Skeleton’ on screen: “But Rachel Talalay [the episode’s director] was quite clear what she wanted and we were able to scale back from that to really cool, interesting skeletons.”

 The full gallery can be viewed over at Radio Times. Check it out… if you dare!

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News Blast: Biting Impressions & Thunderous Teacups

Andrew Reynolds is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

A blast: A destructive wave of highly compressed air spreading outwards from an explosion.

A News Blast: An instructive wave of brightly compressed news spreading outwards in the standard paragraph form.

That’s right: it’s time to unleash some compressed air with today’s gusts featuring a warm south eastern breeze of property violation, a rich, woody chinook of discovery, and a blustering storm in a teacup.

Forced Dematerialisation

The Doctor and the TARDIS have faced down foes as formidable as the Daleks, the Cyberman and the Master but now, they face their greatest enemy: Floridians.

The Lexington Home Owners Association of Tampa Florida have levied a notice of violation against a couple who placed a life-sized replica of the TARDIS in the driveway of their home.

In a letter to the couple the council rather ominously describe the type 40 time travel capsule that had previously been a plot in their Doctor Who themed wedding as being: “in violation of The Governing Documents” – giving the couple a 15 day ultimatum by which to materialise it elsewhere or face their very own trial of a Time Lord.

Taking the notice in their stride the couple posted on Facebook that: “I’m slightly amused by this… I maintain this is a mode of transportation, therefore I have every right to park it in my driveway.”

When The Lion Was Found

Celebrating sixteen years since lost episode The Lion slipped through the net and was discovered in the hands of a private collector by two fans from New Zealand, Doctor Who News has recounted the episodes journey from obscurity to its place on the ‘orphan episodes’ collection Lost in Time in 2004.

After being transferred to film and shipped to New Zealand for broadcast by the NZBC – who in actuality never broadcast the episode due to censorship issues – the episode slipped the net, ending up in a rubbish tip in 1974 as part of the station’s clear out.

Fast forward to 1998 and the print caught the eye of collector Bruce Grenville at a film convention – who was unaware that the episode had been missing. He then screen the episode for fans where eventually word got to fellow fan Neil Lambess who recalled the moment he and Bruce made contact:

“For me the moment has to be when I was taking to Bruce on a call box telephone and he told me that what he actually had was the first episode of a Doctor Who serial called The Lion. That was the moment when I knew that it wasn’t a hoax. I paused a few seconds and then told Bruce, “actually what you have there is the first episode of a serial called The Crusade and until just now it wasn’t believed to exist anymore!” The feeling was and still is indescribable, but at the time I was thinking how staggeringly appropriate it was that I had found out inside a public call box!”

For Bruce himself, the most important lesson to take from the return of The Lion taught fans was to keep the faith in regards to finding more lost episodes: “I was delighted that my random celluloid film turned out to be a lost episode, and glad that the BBC was able to restore the film and release it on video & DVD. But really, ALL DW fans are hoping for all the other lost episodes to be re-discovered and appreciated. I continue to talk about this whenever anyone asks me about DW, and urge others to do so too!”

A Role To Get Your Teeth Into

Hannibal ‘The Cannibal’ Lector – perhaps the second most famous biter of human flesh after Luis Suarez – could very well be tucking into some Tenth Doctor chow (David Tempora? David Tenderloin?) if a fan campaign to get David Tennant to appear on the critically acclaimed TV series Hannibal is successful.

What’s more Tennant has already spoken to Bryan Fuller, the Hollywood director behind the series, and it seems both are keen to get this feast underway: “I know Bryan a little bit,” Tennant told journalists. “It’s a conversation that’s been had a couple of times.”

As for Fuller himself? Well he seems keen. Speaking to the Metro he said: “I would love to have David on the show. Or just write for David! I would kill and eat somebody to work with David!”

However Tennant has warned fans not to the Chianti in just yet but he was hopeful of working with someone with Fullers ‘rare talent’.

I’m going to say that pun was definitely intended.

Bigger on the Inside Beds

Now, how about a TARDIS murphy bed that’s literally bigger on the inside?

This awesome feat of physic-bending construction was made not by Time Lord Science but by Stubbs from The Stubby Thumb (with a sexy duvet set from Laain Studios over at Red Bubble) but don’t let that fool you into thinking this was a small task; far from it.

Going by the detailed breakdown on her blog it might actually be easier to harness the power of the Eye of Harmony and the architectural reconfiguration system what with the 3 redo’s, sacrificing your living room table for a month and the calls to the makers of the Murphy bed to see whether it was actually possible; but as you can see, it was worth all the hardship.

Imperrrrsonating Peterrrr

Do you want to hear Sylvester McCoy impersonating current Doctor Peter Capaldi? Of course you do! You’re only human. Unsurprisingly, this video from Absolute Radio contains shouting. Surprisingly, it doesn’t contain any swearing.

Shut Up

How do you make the Doctor strange when most of his adventures and exploits are available on a wide range of mediums? Well, if you’re Peter Capaldi, you take away a fundamental part of NuWho: the flirtatious relationships between the Doctor and his companions and bring back the silence and the darkness.

Attempting to avoid the ‘icky’ nature of an older Doctor and a young companion, Capaldi immediately nixed any and all kissy eyes aboard the TARDIS.

Speaking to Unreality TV he said: “I always felt it would be inappropriate for someone my age to be in any kind of flirtatious relationship with a young person. But I think everybody felt that. The Doctor has to be a mysterious figure. It’s hard when a show’s been around for 50 years and every episode, apart from the lost ones, is avail- able on DVD and there are people who know the minutiae of every detail of it. How can he be mysterious, how can he be strange? But he is strange, he’s an alien. Your responses to events aren’t necessarily human.”

Shuttity-Up-Up-Up

And finally, the BBC are using Doctor Who to ‘promote’ a gay agenda, according to complaints published in a report by the BBC Trust.

In the report, which covers complaint received by the BBC between February 2013 and September 2014, three viewers complained that the show was ‘promoting homosexuality’ – a complaint that was also levelled at the whole of the BBC.

Last August, OFCOM received six complaints after airing a lesbian kiss between Madame Vastra and her human wife Jenny Flint in Deep Breath – eventually OFCOM dismissed the complaints as did not ‘raise issues worth investigating’.

A spokesman for the BBC told The Independent: “The complaints framework that the BBC Trust put in place in 2012 allows the BBC to close down, after an initial response, complaints that for example are hypothetical, use abusive language, fail to cite any evidence or breaches of the BBC’s editorial guidelines.

“Only about 10 per cent of complaints fall into this category and if complainants are unhappy they can appeal to the BBC Trust.”

That’s all for now. But join us again soon for a compressed slice of news, probably filled with a large proportion of time and space…

The post News Blast: Biting Impressions & Thunderous Teacups appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Tales of Trenzalore Audiobook

Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

The siege of Trenzalore went on for hundreds of years – and an upcoming audiobook will recall four of the countless battles that went on in and around the town called Christmas.

Tales of Trenzalore was originally released as an ebook before getting a physical release. Now, the four short stories will be read by David Troughton, son of the Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton. Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor had quite a few similarities to the so-called ‘cosmic hobo’ so that should sound right.

Tales of Trenzalore sees the return of classic foes, the Ice Warriors (in Let It Snow), the Krynoid (An Apple A Day), Autons (Strangers in the Outland), and the Mara (The Dreaming). Here’s the official synopsis:

As it had been foretold, the armies of the Universe gathered at Trenzalore. Only one thing stood between the planet and destruction – the Doctor. For nine hundred years, he defended the planet, and the tiny town of Christmas, against the forces that would destroy it.

He never knew how long he could keep the peace. He never knew what creatures would emerge from the snowy night to threaten him next. He knew only that at the end he would die on Trenzalore.

Some of what happened during those terrible years is well documented. But most of it remains shrouded in mystery and darkness.

Until now.

This is a glimpse of just some of the terrors the people faced, the monstrous threats the Doctor defeated. These are the tales of the monsters who found themselves afraid – and of the one man who was not.

The four short stories are written by Justin Richards, George Mann, Paul Finch, and Mark Morris – all of them well-versed in the Whoniverse!

The audiobook of Tales of Trenzalore is released on 19th February 2015, and is available to pre-order from Amazon UK for £25.00.

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Big Finish Round-up: Two Plays Up for Awards, The Prisoner and Wizard of Oz Announced

Nick Kitchen is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

The New Year is just getting started, but things are already in full swing at Big Finish Productions! And never fear, dear readers and Big Finish fans, the Big Finish Round-up is on point to make sure you don’t miss a beat! Today’s edition brings us award nominations for two of Big Finish’s finest from last year, the return of a classic television series (in audio form, of course!), and news of an adaptation of a beloved book. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Big Finish Nominated Twice for BBC Audio Drama Awards!

It’s no surprise that Big Finish produces high quality productions, especially to us Kasterborites! However, the news coming to us via Scifi Bulletin has revealed that among some other fine audio dramas, two of Big Finish’s 2014 releases have been selected as nominees for the BBC Audio Drama Awards. The dramas are Frankenstein, in which Alex Jordan is up for Best Debut performance, and Survivors, which is nominated for Best Online or Non-Broadcast Audio Drama. Whovians will also remember that Frankenstein starred Who alumnus Arthur Darvill and Nicholas Briggs.

Should either drama get the award, this will be the second year in a row that Big a Finish came home with an Audio Drama Award; Doctor Who – Dark Eyes took home the award for Best Online or Non-Broadcast Audio Drama at last year’s event. Speaking of which, winners will be announced on February 1st. While it would have been great for Darvill or Briggs to get a nomination for their performances as well, we wish Briggs and Co. best of luck with their nominations!

“Who does Number 2 work for?!”

In this case, the answer is definitely not Doctor Evil! All jest aside, Big Finish has announced that they will be releasing a brand new audio series based on the 1968 television programme, The Prisoner! If you’re not familiar with the show, here is a brief synopsis: “January 16th 1967. A secret agent suddenly resigns from MI6, then wakes to find himself imprisoned in ‘The Village’ — a bizarre community with a cheery veneer, but an underbelly of threat and mystery. Re-branded as Number Six, our agent must enter into a battle of wits with the sinister Number Two, whose sworn aim is to discover why Number Six resigned. But Number Six refuses to divulge his secrets and must fight off increasingly outlandish and deadly attempts to break him, as he fights to escape and find out…’Who is Number One?’” At this time, no casting decisions have been made, but we can’t help but wonder if maybe one of the many Doctor Who audio stars might be able to take on the role of the infamous Number 2? Perhaps Colin Baker taking a stab at a villain? Or maybe Tom Baker’s resonating voice could be used for evil purposes? Personally speaking (and if we’re only looking at the former Doctors involved with Big Finish), I’d fancy seeing Paul McGann suit up as Number 2. His voice has qualities and range that would make all the different tactics Number 2 might employ to gain intel from Number 6 very believable in the audio format. Or perhaps, they may take a cue from the original series and have a rotating roster of Number 2s. It would be a little overkill, but it would be pretty incredible to see the Bakers, McGann, and even McCoy take a turn on each of the four parts of the initial box set (set to release in January 2016 — you can preorder here). Only time will tell for sure, but we’ll be sure to pass along details as they become available.

Big Finish to Adapt The Wonderful Wizard of Oz!

Finally (and potentially the most personally exciting bit), Big Finish has also announced the upcoming release of a brand new adaptation of the beloved L. Frank Baum classic, The Wonderul Wizard of Oz! Marc Platt, who adapted the book for the audio drama, had this to say about the cast and recording experience: “The fun spilled through into the studio as well. Scott Handcock’s splendid cast play witches, winged monkeys, mice and hammerheads with tremendous and grotesque enthusiasm. Rachel Atkins is a very scary Wicked Witch of the West, and the Tinman, the Scarecrow and Lion end up feeling like old friends. Best of all is Ally Doman, a real find, as an enchanting, no-nonsense Dorothy around whom all the other madness revolves.” The cast, among others, also includes Alex Jordan (who we previously mentioned is up for a BBC Audio Drama Award) as the Cowardly Lion and Doctor Who‘s Dan Starkey as the Winged Monkey Captain. It sounds like a solid cast and this writer is currently imagining Strax commanding a group of Winged Monkeys. It’s set to release in September but is available for preorder now. All good things do tend to end, and thus the conclusion of this round-up. Did you enjoy Frankenstein or Survivors? Are you excited about The Prisoner or The Wonderful Wizard of Oz releases? Let us know below!

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Enter Our Nerd Block Giveaway For A Doctor Who Treat Inside!!

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Fancy winning something cool and nerdy, and definitely block shaped? Well, you’ve come to the right place!

As we reported previously, the January Nerd Block has a Doctor Who component to it, and you have the chance to win one thanks to our team-up with the Nerd Block people. All you have to do to win the block (which you can also purchase or subscribe to, and as per the image below you’ll get a discount by quoting the code) is leave a comment below.

Not any old comment, of course.

But first, a little about Nerd Blocks. These are – quite simply – boxes that come stuffed with things like figurines, comics, and even t-shirts and other paraphernia that you might find at Entertainment Earth or Forbidden Planet.

The idea of being able to subscribe to a random collection of geek gear is actuall quite clever. You get to either horde the block for posterity, enjoy everything within, or share the stuff you don’t want (or even the stuff you like) with your frinds. Why wouldn’t you?

To be in with a chance of winning this Nerd Block, we want you to tell us what Doctor Who merchandise you would really like to see in a Nerd Block. While there is absolutely no guarantee that your answer will have  any relevance to the prize, we expect your answer to be as creative and amusing as possible. That’s the key to being likely to win…

This giveaway ends on Thursday, January 15th at 11:59 pm EST – get commenting!

The post Enter Our Nerd Block Giveaway For A Doctor Who Treat Inside!! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.