Christian Cawley's Blog, page 366

Reviewed: The Lady of Mercia

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.

Any Doctor Who story that begins with a bunch of students chanting the mantra ‘down, down, down, down, down with the laws of physics’ is going to be an interesting one and that’s exactly how Paul Magrs gets things going with The Lady of Mercia.

Arriving at the University of Frodsham in 1983, the Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Turlough are soon caught up in battles between student activists and a physics department that has secretly discovered the key to time travel. As you can imagine, all will not end well.

Doctor Philippa Stone and her husband Professor John Bleak (this story is all about powerful and headstrong women, Doctor Stone chose to keep her own name) long to find out more about the mysterious Queen Æthelfrid (pronounced Ethel-Fred) and her mighty past. Whilst holding a major conference on the Queen and her rich history, Professor Bleak and Tegan find themselves transported back to the past by mistake where they start to learn firsthand exactly what the Queen was like. Of course, things are not exactly smooth sailing for those left in 1983 as Queen Æthelfrid’s daughter, Princess Ælfwynn (pronounced Elf-Winn), is dragged into the future, much to her dismay and ultimately, anger.

The Lady of Mercia is a pseudo historical tale of sorts; this is an historical story with sci-fi elements but Magrs’ telling of the tale is very much split down the middle. There’s a story set in 1983 and another one being told in parallel set over 1000 years in the past. The two intertwine, of course they do, but this adventure feels like it’s written: both stories happening at exactly the same time but so far apart. To be more concise, you could easily unravel the two separate stories that are taking place and release those several months apart yet thanks to Magrs’s straightforward writing style for this story, you would still be able to make sense of events.

The story itself is a fun romp with plenty to do for Tegan, Ælfwynn, Æthelfrid, Doctor Stone and the Doctor but the rest of the cast gets sidelined somewhat, that’s alright however, as this is a story that’s about the strength of its supporting cast rather than the series regulars such as the Doctor. Queen Æthelfrid is dealing with ill health and constant battles, Princess Ælfwynn is not only fighting off the violent and romantic advances from an enemy and waiting to claim the throne from her mother but also finds herself in 1983 where she has to quickly adapt, Doctor Stone is fighting her own inner demons including an obsessed husband and an infidelity that she’s regretting more and more and the Doctor himself is trying to sort out Tegan’s disappearance as well as the arrival of the Princess.

Top marks this month go to Janet Fielding as Tegan; it’s about time that she was introduced to a strong historical, female figure and both fielding and Rachel Atkins as Æthelfrid do not disappoint. Their scenes together are the most powerful as well as the most engaging. Tegan’s strength of character as well as Fielding’s own natural ferocity work well alongside Æthelfrid’s demanding and determined nature. The two form a sort of bond along the story, more of a mutual respect that unfolds organically and doesn’t fell forced at all.

The Lady of Mercia is a strong story, one that doesn’t necessarily know if it wants to be a full on drama or a lighter piece of entertainment but is worth your time for Fielding’s performance as well as her attempt at a Northern accent.

The Lady of Mercia is available from www.bigfinish.com now.

The post Reviewed: The Lady of Mercia appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who Figure Collection Magazine Details

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.

Covering all fifty years of the Doctor’s escapades with both friends and foes, Doctor Who Figurine Collection – a brand new magazine and figurine collection – allows fans to recreate the fun at a 1:21 scale!

The very first issue comes complete with an 85 mm figurine of the Eleventh Doctor from The Pandorica Opens (complete with skyward pointy hand action!) at the special introductory price of £2.99!

Then the collection continues with Davros (who can be seen menacing some buttons) from The Stolen Earth in issue #2, the Cyber Controller (power walking in terror!) from Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel in issue #3 and then a Weeping Angel (angry face!) from Time of Angels/Flesh & Stone in issue #4.

You can see the full collection in this video below which amongst showcasing the likes of Omega, the Tenth Doctor and Rassilon; also showcases green screens, cameras and more importantly, burly men in shorts.

Out on August 28th, you can order the magazine from Forbidden Planet now!

The post Doctor Who Figure Collection Magazine Details appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

The Peter Capaldi ReaktionKast

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.

It’s a full team line-up this week as Brian Terranova returns to the podKast (with a “K”) to share his thoughts about the casting of Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor, something that we’re still excited about!

(Except James. He’s less excited now. Humbug, etc.)

Meanwhile, we consider some of those unlucky chaps who were overlooked for the starring role in television’s most awesome time travelling adventure show. Could Anthony Head have made a great Doctor? What about Bernard Cribbins?

Finally, as ever, listen out for our recommendations, which this week is a nice combination of Doctor Who and other related things…

Useful links for this week’s podKast:

Kasterborous Series 3 Episode 28 Shownotes

James on Picking Brains Podcast
Christian on Technophilia

Blake’s 7
Spearhead from Space Blu-ray

Listen to the PodKast

There are several ways to listen. In addition to the usual player above, we’re pleased to announce that you can also stream the podKast using Stitcher, an award-winning, free mobile app available for Android and iPhone/iPad. This pretty much means that you can listen to us anywhere without downloading – pretty neat, we think you’ll agree! (Note that it can take a few hours after a new podKast is published to “catch up”.)

What’s more, you can now listen and subscribe to the podKast via our Audioboo channel! Head to http://audioboo.fm/channel/doctorwhopodkast and click play to start listening. You can also comment and record your own boos in response to our discussions!

Meanwhile you can use the player below to listen through Audioboo:

You haven’t clicked play yet?! What are you waiting for? As well as our new Stitcher and Audioboo presence you can also use one of these amazingly convenient ways to download and enjoy this week’s podKast.

Use the player in the top right of the Kasterborous home page, or visit the podKast menu link.
Listen with the “pop out” player above, which also allows you to download the podKast to your computer.
You can also take advantage of the RSS feed to subscribe to the podKast for your media player, and even find us on iTunes!

Incidentally, if you are listening on iTunes, please take the time to leave a rating and review and help us to bring in new listeners to the podKast!

The post The Peter Capaldi ReaktionKast appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Guy Freeman: The Man Behind Doctor Who Live

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.

There is nowhere near enough mystery in life. Fact. The internet has seen to that and has been rightly banned from most pub quizzes. So the genuine excitement around who will be Who is something a bit special – but how to deliver it?

In an intriguing article on the BBC’s official Doctor Who pages, Guy Freeman, executive producer of Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor, explains the cloak and dagger hi-jinx behind the BIG reveal. Now, a number of viewers weren’t enamoured with the general tone of the show and I agree there was a hearty dollop of *cringe*. Not all of us are comfortable with our show cultivating celebrity or a glammed-up finish with glitter-guns (these are for fighting Cybermen, not public announcements). But that said it was a hugely impressive PR event simply because of the attention and secrecy involved.

The biggest challenge was how to recruit a studio audience of Doctor Who fans, without giving the game away. In the end, we asked Audience Services to place an ad on their website for a new “entertainment pilot, celebrating long-running TV shows. This episode looks back at 50 years of Doctor Who”. Within two days, 5,000 people had applied for tickets.

It’s easy to forget how much organisation and hard work goes into any television broadcast but getting that done at short notice and under the scrutiny of international press is impressive work. Discovering who Doctor No. 12 was required no less than two cover-ups – one for the audience and one for the TV listings. Then there’s the chap (a chap this time round) who all the fuss was about. Code-named ‘Houdini’, Mr Capaldi’s arrival was as carefully planned as any Cold War subterfuge.

…one of our co-ordinators drove around Borehamwood, looking for an anonymous car park. Having given that location to Brian, this is where Houdini was brought to, at lunchtime on Sunday. Peter Capaldi – as we could then call him – was bundled into a people carrier, where he lay on the back seat with a blanket over him, as our co-ordinator drove him down Borehamwood high street and into the studios.

Whatever we thought about Doctor Who Live, (aside from the WONDERFUL casting news), a lot of effort went into the show. So, whether it was a glorious welcome to a new hero or a cynical exercise in brand-management, was the secrecy it worth it?

The post Guy Freeman: The Man Behind Doctor Who Live appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Big Finish Teases 2014 Doctor Who Audio Covers

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.

Big Finish continue their yearlong teasing and tantalising campaign for their Doctor Who range with the release of two new front cover, one for the Fourth Doctor Adventures and one for the Companion Chronicles.

White Ghosts is a title from the third series of adventures for the Fourth Doctor that’s due out in February 2014 and features not only the return of Leela as his companion but also a familiar face from the world of sci-fi television series Farscape. Virginia Hey, best known for role as Zhaan in the cult TV classic will appear alongside Baker and Jameson as Bengel. Hey lent an austere and commanding presence to Farscape and we’re sure that she’ll shine whilst working with the Fourth Doctor and Leela.

The second cover release this month is very exciting indeed. Luna Romana is the final part in the Companion Chronicle trilogy that concerns that character Quadrigger Stoyn, who is first encountered after being taken away from Gallifrey by the First Doctor and Susan as they set sail in their newly acquired TARDIS to see the Universe after events as seen in The Name of the Doctor. Lalla Ward stars as the Second Romana as well as Juliet Landau as an unspecified incarnation of Romana. Landau will be recognised by many from her role as mad vampire Drusilla from both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin off Angel. Landau is, quite frankly, a huge name for Big Finish to sign up to the Doctor Who range and casting her as Romana is a stroke of genius that will surely pay off when it is released in January 2014.

Both titles are available to pre-order from www.bigfinish.com now!

The post Big Finish Teases 2014 Doctor Who Audio Covers appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Guests Announced for Ninth Doctor BFI Screening

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.

The BFI has released details of its guest panel to discuss the Ninth Doctor’s era on Saturday 24 August, where lucky owners of the now sold-out event will be able to enjoy Bad Wolf and The Parting of the Ways!

The re-arranged event enables producer Phil Collinson, visual effects genius Dave Houghton, story director Joe Ahearne and actor Bruno Langley (he appeared as “companion who couldn’t” Adam in Dalek and The Long Game) to be gathered on stage. Perhaps Ahearne’s appearance might remind BBC Wales that he’s still working…

While Russell T Davies, Billie Piper and Christopher Eccleston might all have been high on everyone’s list of panel members for this particular screening, it was never going to happen, was it?

(Via Radio Times)

The post Guests Announced for Ninth Doctor BFI Screening appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Kasterborous Magazine in Print!

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.

Since we first started working on Kasterborous Magazine many, many months ago, our Doctor Who spinoff magazine has grown beyond its original design into what we can only describe as an uncontrollable beast. But uncontrollable in a nice way.

Although we had intended to publish in print initially, it soon transpired that a pre-order system wouldn’t enable us to find the funding we needed (even with Kasterborous advertising revenue factored in)for an independently produced magazine, which is why we temporarily announced a digital-only release. The first release in PDF form has done well, selling around 100 copies, and today we can finally announced the availability of our print version!

 

In case you forgot (or you’re new to Kasterborous Magazine) here is the complete list of contents for issue 1:

Elton Townend-Jones’ Enlightenment – how should Doctor Who’s 50th be celebrated?
Never a Doctored Word with the Valeyard– the Doctor’s alter ego sets the world to rights.
Interview: Illustrator Paul Hanley – popular artist reveals his inspirations and plans.
The Shape of… The TARDIS – the real star of Doctor Who, the iconic time machine.
Crash of Elysium – Tom Macrae discusses his audacious live Doctor Who play.
My Mate John IS the Doctor! – John Guilor, the voice of the First Doctor, interviewed.
All Monsters Great and Small – Phil Bates meets Matt Smith at the Doctor WhoExperience.
In the Shed: With a Dalek Builder! – want to build your own Dalek? Gareth Mugridge is the man to ask!
The History of Doctor Who Fandom – kicking off an in-depth look at organized fandom.
Doctor Who Takes Manhattan – we speak to Matt Smith & Karen Gillan in New York!
The Masque Revisited – 38 years later, a trip to Portmeirion revisits The Masque of Mandragora.

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You can now order the print version Kasterborous Magazine in the Kasterborous Store, for a special low price of just £4.99 (plus shipping – £2.99 within the UK, £4.99 rest of the world) if purchased before noon on Friday, August 16th.

 

The post Kasterborous Magazine in Print! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

See the First Doctor’s TARDIS Console Constructed!

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’ve already told you how the replica of the original TARDIS console is moving to the Doctor Who Experience this summer, fresh from an appearance at Paris Comic Con and its starring role in Mark Gatiss’ 50th anniversary biopic An Adventure in Space and Time – and below you can see just how the beautiful rebuild was put together, complete with time rotor and roundel-heavy console room!

I don’t know about you, but I REALLY want to touch it. I wonder how many people will attempt to climb over those rails?

The post See the First Doctor’s TARDIS Console Constructed! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Eighth Doctor 50th Anniversary eBook: Spore

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.

Rock guitarist, former graphic designer and best-selling author of the TimeRiders series, Alex Scarrow has been confirmed as the author of Spore, the eighth eBook in the exclusive Doctor Who short fiction series from Puffin.

Here he is to explain more…

Set in a small town in the Nevada desert, an alien pathogen has reduced the entire population to a seething mass of black slime. When the Eighth Doctor arrives, he realises this latest threat to humanity is horrifyingly familiar – it is a virus which almost annihilated his entire race, the Time Lords.

Alex Scarrow commented:

“I am squeeing like an over-sugared toddler at the thought of being part of this project. Doctor Who is an export this country can be proud of. We OWN time travel. My small part in this project was to breathe life back into the least known, Eighth Doctor, played by Paul McGann. I chose him because I felt I had the most room to manoeuvre, to explore a lesser known Doctor and add flesh to his character. In my story entitled Spore, we’re getting a particularly grisly tale of an intelligent virus that liquifies and absorbs any creature it infects. All in all… quite gross – liquified people an’ all.”

Spore is the eighth in the series of eBooks to be released on the 23rd of every month leading up to the anniversary in November.

You can pre-order Spore now from Amazon UK for £1.99.

(Thanks to DoctorWho.TV.)

 

The post Eighth Doctor 50th Anniversary eBook: Spore appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Help Build a TARDIS for Charity!

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.

Alan Hoyle is a man on a mission. His aim is to raise £900 through the Kickstarter website to build a replica TARDIS to take around the UK to various events, children’s hospitals, hospices and schools.

In 2012, Alan was one of the lucky few to be selected as an Olympic Torch bearer and since then he has spent his time traveling the length and breadth of the country with the torch, raising money for a variety of charities and visiting terminally ill children.

On his travels one thing became very clear to him.

“Just about everybody wished to have their photograph taken next to the TARDIS, from young to elderly, the TARDIS is a timeless icon which links generations together.”

The design itself is ambitious, not only will it be collapse-able (including doors that will fold in half once detached) but it will have infra-red sensors housed within its signage that will respond to a sonic screwdriver remote control that will active the light as well as the famous de-materialisation sound and a smoke machine. But even that isn’t enough for Alan:

“We also plan to provide young people at each event with a Doctor Who themed ‘goody bag’ including Dalek, TARDIS, Cybermen, K9 and Sontaran shaped biscuits, cakes and chocolates. (Subject to allergies and parents permission).”

The initial target is to have the TARDIS ready for a combined Halloween/Bonfire night event in Alan’s home town in Northumberland, which also fits nicely with the 50th anniversary celebrations.

The campaign runs until September 5th and can be found here.

There are a variety of packages ranging from TARDIS Engineer certificates through to booking the finished TARDIS for an appearance at an event of your choosing.

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