Christian Cawley's Blog, page 374

David Bradley on Researching Hartnell [VIDEO]

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.

David Bradley has chatted recently about his upcoming role as William Hartnell in An Adventure in Space and Time.

The prolific actor, who recently appeared in a heart-breaking role in Broadchurch, told SFX he studied Hartnell in order to do him justice in the Mark Gatiss-penned biopic, including 1960s Doctor Who:

“I did watch a lot of episodes and a lot of his earlier films as well to acquaint myself with him, but, as you say, it’s the essence and the spirit of the man more than an accurate… impersonation. I respected him as an actor as well as Doctor Who.

 

When Doctor Who came along, I think he was initially reluctant, as you see in Mark’s beautifully-written script; he was reluctant to be involved with something that was children’s television. He was initially horrified at the thought that he was a British character actor, who had done all these movies and had great reviews for them. He was reluctant to actually do it, but once he started, he realised the potential for him to have some fun, and to expand the character with all the eccentricity and humour that’s there.”

Bradley recalls watching the debut serials of everyone’s favourite show:

“It kind of all started when I was living up in York, my home town, and I remember seeing the early episodes and being captivated by the Daleks, like everyone else was!”

An Adventure in Space and Time tells the story of Doctor Who’s early days, and sees Hide’s Jessica Raine as Verity Lambert, Frontios’ Jeff Rawle as associate producer, Mervyn Pinfield, and Nicholas Briggs as Peter Hawkins, voice of the Daleks and Cybermen. Bradley is a Who alumni too, having played Solomon in last year’s Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, as well as voicing the Shansheeth in The Sarah Jane Adventures story, Death of the Doctor.

Bradley says he’s always watched Who, though not as religiously as us hardcore Whovians:

“I watched it quite a bit when Patrick Troughton played it, then I got to work with him on another series called A Family at War for Granada and then my oldest mate from drama school was living with Louise Jameson, who played Princess Leela later – the Fourth Doctor I think it was -  so we watched her and Tom [Baker] quite a lot because of my friendship with Louise. So I’ve kind of kept in touch with it.”

Troughton appears in An Adventure in Space and Time, played by Reece Shearsmith, who wrote and starred in The League of Gentlemen with Gatiss.

The interview (below) is well worth a watch – and even reveals that Bradley’s favourite Doctor is Matt Smith! An Adventure in Space and Time is set to hit TV screens nationwide in November.

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Arthur’s White Queen, Karen’s Head

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.

Some actors or actresses from the world of Doctor Who end up rarely being seen in important roles or movies once they’ve finished their time on the show. Not every one of course but still quite a few.

Two such people who have been seeing a huge amount of success since they left however, are Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan. They’ve had television appearances, theatre gigs and even roles in films and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down for the pair either.

Darvill will be seen in BBC One’s historical serial The White Queen as the Duke of Buckingham, where he had to learn to ride a horse for the role or, as the actor puts it himself:

Well, ‘learn’ is a little too strong. I had an hour’s lesson the day before filming.

Catch Arthur in The White Queen next Sunday at 9pm.

Meanwhile, Scottish beauty Karen Gillan caused a bit of an uproar at comic-con recently when she revealed her newly shaved head as she prepares to start filming for the 2014 Marvel Studios film Guardians of the Galaxy. Gillan will be playing the space pirate Nebula in the film, we can only presume that the director saw her in 2011’s Curse of the Black Spot and made his decision for casting her based on that!

Some fans were not happy regarding her new, and temporary we might add, hairdo and ended up sending the director of the film, James Gunn, some very rude things indeed, something that he has now got a bit cross about:

If you are sending me hate messages about making @KarenGillan2 shave her head, you might consider the overall state of your life.

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) July 24, 2013

It’s only a shaved head people!

Guardians of the Galaxy will be in cinemas from 2014 and will tie into The Avengers: Age of Ultron…. I wonder if we will see Gillan in that as well?

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Paul Cornell Scripts IDW’s 50th Anniversary Special!

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.

IDW Publishing and BBC Worldwide will conclude their joint celebration of the Doctor’s 50th anniversary by blasting the Eleventh Doctor into a strange, perplexing, utterly exasperating new universe…ours.

In this special one-shot story, a strange force flings the TARDIS and the Doctor into our realm! Once here, the Doctor encounters a 10-year-old girl who happens to be a huge fan of the Doctor Who TV show. The Doctor grapples with being a fictional character as well as and a monster lurking at the girl’s school on the way to coming face-to-face with the actor who portrays him, Matt Smith!

What’s more this special issue will be written by fan-favourite Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell and features art by Jimmy Broxton.

The issue draws to a close both the 50th anniversary run which started with writer Andy Diggle, and the new Doctor Who: Prisoners of Time extended maxi-series that spotlighted all eleven Doctors and – IDW’s licence with BBC Worldwide.

Soumya Sriraman, Executive Vice President Home Entertainment and Licensing, commented:

“IDW is a great partner and we’re very proud of the comics that we have created and released together. By extending our partnership, we are able to provide Doctor Who fans with more than 20 additional titles in celebration of the 50th Anniversary.”

Meanwhile Chris Ryall, IDW’s Chief Creative Officer/Editor-in-Chief added:

“We’ve been extremely proud to be the American home to new Doctor Who comics these last six years,” said. “We feel like we’ve said a great many things with our comics—so it now feels like a good time to let Doctor Who comics regenerate along with the coming new Doctor on the TV series.”

BBC Worldwide will announce the plans for 2014 in the next coming weeks.

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What Do You Think of the Twelfth Doctor Audition Scripts?

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 latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine features – as ever – a Production Notes column by Steven Moffat, in which the man in charge of our favourite show teases us with some “Twelfth Doctor audition scripts”.

All very well, you might think – but why did we call them “Twelfth Doctor audition scripts” as opposed to Twelfth Doctor audition scripts?

Well, have a read of this sample…

THE DOCTOR: Right then, eyesight. Not bad, bit blue. Ears – not pointy, right way up, more or less level. Face – well I’ve got one. Oh, no – French!

CLARA: French.

THE DOCTOR: I’ve deleted French! Plus all cookery skills, and the breast stroke. And hopping. Never mind hopping, who needs to hop. Ohh, the kidneys are interesting. Never had that before – interesting kidneys.

CLARA: Are you all right?

THE DOCTOR: I don’t know, do I look all right?

CLARA: I don’t know.

THE DOCTOR: How’s the face? Seems all right from the inside. Nice action, responsive. Bit less heft on the chin. How is it?

CLARA: It’s… okay.

THE DOCTOR: Okay?

CLARA: It’s a bit… you know.

THE DOCTOR: No I don’t, I haven’t seen it yet.

CLARA: Maybe it’s just new.

THE DOCTOR: Have you changed height?

CLARA: No.

THE DOCTOR: You sure?

CLARA: It’s you, your height, you’re the one who’s changed.

THE DOCTOR: And look at your nose.

CLARA: What about my nose?

THE DOCTOR: It was really cute, I loved your nose, you should’ve kept it.

CLARA: I did, it’s the same nose, it’s the same all of me. You’re the one who’s… regenerated, whatever you call it.

THE DOCTOR: Are you wearing a smell?

CLARA: Do you mean perfume?

THE DOCTOR: Yes, I suppose it could be perfume.

CLARA: You’ve always liked that perfume, you said so.

THE DOCTOR: No I didn’t, that was the Doctor.

CLARA: You’re the Doctor.

THE DOCTOR: Yes, I suppose I am. That’s going to take a bit of getting used to.

CLARA: Yeah, it really is.

Now, I don’t know about you, but that extract from Doctor Who Magazine 463 tells me very little about the Twelfth Doctor…

…and a lot about the Eleventh Doctor. Whether or not you might be able to envisage an older man or even a woman outputting that dialogue is neither here nor there; it’s not even suitable for David Tennant’s Doctor.

It is Matt Smith’s dialogue. Dialogue that should really be quite different coming from the hand of one Steven Moffat and being intended to characterise a brand new Doctor. A different person to the last – not the same.

So what is going on? What is this above? Would the Moff go to the lengths of not sharing a genuine audition script? I doubt it, as Production Notes itself is probably quite a chore for the man who is famously short of time when producing and writing Doctor Who.

The worse-case scenario, of course, is that Moffat hasn’t got a clue who the Twelfth Doctor is. Not the actor, of course, but the character. This alone makes you wonder whether the show is going to take a new direction or carry on as it has since 2010…

What do you think?

The post What Do You Think of the Twelfth Doctor Audition Scripts? appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who: Night of the Whisper

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.

The 50th anniversary Destiny of the Doctor saga reaches the Ninth Doctor with Night of the Whisper – an audiobook adventure written by Cavan Scott and Mark Wright and read by Nicholas Briggs and John Schwab and produced by Big Finish.

It’s the 23rd Century and New Vegas – a sprawling city huddled beneath an artificial atmospheric bubble on a distant moon – is thronging with pleasure seekers taking in a show or betting it all on a throw of the dice.

 

But beneath the glitz and glamour, organised crime rules the streets.

 

Whilst Rose Tyler works as a waitress in the Full Moon nightclub, Jack Harkness poses as a reporter for the Daily Galaxy. Meanwhile, the Doctor is helping the police department with their investigation into The Whisper, a strange vigilante that has been terrorising the city’s underworld. But the Doctor is also on a mission of his own – to save Police Chief McNeil’s life at all costs.

Night of the Whisper, directed by John Ainsworth, is available to pre-order now from Amazon for release in September for £8.16 on CD.

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The Fourth Doctor Time Capsule Unboxing [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.

One of the most curious releases from BBC Worldwide for the 50th anniversary is the Fourth Doctor Time Capsule, a collection of toys, video and audio that showcases the seven-year incarnation played by Tom Baker.

We’ll have a review for you soon of the DVD (Terror of the Zygons) and the special interview with the man himself, but if you’re more interested in the full contents of the box (a limited run of 5000, also containing art cards of the Doctor’s companions, a sonic screwdriver, the audio reading of Genesis of the Daleks, a post-regenerative figure of the Fourth Doctor, the novel Tomb of Valdemar by Simon Messingham and a letter from Tom Baker) then just click “play” below to see a full unboxing!

Available from July 29th, the The Fourth Doctor Time Capsule can be ordered from Amazon now for £55.99!

The post The Fourth Doctor Time Capsule Unboxing [VIDEO] appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

We Breakdown Moffat’s “Five Hints”

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.

Of all of the conversations at last week’s San Diego Comic-Con International, Digital Spy’s chat with Steven Moffat promised to be the most interesting, promoted as it was as some sort of “loose lipped confession” about the future of Doctor Who.

What absolute twaddle.

Instead, it’s the same old lies and obfuscation that you would expect, with the massive website (famously shy of attributing links to its sources in many cases) giving the impression that the words spoken by Moffat in the video below are brand new.

They’re not.

We’ve put together this breakdown of “Steven Moffat’s 5 hints about the 12th Doctor” both to let you view the video and to demonstrate how the Moff continues to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes…

1. The search has barely begun for the 12th Doctor…

Says Steven Moffat:

You don’t really want to be doing [searching for a new Doctor] while the media furore is going on. You kind of want to sit tight while that’s going on and think, ‘Alright, we’ll get to it in a bit!’

Says Kasterborous: utter tripe. Even if Moffat didn’t have a reputation as a fibber, we wouldn’t believe this. The fact is, the search started months ago…

2. Older Doctors *are* being considered…

Says Steven Moffat:

We’ve never not considered an older Doctor. It is completely on all the lists we make – there are absolutely older Doctors.

Says Kasterborous: Other than slightly contradicting himself on the previous point, this is good news. The idea that Doctor Who is physically demanding on the main actor even supports the idea of casting an older Doctor alongside a handy, young male companion (or perhaps a female duo, or even a Silurian and a woman…) who can take all of the action stuff on. But then, let’s be honest: Jon Pertwee was 50 when he started shooting his first scenes as the Doctor in 1969 – and he was the most action-oriented Doctor of them all!

3. Vastra, Jenny and Strax will be back…

Says Steven Moffat:

Vastra, Jenny and Strax are all enormously popular characters, and we’ve got Clara still continuing, [that] allows us to do [the regeneration] in a very different way from the way that we did it in ‘The Eleventh Hour’.

Says Kasterborous: perhaps this will be more along the lines of the Tenth Doctor’s “failed” regeneration from The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End?

4. The new Doctor could be very different indeed…

Says Steven Moffat:

You can push that [new] Doctor a bit further, maybe, if you’ve got a familiar world around him.

Says Kasterborous: don’t expect a woman. On the other hand, don’t overlook a Doctor-lite episode, perhaps similar to The Christmas Invasion…

5. Doctor Who Series 8 is well underway…

Says Steven Moffat:

The scripts [are] coming in, we know what we’re going to do and how it’s going to end, and what it’s building to.

Says Kasterborous: this is nothing new – we’ve already heard that Chris Chibnall has been involved at some stage, and planning for the series has been going on for months.

All in all, we’ve really learned nothing beyond what Moffat has in mind for the regeneration episode…

The post We Breakdown Moffat’s “Five Hints” appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

New Paradigm Dalek Cake!

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.

Sure a slice of cake can exterminate your diet but this is one Doctor Who cake to die for.

Imaginative Icing – a Wedding or celebration cake company that specialise in high quality, made to order cakes with a difference – have out done themselves with this perfectly sculpted New Paradigm Dalek cake.

While the jury might still be out on the actual design of the new paradigm but what can’t be denied is that the change of design seems tailor made for cake.

Firstly, they are taller and wider which means more cake (there’s only one thing better than cake and that’s more cake) and secondly, the single colour casing offers the chance to ice up an entire fleet of multi-coloured cakes (perhaps ones with little pieces of Jammie Dodger in the sponge?)

Anyway the whole idea of Doctor Who cakes got us thinking: Which Doctor Who characters would you like to see immortalised in sponge? Would you care for a slice of Alpha Centuari? Perhaps you’d like to pick the icing off a Sontaran? Or how about Cybermite cupcakes?

Check it out at www.imaginativeicing.co.uk, based in York.

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Daleks’ Master Plan 9: Golden Death

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 Saturday evening, so it must mean a new instalment of Doctor Who here on Kasterborous, as we continue our superb adaptation of Terry Nation’s The Daleks’ Master Plan as part of our 50th anniversary celebrations.

We’ve had an awesome response to Rick Lundeen’s expert editing of the dialogue and plot and marvellous artwork – so much so that you’ll be intrigued to see it presented in a slightly different way soon, we think.

This week in Golden Death, the Doctor, Sara and and Steven are in Ancient Egypt – along with the Meddling Monk and the Daleks!

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The PDF version of Golden Death can now be downloaded from the Kasterborous Store.

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Nick Briggs in Animation Short!

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.

One filmmaker looking to impress the judges in this year’s Virgin Media Shorts competition is Alex Mallinson, whose short film entitled The Story Garden is not only a well-crafted, often manic, percussive look at the inhabitants of a suburban garden, but it’s also teaming with Doctor Who-related talent.

Lending their considerable skills to the film are Big Finish’s Nicholas Briggs who makes a small cameo as a continuity announcer, Ayesha Antoine, who played Ruth in the Bernice Summerfield plays, and BF musical maestro Jamie Robertson.

Now in its sixth year, Virgin Media Shorts is the biggest short film competition in the UK. The competition offers filmmakers of all shapes and sizes the chance to win £30,000 to fund their next film and mentoring from the prestigious BFI.

The competition is now closed and while the judges (who include This is England and Dead Man’s Shoes director Shane Meadows) whittled down the thousands of entries to a shortlist of twelve, you can have your say by nominating one film for the ‘lucky 13’ shortlist entry by discussing your favourite on Twitter using the hashtag #VMShortsVote.

So if you enjoyed Alex’s film why not tweet about it using the phrase using the phrase ‘#VMShortsVote The Story Garden’ and help a fellow Whovian raise the profile of his film!

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