Christian Cawley's Blog, page 361

Russell T Davies: Capaldi Casting “Just Perfect”

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.

He chose two great Doctors, Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant – but what does former showrunner and Doctor Who resurrection master Russell T Davies think of Peter Capaldi’s casting as the new star of his favourite show?

Perfect casting, just perfect!

You just knew there would be an exclamation mark, right? But really, what does Russell (chatting to Doctor Who Magazine) actually think of it?

I’d kept Peter’s number after we worked together on The Fires of Pompeii and Torchwood. I loved him as an actor, and a writer, and a director, I was actually in awe of him, and so clung to his number, in a slightly stalkerish way. Quite apart from his five million wonderful appearances on screen, I think that the scene in Episode 3 of Torchwood: Children of Earth, where Peter’s character faces the 456 for the first time, is one of the finest performances in anything ever. Seriously. Anything. Ever.

But did Davies have any insider knowledge?

I was as surprised as anyone! I’d heard rumours about Peter in the weeks beforehand, but I’d convinced myself it couldn’t be true, because he’s in The Musketeers. In fact, I was quite sad, cos I thought about him a lot, and realised how good he’d be, and now we’d never get to see him. Damn. So the moment Zoe Ball said his name was actually quite mind-blowing. I still find it difficult, even now to find adjectives big and bold enough to describe how brilliant this is…a new golden age begins!

That’s four golden ages in a row now!

Read everything you could possibly want to know about the casting of Peter Capaldi as the twelfth star of Doctor Who in DWM #464, out now!

The post Russell T Davies: Capaldi Casting “Just Perfect” appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Catch Colin at Cardiff Comic Con!

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.

At a loose end next weekend? Need something to cheer the kids up before they go back to school? If you can get to Cardiff you can meet the sixth Doctor at the Welsh capital’s first Film and Comic Convention!

Colin Baker is just one of those appearing at the event which runs on August 31st and September 1st 2013 at the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff. A healthy line-up of Doctor Who-related guests will include Frazer Hines, Anthony Head, John Leeson and classic series technical wizard Matt Irvine.

Saturday attendees will be able to take a tour of Torchwood locations hosted by Kai Owen, who played Rhys in the series. Whether you will get to enter The Hub is not known.

Other noteworthy appearances include three of the stars of Red Dwarf, plus the shy and retiring pairing of David Hasselhoff and Brian ‘Yrcanos’ Blessed.

Entry costs £5 adults and £3 children. More details including autograph, photo and tour prices at www.cardiffcomiccon.com.

The post Catch Colin at Cardiff Comic Con! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Don’t Miss This Awesome Rose Tyler/Bad Wolf Tee!

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.

This awesome Rose Tyler/Bad Wolf-themed t-shirt by MeganLara is available from TeeFury today – until midnight!

The image references Rose Tyler’s travels in the TARDIS and features a police box, a red rose, a gas mask (The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances) and a Dalek.

Costing a bargainous $11 (plus shipping) the tee is available in a variety of colours and sizes for men and women. We think it is one of the better Doctor Who-themed t-shirts of recent months so if you want to get yours, click the link and head to TeeFury forthwith!

The post Don’t Miss This Awesome Rose Tyler/Bad Wolf Tee! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

The Tenth Planet DVD Cover Art

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.

Although you may have already seen the reconstructed version on the Regeneration boxset, The Tenth Planet – complete with an animated fourth episode – is set to land on DVD shelves across the land in time for the 50th anniversary – and you can see the cover art (still to be confirmed) below…

The Tenth Planet is, of course, perhaps the single most important episode of Doctor Who – not because it introduces the Cybermen (and they’ve rarely been as disturbing as they are here…) but because it is the episode that sees the Doctor die… only for him to turn into another person! That’s right, this is the episode that offered the show an infinite life – or at least 50 years in the public consciousness – and for that reason alone it should be top of your wish list. For many years it has been incomplete, but is presented here on DVD for the first time.

Set for release on November 18, 2013, and with details of any extras still sketchy, you can order The Tenth Planet from Amazon now for £15.42

.

The post The Tenth Planet DVD Cover Art appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Back This Crowdfunded Doctor Who Poetry Book!

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.

Prepare yourselves for a reference book like no other as poet and playwright James Wylder begins crowd funding An Eloquence of Time and Space a new Doctor Who episode guide covering every episode from 2005′s reboot right through to the 50th anniversary episode, but with a twist:each episode is represented by a poem and will also include accompanying illustrations, (‘Whodles’) by artist Olivia Hinkel.

The Kickstarter campaign’s initial goal is to reach $250, which will cover the production of the book, a pitch for which you can see above. Getting to that initial target is only the beginning, as they want to take the project even further from there says James…

“When we get funded, we’ll start adding more chapters to the book. Poetry on the early seasons of the show? Essays? A story in the spirit of Doctor Who? This book is a celebration, and we’d love to add anything we can to it!”

An example of the kind of prose you can expect to find in the volume is the entry for Matt Smith’s first episode The Eleventh Hour which, along with the entry for Series 3 episode The Sound of Drums are viewable on the Kickstarter page.

5.1 The Eleventh Hour

I washed away a thousand years of life

with fire from my skull

cracking my home

into coral shards of coal

until I become

a children’s book character

The prices and packages for pledges ranges from $1, which will get you an email of a single poem from the book, through to a $500 pledge getting you dinner with the author and a private or public recital (as long as you live in either Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan or Kentucky) all the way up to the mammoth $10,000 pledge in which the author will actually write you a novel (minimum 300 pages) to your specifications

For more details and to make a pledge, head to the Kickstarter page.

The post Back This Crowdfunded Doctor Who Poetry Book! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Reviewed: The Ice Warriors DVD

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.

Elton Townend Jones reviews the new reconstructed DVD release of classic Doctor Who serial The Ice Warriors, out this week…

Let’s get a few things cleared up from the outset.  All Doctor Who is brilliant.  All Doctor Who deserves to be loved and enjoyed and adored.  Any new Doctor Who needs to be embraced, and any old Doctor Who that we once thought lost deserves to be given a new lease of life that we might enjoy it all over again, praising it and covering it with petals of joy.  Doctor Who is the best thing on telly, the best thing in the world, the most amazing thing ever; that a randomly formed universe could come up with Doctor Who and then come up with me so that I could enjoy it in my own lifetime still astonishes me.

So we’re agreed?  Doctor Who is ace.  I say all this because it gets boring when people respond to a critical view of a bit of Doctor Who with uncritical reasoning.  This is going to happen with this DVD review.  You’re dying to see The Ice Warriors, you see, and you’re dying to enjoy those two ‘lost’ episodes that have been turned into cartoons to make your enjoyment of them much easier.  I am, too.  Thing is, though, relative to the rest of Doctor Who, I don’t really like The Ice Warriors much.

I never saw it on first transmission – too young – but when I had the Target book, I found it dull, plodding and laborious (in spite of an amazing Chris Achilleos cover).  I always guiltily felt that I should like it – it is after all the first ‘Martian’ story – but it just didn’t grip me.  As the years passed by, I finally saw the Peladon stories and then The Seeds of Death – all quite enjoyable, but I realised I wasn’t that thrilled by the scaly green men from Mars.  Eventually, they came to life for me in the New Adventures books, so I found myself re-appraising them and hoping one day to see their debut story.

When the VHS of The Ice Warriors finally arrived in 1998 (in a lovely box with a book, and a CD of the missing episodes), I was delighted.  I loved that video and watched it several times in one sitting.  It seemed like a great story, Peter Sallis was fab, the linking telesnap edit for the ‘lost in all but audio’ Two and Three was beautifully done (I still tingle when Victoria stops being a photograph and starts to move at the end of Three) but most of all the eponymous villains looked amazing.  The Ice Warriors became my favourite Patrick Troughton story for many years.

Hm.  Well, I watched The Ice Warriors again last year and felt very disappointed.  The novelty of seeing the original Martians with their weird mouths and their tendency to cogitate whilst huddling their heads into their carapaces had worn off.  Peter Sallis was still good, and there was still some lovely filmed stuff with Victoria (Deborah Watling) trapped by Martians in the ice tunnels, but the story really did plod.

Brian Hayles was responsible for the equally plot-thin The Celestial Toymaker and his second script for the series, while full of great characters and innovative ideas (a plant museum, a city in a dome, a science base in an Edwardian mansion) isn’t a patch on his later, much funnier, warm and genuinely thrilling The Seeds of Death.  Though that might simply be that Seeds’ director Michael Ferguson is one of the series’ best and stands head and shoulders above even this tale’s director, Derek Martinus.

It did occur to me that because I was re-watching the whole series in transmission order that maybe the ‘base-under-siege’ formula was already wearing thin by the time we got to The Ice Warriors, but this story actually comes early in that era, and none of the other stories around it had bored me quite so much.  And I felt the same watching this preview DVD – I felt impatient.

What it boils down to is that The Ice Warriors has too many episodes for the amount of story at its disposal.  It’s just too long.  Some stories, whether you watch them episodically or in one sitting – like The War Games or The Ambassadors of Death – have enough story and, perhaps more importantly, enough lightness of touch to carry you smiling to the end without undue pain.  The Ice Warriors is, undoubtedly lovely in places – in acting and design if not in atmosphere – but it outstays its welcome.

The addition of animated episodes Two and Three to this release is a lovely and welcome thing that shouldn’t be scoffed at.  But while the artwork is an improvement on The Reign of Terror, this is not The Invasion.  In fairness, the budget on these DVD cartoons is tiny, but they are, quite simply and unavoidably, the Thunderbirds equivalent of animation – puppet-like bodies and puppet-like mouths and eyes that jig about awkwardly and pay very little courtesy to the original production.  A telesnap reconstruction would have been the more effective way of delivering these episodes. And then there’s that issue of story length.  Do the cartoons add anything to the DVD that the VHS didn’t have?  Well, yes, they add about 35 minutes – to something that already seemed too long.

What it boils down to is that The Ice Warriors is just too long.  Some stories have enough to carry you smiling to the end. The Ice Warriors outstays its welcome.

But there’s lots to enjoy in The Ice Warriors if you’ve never seen it before, as I should know: stylish set and costume design, great acting, ice warriors with hair, Troughton being silly (and fluffing his lines), some eerie music, and even a polystyrene computer.

In terms of DVD Extras, there’s a lively commentary featuring Deborah Watling and Frazer Hines – who is always good value and thoroughly entertaining.  The second episode features a fascinating mix of archive recordings from various ‘lost’ voices, and the third features a commentary from Patrick’s son, Michael Troughton.  These are the real highlights of these discs.

For those like me who might want to speed up the viewing experience, the lovingly crafted VHS telesnap links are also included.  The documentaries ‘Cold Fusion’ and ‘Beneath the Ice’ are enjoyable if a little thin.  Best of all is a delightful selection of Blue Peter clips detailing various stages of their Design-A-Monster competition, and the second part of Frazer Hines’ ‘Doctor Who Stories’ interview – which twinkles and sparkles throughout.

The Ice Warriors is probably over-rated, and clearly not my favourite Doctor Who story, but I’ll keep on watching it, because all Doctor Who is brilliant.  This double-disc set is a ‘must-have’ for any serious fan of the Troughton years.

Out on Monday, August 26, 2013, The Ice Warriors double disc DVD can be ordered from Amazon for just £13.97!

The post Reviewed: The Ice Warriors DVD appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Rupert Everett Claims He Auditioned for Doctor Who

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.

Rupert Everett announced at a reading from his memoirs at the Edinburgh International Book Festival that he went up for the part of the Doctor! Well actually he says he went up for the part of ‘Doctor Who’, which must be a character from some lesser-known science-fiction program (tsk!…)

Part of the fun of waiting to find out who the next Who will be is picturing what others could be like in the role but I have to say Everett has never been on my list. His version of Sherlock Holmes was probably the most Doctorish role he’s been in, though what I find most distinctive about Everett’s performances is the way he oozes Posh. In fact there’s something appealing about the idea of a multi-doctor story with some Pertwee-Troughton one-upmanship between an Everett Doctor and Christopher Eccleston’s…

He’s high-profile, successful and (assuming he did audition) would have been our first openly gay actor in the role. Interestingly he shares a monastery-based education with Tom Baker and, like Pertwee, was thrown out of drama school. But without wanting to sound harsh, the main problem with Everett being the Doctor is he isn’t Peter Capaldi, which—let’s be honest—is a basic requirement.

Then there’s this comment,

I tried to be Doctor Who but was turned down.mI would have loved to have been Doctor Who but it is filmed in Cardiff and I don’t think I would like to be in Cardiff.

I think it’s time I came clean. I also tried out for the role of the Doctor. Yes, it’s true. And so did my elderly next-door neighbour and so did her cat, Mr Bronson. We’ve been discussing Everett’s comments over tea and ‘dodgers and this attitude doesn’t impress. Each of us would give our right arm/ paw to live in Cardiff as the star of the best telly program ever.

So thanks for the interest, Rupes, but our show deserves more passion than that!

(Via ContactMusic)

The post Rupert Everett Claims He Auditioned for Doctor Who appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Hartnell on Panto: “I’m a legitimate actor”

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.

Last week we brought you news of the rediscovery of a rare interview with William Hartnell, just a few months after his last regular appearance in Doctor Who.

It turns out that the interview for Points West, a regional BBC news show, was conducted by director Roger Mills – whose name you may recognise from Horizon and the various Michael Palin travelogues – back when he was working as a cameraman. He recalls of the 1967 interview :

The interview was conducted by the director, Roger Mills, who, in 1967 was reporting for Points West. Mills recalls:

I wasn’t really a reporter. I was more of a behind the cameraman, but down in the regions you do everything.

William Hartnell, of course, was famously difficult to work with, and Mills recalls that he wasn’t keen to be interviewed.

I do remember that he didn’t want to be interviewed. He was extremely grumpy. He really wanted us out as quickly as possible …I don’t think he liked the press very much… I was someone who didn’t hold back,

As we shall see…

Doctor Who researcher Richard Bignell, who unearthed the footage, told The Guardian this week:

The interviewer says to him at one point, something along the lines of: ‘Is pantomime something you’d like to continue doing in the future?’ And he sort of goes: ‘Ooh, no, no, no, no, no.’ So, he says: ‘Oh, why not?’ And he says: ‘Well, I’m a legitimate actor. Pantomime is for the sort of person who is used to variety and going on the front of the stage, but I’m a legitimate actor. I do legitimate things.’

He very much comes over with that sort of gruff manner. In fact, towards the end of the interview, the actual interviewer says to him: ‘You’re actually quite a grumpy man. Why do you think that people like the Doctor so much?’

Now, the legitimacy or otherwise of pantomime (Hartnell was appearing in Puss in Boots) is an interesting topic, one that has often reverberated with Doctor Who fans, particularly in the 1980s. It’s interesting to see the show’s first star take this attitude; in some ways, however, his apparent snobbery to one of the oldest forms of theatre is a little disappointing – particularly as he only made four more appearances on TV (one of which was The Three Doctors).

I think you’ll agree that this particular extra feature on the upcoming DVD of The Tenth Planet looks evermore tantalising…

The post Hartnell on Panto: “I’m a legitimate actor” appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Moffat: “The Time Lords Are Dead”

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.

For those waiting patiently for the return of Gallifrey’s most famous Time Lady Romana, or maybe even – dare we say it – The Rani, Steven Moffat had some sobering news.

Speaking this week to Frank Skinner and Fred MacAulay at the AdLib Comedy event in Edinburgh, Moffat stated:

“I have actually given no thought at all to Romana. The Time Lords are dead in my mind. They died.”

He couldn’t, however, rule out the return of Jenny, the Doctor’s genetically-engineered daughter played by Georgia Moffett, insisting that the door had been left well and truly open.

And speaking of Time Lord mortality, everyone knows that, after the thirteenth Doctor has spawned, it really is game over. With a regeneration awaiting Matt Smith this Christmas, fans have been gazing nervously at their fob watches, wondering how, exactly, the Time Lord will circumnavigate this tricky situation.

Steven Moffat gave little away. When asked if he acknowledged that the Doctor can only regenerate twelve times, his answer was short and succinct:

“Yes.”

Looks like we’re going to be left hanging on this one…

The post Moffat: “The Time Lords Are Dead” appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Arthur Darvill Pleased with Capaldi Casting

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.

Arthur Darvill, best known as Rory Pond Williams to Eleventh Doctor fans, believes that Peter Capaldi will make an excellent Twelve.

Chatting with The Big Issue, Darvill expressed how much he believes Capaldi is the right choice for the role:

I think it’s brilliant. It will be really hard for him to follow Matt…but I think it is the right time for him to leave and who better to take over than one of the best actors in the country.

And Darvill also seemed excited that a new series featuring a new-and possibly very different-Capaldi Doctor could take the show in totally new directions:

They’ll have to write different stories for him…If they got another young Doctor then maybe the show wouldn’t have lasted but now I can only see it going on and on and on.

The 31-year-old actor, who recently co-starred on Broadchurch with Tenth Doctor David Tennant, also pin-pointed the trait that he thinks makes a successful Doctor:

It’s about having confidence…it’s about not fearing getting it wrong…You just go for it. That’s something you need to play this part. It’s about strength in your convictions, which very few people have in the way Matt does.

So, Kasterborites, do you think that Peter Capaldi is one of those few people? Does he have the confidence and convictions to make a memorable Doctor? Without question, he certainly has the experience and acting skill.

We’ve already seen him confidently mimic William Hartnell’s hands-on-lapels in his grand entrance on Doctor Who Live. And he is also completely at-ease doing interviews in a way that Matt Smith was not when the young actor was first announced for the role. From his published letters as a teenager, we know that he definitely knows–and is a fan of!–Doctor Who.

Last but definitely not least, Capaldi’s also shown that he will completely and utterly “go for it” as Malcolm Tucker on The Thick of It…

(Via Big Issue)

The post Arthur Darvill Pleased with Capaldi Casting appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.