Christian Cawley's Blog, page 239

Keeley Hawes: Capaldi Is “Absolutely Terrific” In Doctor Who

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.

Doctor Who Series 8 guest star Keeley Hawes appears in a new video interview from “don’t call us a supermarket” Marks & Spencer, in which she enthuses over Peter Capaldi.

Cast as Ms Delphox, Hawes – well-known as a star of Line of Duty and Ashes to Ashes - revealed how impressed she was with the new Doctor Who star.

I’ve just finished filming the new series of Doctor Who with Peter Capaldi and, I must say, having seen him at work, he is absolutely terrific as the new Doctor.

Naturally, however, Ms Hawes can’t tell us too much…

I can’t say very much about it because it is shrouded in secrecy – and quite right too – but I play Miss Delphox, an intergalactic banker who runs the most secure bank in the universe.

See the full clip below, which also includes Keeley discussing her first paid role and her love of bric-a-brac (items, as opposed to the old Brian Cant children’s TV show…)

You can also read the full feature on the M&S website.

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Terrance Dicks Describes David Tennant As The ‘Quintessential Doctor’

James Lomond 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.

Earlier this week, Airdrie library held a “geek night” mini-convention with guest speaker Terrance Dicks. Dicks was the script editor on Who from 1968 to 1974 before scripting several of Tom Baker’s stories and the 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors alongside his own mini-library of Doctor Who novelisations.

He is one of the creative minds who shaped the show in its early to mid Classic era and a lot of him has gone into Doctor Who over the years. At the geek night he was asked about his favourite Doctor and it turns out that Terrance-the-Legend-Dicks has very nice things to say about Tenth Doctor David Tennant. He was reported to say that,

“he loved all the doctor’s [sic] but felt the one who best summed up the spirit was DT.”

He also described our David as “the quintessential Doctor”. That’s praise indeed given how much Dicks has influenced the show over the years.

Personally I’d agree that the character of the Tenth Doctor reflects the spirit of the show perhaps better than most incarnations – energetic, fun, excited by discovery and a righteous anger directed at the bullies of the universe. But I’m not sure about the second part. People love Doctor Who for different reasons and there’s something of a spectrum of flavours in terms of the lead character from the past 50 years. For me Tennant was a great Doctor, but not quite alien and eccentric enough to be the quintessential Oncoming Storm. More of a very clever, cheery bloke. With a TARDIS. Of the New Series Doctors, Matt Smith has been closer to the alien adventurer I picture from growing up on a thoroughly unbalanced diet of Classic DVDs (and *cough* VHS).

Who do you think is the quintessential Doctor? Does Tennant do it for you or is it Hartnell all the way? Does it make sense to say one Doctor is more Doctory than the others given that they are ALL an aspect of our trans-temporal hero? Or is the quintessence of the character on his way to our screens this Summer?…

(Via David Tennant News.)

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The Tweet We All Missed: The Shape Of The TARDIS Team

Alex Skerratt 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.

Someone’s clearly put a Perception Filter around the current Doctor Who production!

Earlier in the week, new companion Samuel Anderson took to the Twittersphere to give a rather important casting update - and it went virtually unnoticed.

#drwho #teamtardis there's a new member in the #whocrew my little sis @ellis998 http://t.co/eYhPhw0GVc

— samuel anderson (@theblackpaddy) April 11, 2014

We already know that George is guest-starring in the Lanzarote episode, (thanks to an earlier press release), but until now her role in the show has been unspecified. Some rumours suggest that she is a pupil from the Coal Hill School, and that showrunner Steven Moffat is attempting to recreate the original TARDIS lineup, (incorporating the Doctor, two teachers and a student.)

What do you think, Kasterborites? Would this be a fitting tribute to the classic series as it enters its 51st year? Or would you rather the show was taken in bold new directions? (For instance, is it time for a tentacled companion from Zaston 4? Called Dennis?)

Personally, I’m still waiting for Katarina to come back…

(Via Doctor Who TV)

The post The Tweet We All Missed: The Shape Of The TARDIS Team appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

What’s Your Funniest Doctor Who Joke Ever?

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.

The sun is shining, it’s the weekend, Hull City are in the cup final… All, it would seem, is right with the world. So let’s add to the fun with some Doctor Who-based jokes!

The programme’s approach to humour has varied considerably over the years, from the wit and sophistication of City of Death to the rather broader based comedy of, let’s say, the notorious trumping Slitheen.

It’s fair to say that this selection, posted on Yahoo, veers more towards the tumbleweed-drifting-across-Mercy-high-street end of the scale, but full marks must be awarded for effort and sheer persistence in transcribing all those gags for browsers’ benefit.

My favourites are the ones about how the Daleks tell each other apart and the Doctor’s conversation with Sarah-Jane about K9. The one about the Doctor picking up a bunch of composers in the TARDIS has to have been around in various incarnations for longer than Gallifrey, but is worth persisting with.

Come on, Kasterborites – let’s have your top Who gags!

The post What’s Your Funniest Doctor Who Joke Ever? appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Karen Gillan to Attend Atlanta Comic Con

Danny_Weasel 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.

I’m starting to wonder if Karen Gillan kept the spare keys to the TARDIS because she is everywhere at the minute.

Not satisfied with staring in a massive  hit horror film (Oculus), a cornerstone of Marvel’s phase two films (Guardians of the Galaxy) and now having her own U.S sitcom (Selfie) the Scottish star best known to us as Amy Pond is also hitting up the Atlanta Wizard World Comic Con this month.

May 31st is the day to mark in your diaries if you’re planning on going. You will have the chance for meet and greets and photo ops a well as a Q & A session which would be the ideal time to ask her just how she is managing to take over the world in a dozen different ways at the same time.

Gillan joins other top celebrities, including Norman Reedus, Lauren Cohan, Jon Bernthal and Michael Rooker of The Walking Dead (partly set in Atlanta), James Marsters (Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Torchwood), Jason David Frank (Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers) and a great many others who will be at the Atlanta Comic Con.

If you are going, drop us a line and let us know how it goes: Con stories are always fun especially Who-related Con tales so don’t be shy! What has been your best convention story? Fill us in on the details below.

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Tom Baker HIGNFY Webisode You Might Have Missed…

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.

Here’s something for the weekend, Doctor Who fans – a rare chance to see the Have I Got News For You webisode from 2012, which accompanied an episode hosted by the great Tom Baker.

Click play above to see the extras, which didn’t feature in the broadcast edit.

The post Tom Baker HIGNFY Webisode You Might Have Missed… appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Comedian Frank Skinner Cast In Doctor Who Series 8!

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.

Earlier this year, comedian and celebrity Doctor Who fan Frank Skinner begged for a role in the show. Today, the BBC announced that he’d been cast…

The Room 101 host says:

I love this show. I subscribe to Doctor Who magazine, I’ve got a TARDIS ringtone, a five-foot cardboard Dalek in my bedroom and when I got the call saying they wanted me to read for the part, I was in the back of my tour bus watching episode three of The Sensorites. I am beyond excited.

Currently touring the UK, Skinner’s current stand-up show Frank Skinner: Man In a Suit takes place alongside presenting the Saturday Morning Breakfast Show on Absolute Radio (interestingly he recently skipped an episode at the last minute…) Frank also appeared in the one-off Doctor Who 50th anniversary comedy The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot.

Says Steven Moffat:

It’s no secret that Frank’s been pitching vigorously to get into Doctor Who for a while. He’s been volunteering to be “third monster on the left” as long as I’ve been in this job. But now, in Jamie Mathieson’s sparkling script, we finally have a part that can showcase all of Frank’s famous wit and charm. Hopefully he’ll get out of my garden now.

Written by Jamie Mathieson (Being Human, Dirk Gently) and directed by Paul Wilmshurst (Strike Back, Combat Kids) Skinner’s fellow actors in the episode include David Bamber (Steven Moffat’s Chalk), Daisy Beaumont (Star Stories), Janet Henfrey (As Time Goes By) and Christopher Villiers (Top Secret, and another Emmerdale connection to add to Jenna Coleman and Samuel Anderson!)

The strong casting continues!

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Three Twelfth Doctor Books in September!

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.

It looks like we’ll get the first three Twelfth Doctor books in the New Series Adventures range this September!

Although we know nothing about them bar their titles and authors, it would make perfect sense that these hardcovers continue the range that began in 2005 with The Clockwise Man, detailing new tales for Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor and Jenna Coleman’s Clara Oswald. The titles, so far:

Silhouette by Justin Richards;

The Crawling Terror by Mike Tucker;

The Blood Cell by James Goss.

All three authors have previous with the range: a head honcho at BBC Books, Richards kickstarted the series and has written several books including The Deviant Strain, Martha in the Mirror and Apollo 23; Tucker, whose worked extensively behind-the-scenes of both modern-day Who (including on The Day of the Doctor) and the 1980s era, penned The Nightmare of Black Island and Snowglobe 7; and Goss wrote the acclaimed Dead of Winter, as well as various audios and reference books. In our interview with him about The Doctor: His Lives and Times, he said:

“It was just so nice to be doing it again. You get paid to sit on a sofa for a couple of months pretending to be Sarah Jane Smith!”

I’m really pleased to see the line if being continued: I loved all the books – it was so great to get three books with the current TARDIS team every three months or so – but recently, there have been long hiatuses, which have concerned me. Fingers crossed we’ll get more regular releases from now on.

No further details are forthcoming as yet, but we’ll find out soon enough, because the three books are released on 11th September! Hang on – so might this give us a clue as to Series 8′s air date…?

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Series 8 Air Date: A Big Clue?

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.

Could three fiction books give us Whovians a clue as to when Series 8 will air in the UK?

Silhouette by Justin Richards, The Crawling Terror by Mike Tucker, and The Blood Cell by James Goss are expected to continue the New Series Adventures range that began in 2005, but introduce Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor to the medium. The expected release date is Thursday 11th September 2014.

Of course, this could change, but it might mean that Episode 1 of Series 8 will air, as many suspected, on 30th August.

It would give audiences time to settle into the new series, said to be a run of “at least” 12 episodes with no break, before snapping the books off shelves nationwide. Essentially, it would mean readers will have seen Capaldi’s first episode (getting over his regeneration) and witnessed him in action properly in Episode 2.

It wouldn’t be the first time corresponding books were released so close to the start of a new Doctor’s era: The Stone Rose, The Feast of the Damned and The Resurrection Casket were all out two days before Series 2 even began; whilst Apollo 23, Night of the Humans and The Forgotten Army came out on 22nd April 2010, the Eleventh Doctor having made his first full appearance in The Eleventh Hour, aired on 3rd April 2010.

Yes, all this could alter, but it’s basically what we were all expecting/hoping. Oh, and nonetheless, it’ll be great for Jenna Coleman’s Clara Oswald to have more adventures in the range, having only previously appeared in last year’s Shroud of Sorrow.

One thing’s for sure. Not. Long. Now.

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Guardian’s James Gunn: “Karen was the person I fought hardest for!”

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.

James Gunn, writer and director of Guardians of the Galaxy, has spoken about the upcoming Marvel movie, and how Karen Gillan immediately impressed him as villain, Nebula.

In fact, he says she gave the best reading of the whole cast!

Gunn is obviously a Doctor Who fan:

“When Doctor Who people auditioned for the movie I would be sure to watch those auditions right away, and I saw Karen’s name come up, and I watched it and kind of flipped out, frankly. I liked her on that show, but she is a really amazing actress. I’ve got to say – Chris [Pratt, playing Star Lord]‘s reading and Dave [Bautista, aka Drax the Destroyer]‘s reading were amazing in terms of those characters meeting those personalities, but in terms of the very, very best reading of anybody throughout this entire process, it was Karen reading for Nebula.”

He’s right, of course: Karen’s a brilliant actress. Just look at her in The Girl Who Waited, in which she and co-star, Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams) broke the hearts of all viewers, or in the following episode, The God Complex, in which she loses faith in her Raggedy Man.

Gunn further told Digital Spy:

“Nebula is very creepy and yet a villain that we feel for. She has got a conscience, unlike [main antagonist] Ronan who doesn’t really seem to have a conscience… Karen was the person I fought the hardest for.”

Guardians of the Galaxy is released on 31st July in the UK and the following day in the US. Man, I am looking forward to this movie!

 

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