Christian Cawley's Blog, page 342

David Tennant’s Day of The Doctor Concerns

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.

As Doctors ten and eleven prepare to cross paths for the first time in the upcoming 50th anniversary special - alongside the mysterious “other Doctor” played by John Hurt - David Tennant has revealed what it’s been like to return to the show.

Tennant’s recollections feature in The Doctor – His Lives and Times by James Goss and Steve Tribe, which was released last week. The fascinating collection of articles, interviews and expanded fiction (the Master’s UNIT-era trial is particularly well-written) covers each Doctor in turn, concluding with The Day of the Doctor, and the returning David Tennant…

I thought, ‘Oh this’ll be great’. As the day approaches, I then think , ‘What if Matt feels like I’m stepping on his toes?’ Or, ‘What if I can’t remember how to do it? Surely I’m too old to be doing this now?’ The first day, Matt wasn’t there. So the first day it was just me. It was like, ‘Oh yeah, I sort of remember this.’ Then the next day it becomes something different again because we were together. Mind you there’s not as many lines to learn when there’s two of you.

Of course, David Tennant and Matt Smith had already filmed a (sort of) scene together back in 2009, but that was a regeneration, so doesn’t really count! In fact, there hasn’t been an official multi-doctor story since 1985′s The Two Doctors. So what was it like for their Doctors to cross paths in 2013?

They switch between praising each other’s ingenuity to trying to undermine it at every opportunity. You sort of switch from being quite pleased with yourself to being infuriated at your own inadequacies, and I guess that’s kind of writ large, isn’t it, if you meet yourself.

One inadequacy could well have been the Tenth Doctor’s attire, had he accidentally tripped over a brick or got into a fight with something sharp. As Tennant explains:

I had one costume, and I think they got one from an exhibition. And I think they found a stuntman one. So we’ve got two and big one. It’s slightly alarming – if they get ripped, there’s not a lot of replacements.

Hopefully the famous suit made it through the anniversary special untorn. But just in case you’re curious, you can catch the 75-minute epic on BBC One on November 23rd.

The Doctor – His Lives and Times is available to order now for just £12 from Amazon UK.

The post David Tennant’s Day of The Doctor Concerns appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Time to Turn the Empire State Building… BLUE?!

Drew Boynton 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.

Sometimes feeling blue can be a good thing! A group of Doctor Who fans in New York City have put forth a modest proposal: to turn the Empire State Building to TARDIS blue in celebration of the show’s 50th anniversary.

The plan is to light up the Big Apple building in brilliant blue on November 23rd. The group of fans–known as NY Sci-Fi & Fantasy–has even started an online petition on Change.org. They are about two-thirds of the way to their goal of 10,000 signatures. Says the petition:

“This is the first time a SciFi show has lasted 50 years. It’s a landmark occasion. The Doctor has visited NYC many times over the years.”

NY Sci-fi is hoping to get further help from the people who run the Empire State Building and also from Who fans across the world:

“We are attempting to partner with the Empire State Building (www.esbnyc.com) to make this happen. Help show just how popular this show is by signing the petition and sharing the link. Spread the word via Facebook, Twitter, or any way you can! Allons-y!”

So, Kasterborites, why not stop by Change.org and sign the petition? It’s a plan so audacious, even the Master himself would be proud!

And while you’re thinking about it, what else should be turned TARDIS blue in order to celebrate the 50th in style?

(Via Yahoo TV UK)

The post Time to Turn the Empire State Building… BLUE?! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Figurine Collection Gets Limited US Release

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 Doctor Who Figurine Collection will be available in the US, as of next month – but not in the same form as the UK’s fortnightly partwork.

In the UK, each figurine is accompanied by a magazine, made by Eaglemoss… but, reports The Doctor Who Site, the licenses for magazines and figures are owned by different companies in the US. The figurines, made from metallic resin, will be available through Entertainment Earth, though the magazines are yet to be announced.

The first one, the Eleventh Doctor delivering his thrilling speech from The Pandorica Opens, is released across the pond in November – just in time to celebrate the 50th anniversary! – and will be followed by Davros from Journey’s End and The Age of Steel’s Cyber-Controller.

Measuring 4”, each figurine costs $15.99, which works out at just under £10. Seems a bit unfair, considering the UK gets each one for £6.99 (or£7.99 if you get a subscription, including the special Daleks offer) and that includes a beautifully-designed magazine!

Earlier this month, Ben Robinson, Managing Director at Eaglemoss, told us:

All the figurines are based on some pretty exhaustive photography and some very intense scrutiny of the episodes. ‘All’ we have to do is specify a pose. That’s done by me and the project’s editor, Neil Corry, who knows more about Doctor Who than most know about themselves. Of course, specifying a pose isn’t actually that easy.

You need a strong sense of what will work well – not every pose looks good when it’s replicated as a figurine – and to come up with a pose, and a moment, that sums up the character. When you get it absolutely right you should have a little intake of breath when you see the physical figurine. We’ve got some coming up that really did that for me. In particular the Silent and our first character from the classic episodes, Omega.

You can read more from Ben in our interview. Meanwhile don’t miss news of the collection’s running order.

So what do you think? Do you live in the US, and will you be getting the figurine? Or is it simply too expensive?

The post Figurine Collection Gets Limited US Release appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Archive Interview: Nicholas Courtney

Dave Rudin 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.

In August of 1987, I traveled to the UK from my home in New York City to attend the Leisure Hive convention in Swindon.  In addition to the weekend spent there, I also spent nearly two weeks in London. I went to the theater a dozen times, and each show that I saw had at least one actor who had appeared in Doctor Who including Tom Baker, William Russell, Wendy Padbury, Honor Blackman and Kate O’Mara.

Another was Nicholas Courtney, who was appearing as Major Metcalf in the long running (it opened in 1952 and has played non-stop since – Ed) hit show, The Mousetrap . I had written to Mr. Courtney ahead of time and he had graciously agreed to permit me to interview him for my club newsletter. A friend and I met him  in August 1987 in his dressing room at the St Martin’s Theatre in London’s West End following one performance, and we talked about topics ranging from Doctor Who to Ronald Reagan.  The result of that interview follows.

Nicholas Courtney was a gentlemen – a “nice chap,” as the Brigadier would say – and the world of Doctor Who is poorer now that he’s gone.

 Dave: Tell us how you got started in acting. 

Nick: When I was in school, the first part I ever played was in a piece called The Pied Piper Of Hamelin. I played the little lame boy – I was seven years old and I was behaving very badly and they threatened to take the part away from me–so I became good as gold quick, very quick! Then while I was at school in Egypt, I enjoyed the school plays [and] wanted to be in them. And so I wanted to be an actor But it was in the blood because my grandfather was in the business and my sister went to drama school, and I went off to drama school. I’ve been doing everything. I’ve done everything, you name it.

 Dave: Your first touch with Doctor Who came with The Crusade, and I think all of your things were directed by the late Douglas Camfield. Had you worked with him before? 

Nick: No I just met him at my first interview when I went up to see him about this episode about The Crusade. He interviewed me for Richard Coeur de Leon – I didn’t get that part, but he remembered me from that interview and then when he came along with The Dalek Master Plan he asked me if I wanted to do that and that’s how ot started. I worked with Douglas [on] other things than Doctor Who. I worked on a show called Watch The Birdies, which was a thriller I was playing a very sexy photographer.

Those were the days!

 Dave: Do you remember anything from The Dalek Master Plan? I think only two episodes exist now. 

Nick: I had four episodes in that, I remember, and then I got killed off by Jean Marsh, who was my sister I don’t know what you say–fratricide? Or sister-cide? I was quite a hero in that. What do I remember about it?

Not very much, except I remember enjoying it very much. That was at Lime Grove I think. We had very small studios, and Douglas Camfield always had great ingenuity in picking out sets. In fact going on to another story with Patrick Troughton, which was The Invasion - or was it… no beg your pardon it was the Yeti story The Web of Fear, that’s right.

 Dave: The one that took place in the London Underground. 

Nick: That’s right Douglas was so clever. When it was shown on television London Transport rang up and said, “How dare you film in the London Underground without our permission?” He hadn’t done that at all! By clever use of his camera and his angles he created the same piece of London Underground system… He was a brilliant photographer, Douglas Camfield, he really knew his subject there. Very nice man, too; very sadly missed

 Dave: Speaking of sadly missed, you worked with Mr. Hartnell and Patrick Troughton. How would you contrast the two? 

Nick: I usually contrast them by the way they played the Doctor I would describe William Hartnell’s Doctor as very tetchy and Patrick Troughton as impish. If you want to go any further I’ll tell you that Jon Pertwee was elegant and Tom Baker was arrogant and Peter Davison was amiable and I haven’t got to work with Colin Baker.

I’ll let you know when I meet Sylvester!

 Dave: You were originally to play Captain Knight, and Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart was first cast for David Langdon, [but he] got a job in Z Cars - and then you got a promotion. 

Nick: That’s right I was going to play Captain Knight and then Douglas rang up and said “Sorry do you mind playing Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart?” I said “now I know the money’s going to be the same down at the BBC but it was a promotion in Army terms and so of course I’ll play the Colonel; it’s a better part anyway”.  The rest is history. If [David Langdon] hadn’t got that, job there would have been no Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. Well, probably not…

 Dave: When you took on the role of the Colonel, you probably had no idea that it was going to be a long-term thing. 

Nick: No.

 Dave: When you got promoted to Brigadier with The Invasion was there any idea then that it was going to be a regular role? 

Nick: Yes, because that was a dummy run. Peter Bryant and Derrick Sherwin, the producers at the time said “Look we want to see if it works the idea cause there’s going to be a new Doctor who will be Jon Pertwee and we’re going to have him earthbound to help the story line and we liked what you came out with in Web of Fear; would you like to sign a two-year contract?” And I said. “You bet your sweet bippy.” And so I did!

 Dave: Do you know why they went earthbound? Was that for financial reasons? 

Nick: No, no it was the idea how the thing was going to evolve.They decided that it mignt be fun to do a lot of stories on Earth I think they worked very well on Earth… It’s more of a fright to see all these aliens on Earth; it s more immediate. You know the storyline was that the Doctor was exiled to Earth by the Time Lords for being a naughty boy So that was his punishment He kept trying to leave but I wouldn’t let him, or I’d try not to let him.

 Dave: It seems like every few stories, UNIT had a different headquarters. In The Invasion it was a C130 Hercules transport plane. In Jon Pertwee’s Spearhead from Space it was an underground parking garage, and Derek Sherwin, the producer, was the attendant at the gate. Did that seem a bit odd to your being in a different place every time? 

Nick: No, not really, because that’s what they call the exigencies of location shooting. First [was] that great transporter plane; then when we did the first one in the Underground, the reason we did that was because there was a strike on at the BBC at the time and they couldn’t do any filming in the studio because [of the] industrial dispute So we had to go and do it at a place called Evesham, which is a BBC training centre And it was all done, the whole thing, on location; no studio work at all.

 Dave: That’s why Spearhead from Space was totally done on film. 

Nick: Absolutely, well, most of it was, I know. But it was a long time ago; you’d better check. I think I’ve got my facts right.

 Dave: Had you ever worked with Jon Pertwee before? 

Nick: Never met him before no I met his ex-wife before Jean Marsh [in The Daleks' Master Plan]. No I’d never met Jon before that.

 Dave: And you got on famously from the start? 

Nick: Not from the start no, it took us about six weeks.

 Dave: That first season [had] Caroline John as Elizabeth Shaw, and she only lasted far a year. Were you disappointed when she left? 

Nick: Well I think she wanted to go back to the theatre, really, which she preferred. It was her decision. Then lovely Katy arrives.

 Dave: The uniforms changed from those beige ones to the regular green army uniforms. Was that at your bidding? 

Nick: It was at my bidding, because I hated that first uniform I had. I thought I looked a nerd, frankly it was too close-fitting, and I never got the beret right. That’s why I asked them to give me a peaked cap

 Dave: I noticed in the later Pertwee episodes and the Tom Baker ones that your hair was longer then. 

Nick: Yes, it used to get long, didn’t it sometimes? Except when Douglas Camfield was directing! He was very strict, a very Army man. He wouldn’t let me.

But at a friend’s house in America, I was looking at a couple of the old shows, and it did vary a lot my hair, didn’t it? It was just by chance, really. Maybe it should have been short.

 Dave: With the entrance of Roger Delgado, even though some people say that the UNIT “family” started back then, I’ve always thought that the heyday of UNIT was before he arrived, because before that it was UNIT versus whatever, and the Doctor was on UNIT’s side, and after that it was the Master against the Doctor. 

Nick: Yes, I think it’s probably right to say that the heyday was before the Master arrived. The Master added another dimension, which was fine – the Doctor and UNIT were still allies… I’m not sure on second thought whether you’re entirely right because I think one of the best stories was The Daemons. It was well filmed, very well filmed a lot of that was on location, too, but some was in the studio. Oh, it was a wonderful show. The story was good, all the actors were so good, I mean all the visiting actors.

You’ve got Damaris Hayman, you’ve got Stephen Thorne, “Big Steve,” who I still see a lot of, who played Azal. And, you know, the idea of Bok and a lot of other people in it. It was just a cracking good yarn – it’s one of my favourite episodes!

 Dave: That’s the only episode where we get to see the Brigadier in his full dress uniform because you were going off to some fancy dinner when your helicopter gets stolen. 

Nick: That’s right.

 Dave: I understand that one of your favorites was the previous year, Inferno. 

Nick: Yes, that was lovely for me I had two parts to play, you know, the Brigadier we hope you love and the fascist pig. I had that great dueling scar, the eye patch. It took about an hour and a half [to do the] makeup every morning. Imagine what was under the eye patch! I can’t think; something pretty horrid.

 Dave: You didn’t have a moustache. 

Nick: No I had to contrast with the Brigadier in World 1 and the other world. In those days it was a false moustache I had anyway. That was a great mistake I should have listened to Jon Pertwee and grown my own like I’ve got now

You didn’t have a moustache?

It wasn’t until The Five Doctors that I grew my own. Before that they were all false. The reason I didn’t originally was because I thought well, mine doesn’t grow military enough.

 Dave: Did you do that eventually? 

Nick: It wasn’t until The Five Doctors that I grew my own. Before that they were all false. The reason I didn’t originally was because I thought well, mine doesn’t grow military enough.

 Dave: You have a history of playing military parts. Is it just accident? 

Nick: Pure accident! Long before the Brigadier I was playing captains; I’ve played so many Army people I have no idea [why]. It may have rubbed off because my father was a professional soldier as well as being a diplomat. When I did my service In the Army I was just a private. That’s why I’m playing all these officers: making up for only being a private in real life.

 Dave: Did real Army officers ever contact you about how they liked you as the Brigadier? 

Nick: They did once. It was a Pat Troughton story; Barry Letts was producing, it was The Invasion story. Douglas, who liked authenticity, managed to get a whole regiment of real troops to be my troops. One day we piled onto the bus to film in the morning and all the soldiers said to their real officer “Do we salute him sir?” looking at me.

They weren’t quite sure! I’d got them in awe, make them believe I’m a real Brigadier And apparently when we rang up the War Office for military advice some people at the War Office were kind enough to say that “You know, that chap who plays the Brigadier is absolutely like our chaps.” Which was very nice of them, because they didn’t have to say that.

 Dave: Do you have any fond remembrances of Roger Delgado? 

Nick: Oh yes. Just that he was such a gentle person. He was always playing villains on screen. He was the most gentle man I ever saw–a gentleman, a real gentleman. I remember going to dinner with him, and he was very much what I call a pipe-and-slippers man. You could see him at home with the kids, maybe, and his wife, and he had his slippers. A quiet guy, and a wonderful host. A very nice man. Very, very admired, respected and liked.

 Dave: And as for Katy Manning. I understand that she was practically blind as a bat without her eyeglasses. Were there any incidents with her? 

Nick: I believe in Terror of the Autons she had quite a job running over some terrain with Jon Pertwee and had a few stumbles, but I was not on location on that occasion. But I think she had her glasses on when she sat on my knee in rehearsal once

 Dave: For those first two Pertwee years you were involved in [the stories]. Then the UNIT thing started petering out… 

Nick: Then you got to the Zygons one which was the last appearance virtually for the UNIT characters as such. Or my last appearance, I thought, forever. I was being phased out by my friend Ian Marter.

 Dave: With Day of the Daleks, I think they had only three working Daleks and one of them was just a dummy Dalek. They just didn’t have enough of them to create a small army. 

Nick: That may be. It’s like the Brigadier’s army: the Brigadier, a captain and a sergeant. Amazing army, that is.

 Dave: After playing for Jon Pertwee for so long, was it a bit difficult adjusting to Tom Baker? 

Nick: No, it was just a different actor, you know. You switch from one to the other. The Brigadier gets more resigned as he sees him changing all the time: “Oh, here we go again,” and “Oh, another one” “Oh,you’re…” “Oh, I see” You have to accept the story after the initial shock; you know: ”What are you doing with a new face like that? Come on, man!”

 Dave: In Terror of the Zygons you have the line “Prime Minister… Ma’am…?” Whose idea was that? 

Nick: That was Douglas Camfield’s idea. He had in mind a politician we have in this country by the name of Shirley Williams, who is a very big-wig in the SDP party. We all thought, “Oh, let’s have the idea of a woman Prime Minister.” But he had Shirley Williams very much in mind about who the woman might be. And she’d probably make a very good Prime Minister, which I would like more than the present lady Prime Minister [the late Lady Thatcher], who I don’t care for at all.

However, I think you know the Brigadier: he didn’t like politicians very much, and I think a woman politician would have really driven him ‘round the bend. The present real Prime Minister, she would have driven him ‘round the bend.

 Dave: [About another] woman, there was that story that you had been given a watch from “Doris” – did anybody ever tell you who Doris was? 

Nick: Why I knew who Doris was. She was my bit on the side in Brighton. Not a word to Fiona–that was the Brigadier’s wife. It never came out in the story, but I know it. When I write this book, which I shall be doing…

 Dave: You’re writing a book? Can you tell us anything about it? 

Nick: I haven’t started it yet… I’m going to start it over the next couple of weeks. It’s fun. It’ll be called “Whatever Happened To The Brigadier?” I shall try and write a book; maybe I’ll put it that way.

 Dave: Have you ever written anything else? 

A Yes, I’ve written a lot of unpublished stuff.

 Dave: After Robot and Terror of the Zygons, there were two more UNIT stories. In one, Patrick Newell was a colonel and there was a major. Were you asked to be in that?

Nick: Yes, I was asked to be in that, but I couldn’t because I had an offer of a stage play. They asked me too late, you see, and I have to work, and so the stage play took precedence; it was a very good part.

[highlight background="#27498c" color="#ffffff"]Dave: And then it was several years and maybe you thought you’d never be on Doctor Who again, until Mawdryn Undead. 

Nick: Until Mawdryn Undead yeah. That’s when John Nathan-Turner said, “Would you like to come back on the program?” and explained the format of the story. Again, I was playing two Brigadiers. But it was more difficult than the first time, because they were both the same character [four years apart], and four years is not very much apart, you see.

So you couldn’t differentiate it… I never understood that story, by the way. I read it again, I’ve looked at it again, and I still don’t understand it!

 Dave: How did they work that filming? That must have been a paste-on moustache. 

Nick: Yes it was. They did all my stuff in the studio, all the stuff as Brigadier 1 on one day and then they did Brigadier 2 on another day.

 Dave: And you worked with Peter Davison then. Had you ever met him? 

Nick: No… Yes, of course, I had I met him in All Creatures Great And Small, and I did Sink Or Swim with him, another comedy.

 Dave: Did they frequently film out of order? 

Nick: They’re always out of order. For technical reasons, they have to be. You’d have to do a run-through in story order and then a run-through in technical order, and always keep in back of your mind the memory of the story as it’s going on.

 Dave: Has there been any talk about you coming back again? 

Nick: No, there’s been no talk about it

 Dave: Would you be interested? 

Nick: Certainly, if it could work. But it depends on the way the new program’s going to go. Of course I’m interested. I’d love to come back.

 Dave: We’re trying to put together a memorial for Patrick Troughton from people who worked with him. Could you give us a few words? 

Nick: He was wonderful to work with. He was so loved, respected. He had such a lovely sense of humour. He was a very fine actor. Indeed, some of his work, leaving aside Doctor Who totally for the moment – he’s given some wonderful performances in other shows and he was such a dear, dear man to work with. He was a delight to work with right from the word go.

 Dave: And you were back with him in The Five Doctors. 

Nick: I enjoyed that wonderfully well. He will be very very sadly missed by a lot of us. He’s missed, and that’s two in the space of six months. Because, don’t forget, Ian Marter was even closer to me than Patrick Troughton was. He was a very, very dear friend of mine I miss him a hell of a lot, I’ll tell you. Because we were great buddies. We only got to know each other in 1983 when we’d come to America, because although we’d met in the early ‘70s in the show, we never got to know each other when we started. When we came across to America [to do] conventions, we got to know each other very well.

 Dave: He was a much younger man too. 

Nick: Oh yes, he was only 40, 40-odd years. Tragic.

Kasterborous would like to thank Dave Rudin for sharing this archive interview with our readers.

The post Archive Interview: Nicholas Courtney appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Reviewed: Persuasion

Meredith Burdett 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.

Persuasion, as the title suggests, is a very gentle Doctor Who story. Kicking off a new trilogy for Sylvester McCoy’s seventh incarnation of the Time Lord, we have in tow the enigmatic-and might-be-dangerous Elizabeth Klein returning to the role of companion. Recruited by the Doctor, she finds herself aboard the TARDIS as a victim of her own curiosity before she’s whisked away to Germany during Hitler’s final days.

But this is no mere “meeting Adolf” story, Persuasion is a tale of beings reaching the end of their lives and the things they’re willing to do when they become self-aware of that fact.

The wonderful character development Klein has been through lets long-term fans really sit back and take stock of how far the lady has come ever since she was introduced to the range over 10 years ago in Colditz

Where writer Jonathan Barnes and indeed the Big Finish team have really struck Doctor Who gold is with the use of the Seventh incarnation as the end of his journey. For many years we’ve enjoyed the regular adventures of the Doctor and Ace or the Doctor and Mel but rarely have we glimpsed the later years of the Seventh Doctor. As mysterious as the John Hurt incarnation, we have little official information as to what he got up to and just how manipulative he became. We’ve had glimpses, yes, but with Persuasion, we’re given a harsh spotlight from Big Finish’s Universe.

For the Doctor we have here knows that the end is coming, there’s no cleverly laid out plan, no last-minute twist in the tale, he knows that his next incarnation is only around the corner and the most interesting element about this, is that he’s scared. Maybe not scared of his death so much, but deeply concerned that his next incarnation won’t be able to handle all the traps and tricks that he’s set up. Or, to put it another way, the Seventh Doctor is shutting up shop and he’s putting all his affairs in order before he does so. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the McCoy incarnation’s transformation that we only glimpsed at the beginning of the TV Movie.

This storyline alone would probably be enough to carry Persuasion on its own but the inclusion of slightly reformed Nazi Elizabeth Klein only proves to sweeten the deal. Their chemistry together is undeniable, partly in thanks to wonderful performances by McCoy and Tracey Childs, but it’s also due to the wonderful character development Klein has been through that lets long-term fans really sit back and take stock of how far the lady has come ever since she was introduced to the range over 10 years ago in Colditz. Her thoughtfulness and inquisitive nature as well as her astounding mind have been manipulated and nurtured by the Seventh Doctor to reach (almost) the antitheses of who she once was, it, quite frankly, leaves the listener a little awed.

From a story point of view, Persuasion serves as a full first act to this new trilogy, the setting may be a one-off but the characters are all set up to play out larger events down the line, this may sound like a cop-out on paper but it works so wonderfully well in this tale, Barnes lets the beginning of this epic play out around the characters as they discover more about each other and like one another less at the same time. Serving as a link to the listener is Klein’s assistant Will Arrowsmith played as a brave if somewhat befuddled young man by Christian Edwards. Hopping aboard the TARDIS after Klein, he finds himself lost in a situation that he prepared for but has little clue as to how to actually deal with. His need for affirmation and explanation work well to keep the listener in check and up to speed with certain events.

Persuasion is a glorious start to the 2013 Seventh Doctor trilogy and is an absolute must have for any Big Finish fan. Hopefully, we can enjoy a few more adventures from the Seventh Doctor’s later years for a long time to come.

Persuasion is available now from www.bigfinish.com .

The post Reviewed: Persuasion appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

The Minister of Chance Film News

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.

The live action film of Radio Static’s Doctor Who spin-off Minister of Chance is progressing apace… . The highly successful spin-off from Death Comes to Time has been entirely funded by donations and sports an impressive cast including Jenny Agutter, Life on Mars’ Philip Glenister, Tamsin Greig, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann and Julian Wadham as the titular Minister.

It’s free to download from iTunes or at the official Minister of Chance website.

The series has been a huge success winning a 2013 Parsec Award for speculative fiction (that essentially means fantasy fiction – I had to check!) and is in pre-production for a transfer to the screen. Word from Executive Producer Clare Eden indicates filming with Paul McGann will begin next month. The support and enthusiasm behind the project is truly impressive and if you fancy lending a hand Radio Static are opening sponsorship to both fans and businesses ranging from McGann’s taxi to location hire. A list of sponsorhip opportunities are on the website and a range of perks are also available.

The drama expands the Whoniverse in more adult and mystical directions with a mission statement that can best be described as ‘epic’. And intriguingly their location of choice for the movie version is Cheshire – which looks appropriately *epicacious* on the website. Behind-the-scenes events were recently held at locations including Beeston Castle and Chester Roman Amphitheatre. But you can catch up with the production at the London Film and Comic Con on Sunday 6th October at Earl’s Court, London. A host of other Who-related stars will be present including McGann and Billie Piper…

(With thanks to Clare)

The post The Minister of Chance Film News appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Have I Got News For You: Doctor Who Style

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.

So just what were Ian Hislop and Paul Merton doing the other week, running around London dressed as the Fourth Doctor?

Well, click play above and see their trailer for the new series of Have I Got News For You, in which they talk about timey-wimey stuff and politics never changing.

Have I Got News For You returns to BBC One this Friday, October 4th at 9pm.

The post Have I Got News For You: Doctor Who Style appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Charlie Higson on Ninth Doctor and Peter Capaldi

Drew Boynton 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.

Charlie Higson’s new Ninth Doctor story, Beast of Babylon, is the latest in a series of eBooks that the BBC and Puffin Publishing have released to celebrate Doctor Who‘s 50th anniversary.

Higson, also well-known as an actor and comedian (The Fast Show), recently did an interview for theguardian.com wherein he discusses his long-term love of all thing Who and how Babylon came about. And if a person can get past The Guardian’s writer, Patrick, misspelling “EcclesTON” as “Eccle-STONE” and “the Doctor” as “the doctor” (neither error will be repeated here) about a million times during the article, Higson’s thoughts are an interesting read!

After missing out on being able to write the First (whom he watched as a small child) and Fourth Doctor eBooks, Higson tells why he wanted to write the Ninth:

I was actually really pleased to be allowed to do him in the end. In many ways, after William Hartnell, Eccleston was the most important of the doctors. Coming back after a hiatus of several years was a big challenge and a big risk, but the combination of a well respected writer in Russell T Davies and a well respected actor in Christopher Eccleston worked brilliantly. I think Eccleston was an inspired choice and he gave the series enormous authority. For most modern kids he would have been their first experience of the Doctor and their introduction to this amazing world. So it needed to be good.

And he goes on to show his admiration of the RTD era:

There were two reasons that Russell had to set the series largely on earth. One is obviously budget. It’s much cheaper to film in Wales than on the moon. But the other was that, as I said, he wanted to make the series accessible and not scare people off. He wanted to say – ‘Look, if you enjoy the likes of (for want of a better example) Coronation Street, you will also enjoy this. It’s not weird and scary. It’s about real people with real human emotions.’

Higson also touches on time travel, Tom Baker, and his teenage lust for Elisabeth Sladen’s Sarah Jane Smith in the lengthy interview.

And he thinks the show’s future is in good hands with Peter Capaldi:

I think it’s a stroke of genius…Moffat has gone right back to basics and chosen us an older, wiser, more serious Doctor Who with that stern Godlike quality that William Hartnell had. He might even get scary again.

Beast of Babylon runs about 49 pages and is available now on Amazon for Kindle and is priced £1.99 - Kasterborous editor Christian Cawley will be reviewing it soon!

The post Charlie Higson on Ninth Doctor and Peter Capaldi appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Terror of the Zygons DVD Review

Elton Townend Jones 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.

If, like me, you have all of Doctor Who at your fingertips, you’re probably aware that it’s easy to take segments of this amazing body of work for granted.  In the case of Terror of the Zygons, I probably never will.

I started watching Doctor Who in February 1974.  I was three years old.  Pulled in by the electric thrill of Daleks in sandpits and giant metal snake things setting them on fire, I was hooked for life.  From here I flinched at giant spiders, recoiled from green creepy stuff, and felt a visceral, brutal horror when faced with gas-masks in the trenches of Skaro.  By the time Broton, warlord of the Zygons peered out of the telly at me, hissing sibilantly and alarming the Doctor and my other TV friends with his sucker-tipped fingers, I was approaching five – and the stories I was watching were making more and more sense to me.  Watching Terror of the Zygons, I was, frankly, terrified.  If the sofa hadn’t been backed against a wall, I’d have been behind it.  This really was my first encounter with tea-time terror for tots…

By the time Broton, warlord of the Zygons peered out of the telly at me, hissing sibilantly and alarming the Doctor and my other TV friends with his sucker-tipped fingers, I was approaching five – if the sofa hadn’t been backed against a wall, I’d have been behind it.

For those who don’t know – and if you don’t, then it makes no sense for me to spoil all of it here – Terror of the Zygons sees the Doctor (Tom Baker), Sarah (Elisabeth Sladen) and Harry (Ian Marter) return to Earth (Scotland this time – although really it’s filmed in Sussex) to get to the bottom of who or what has been attacking off-shore oil installations somewhere in the vicinity of Loch Ness… What follows is a creepy and intimate tale of strange goings-on in a Scots village, behind which lurk one of Doctor Who’s most imaginatively realised ‘monsters’, the Zygons (and their less-well realised giant monster, the Skarasen; but hey, it does the job).

This Robert Banks Stewart tale opened Tom Baker’s second season (although it was planned to close his first), and is, essentially, the last true UNIT tale.  Ian Marter and John Levene (Benton) will return mid-season in The Android Invasion, but here it’s time to say a sudden and unexpected farewell UNIT’s heart and soul, Nicholas Courtney (the Brigadier).  It’ll be almost a decade before we see him again, turning up several times in that hyper-real fan-fest we’ve come to know as ‘the 1980s’ (but only because William Russell wasn’t available.  That’s the weird thing with Courtney; his career only seems to happen because first choices are never available…).

It could be argued that under Barry Letts, say, and with a different costume designer, Zygons might be average fare – but this is perfect Philip Hinchcliffe (on Jon Pertwee’s manor, if you will).  Some stories stay in the memory because the writing’s good, but others – and Zygons is a case in point –stay because they look and sound astonishing.  From Douglas Camfield’s atmospheric direction to Geoffrey Burgon’s haunting music, this is a delicious slice of Robert Holmes Gothic.  But what really makes this a special story is the thrilling alliance of John Friedlander and James Acheson in designing the eponymous villains.  Ably supported by production design and lighting (Nigel Curzon and John Dixon), and sibilant vocal mannerisms best displayed by Who legend, the late John Woodnutt (Broton), the Zygons are astounding to look at.  There’s been nothing quite like these half-embryo/half-octopoid creatures before or since and to cap it all, they’re orange!  They’re bloody ORANGE!  What a triumph they are.  If only the new ones looked anywhere near as good…

Extras

If you’ve been waiting what feels like ages to own this one on DVD, you won’t be disappointed with this 2-disc set.  Of most interest to hard-core fans will be the option to view The Director’s Cut of Part One, which was trimmed prior to transmission for timing reasons.  It’s only a tiny scene that’s been restored, but it’s a lovely one and features ‘new’ Ian Marter, which can’t be bad.  The missing footage (some of which only existed in monochrome) has been brilliantly and effectively restored by Peter Crocker and colourised by fan favourite Stuart Humphryes – alias Babel Colour) – who recently revived the chromatically impaired The Mind of Evil.

Humphryes tells me that the restored footage originated from a cutting copy, the quality of which was very poor and grainy.  On an incredibly tight timescale, Humphryes was unable to focus too much on colourising all 300 frames and so employed some short cuts, such as using flat colour washes on the companions’ clothing and the TARDIS – not a course of action he would normally opt for.

I was sent a couple of dozen reference frames of the recovered colour sections so that I could match my pallette to those. They were faded but incredibly useful! Because they required a heavy grade to match the broadcast colours of the episode’s film sequences, my colourised shots had to be similarly graded, which had a few odd effects on the colours. But that’s the nature of archival material and the constraints of working with poor quality prints. We should all rejoice that it exists at all and I’m proud to be associated with the reinsertion of such a legendary lost scene.

Scotch Mist in Sussex is a 30-minute ‘making-of’ documentary that wonderfully draws on archive footage of real-life attempts to catch a glimpse of Nessie.  Banks Stewart talks of the story in terms of The Avengers and Hinchcliffe offers a marvellous elegy for late Production Assistant Edwina Craze.  Woodnutt appears in what looks like old Myth Makers footage offering a ‘hero theory’ of villainy, while that uber-eccentric oddball John Levene (highly ubiquitous on this release) offers thoughts on breast-fondling scenes and the size of Tom Baker’s ego.

Remembering Douglas Camfield is a 30-minute retrospective of the late director (and Christopher Walken lookalike) which includes his PA work on An Unearthly Child, Celia Imrie, an interview with Wogan on the set of Beau Geste, and a lovely clip of Katy Manning in his ‘Big Elephant’ episode of Hinchcliffe’s post-Who series, Target.

Other extras include The UNIT Family Part Three (with Terrance Dicks, Richard Franklin and Nicholas Courtney) and two Doctor Who Stories featuring Tom Baker and Lis Sladen.  Recorded in 2003 – just after the return of Doctor Who was announced – the latter beautifully has Sladen discuss her enthusiasm and hopes for its return, as footage from 2006’s School Reunion plays alongside.  It was while watching this that I only just realised she’s carrying her The Sontaran Experiment sou’wester with her when she leaves in The Hand of Fear.  This wet weather item also appears in the wonderful 1977 Merry-Go-Round programme made for schools in which Sladen visits a working oil rig (this appropriate curio has an amazing radiophonic theme tune, too).  Also included are: an ‘on location’ interview with Tom Baker from South Today (the inexperienced reticence of the more well-known Wookee Hole clip gradually warms up to discuss ‘bachelor benders’), a couple of pertinent Easter Eggs (one for fans of restoration, one for fans of Disney), and a trailer for the forthcoming release of The Moonbase – not a cell of animation in sight, though…

Released on Monday, September 30th, Terror of the Zygons is a genuine Doctor Who classic and is available for just £13.75 from Amazon.

(Thanks to Stuart Humphryes for his generosity and time.)

The post Terror of the Zygons DVD Review appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Moffat: Capaldi Appearances Theory Will Be Included [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.

Steven Moffat recently chatted to the Nerd³ guys about various Doctor Who and Sherlock topics (not to mention Tumblr) in a video interview on YouTube, which you can view above.

Easily the most interesting aspect of the discussion on the comfy sofa was the fact that Peter Capaldi’s prior appearances in Doctor Who and Torchwood are going to be recognised in future episodes.

As you may recall, Capaldi guested as Caecilius in Fires of Pompeii and also played the unpleasant politico John Frobisher in the superb Torchwood: Children of Earth. Unlike Freema Agyeman and Karen Gillan, these are two significant roles and The Moff has revealed that he is “not going to ignore the fact.”

I remember Russell [T Davies] told me that he had a big old plan as to why there were two Peter Capaldi’s in the Who universe: one in Pompeii and one in Torchwood. When I cast Peter and Russell got in touch to say how pleased he was, I said, ‘Okay, what was your theory and does it still work?” and he said, ‘Yes it does. Here it is…’

We’ll play that one out over time. It’s actually quite neat.

There is also some interesting news about the nature of regeneration, and why the Doctor ends up with a particular face.

The face is not set from birth. It’s not like he was always going to be one day Peter Capaldi. We know that’s the case because in The War Games he has a choice of faces. So we know it’s not set, so where does he get those faces from? They can’t just be randomly generated because they’ve got lines. They’ve aged. When he turns into Peter he’ll actually have lines on his face.

So where did that face come from?

Lots to look forward to when the new Doctor finally turns up…

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