Christian Cawley's Blog, page 83

Top of the Colins Chart Run Down [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.

Colin Baker’s disillusionment with polls that imply a “least favourite” has been well-reported on in the past few days, and I would like to think that we’ve been pretty supportive of his feelings on this (whether we agree or not, it is a situation worthy of consideration and discussion).

Indeed, we’ve always been fans of the Sixth Doctor, with our recent post by Nick May, “A Colourful Past“, more or less echoing the feelings of thee entire Kasterborous team. For more support for Mr Baker, don’t miss this week’s podKast, when we again come down in favour and support of the actor with regards to how he is – or feels he is – “classified” by narrowminded, minor corners (albeit with bloody loud moiths) of fandom.

However in the interests of balance, we would like to share with you this rather smashing light satire, a YouTube video which perhaps implies that we’ve come to the end of this debate.

After all, polls are just popularity contests. Popularity doesn’t reflect passion, or quality, or longevity, three qualities that I think we can all agree are possessed by Colin Baker, the one and only Sixth Doctor.

The post Top of the Colins Chart Run Down [VIDEO appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

The Eighth Doctor’s Sontaran Ordeal Casting Announced

David Power 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.

More casting announcements have surfaced about the Eighth Doctor’s segment of the upcoming Classic Doctors, New Monsters boxset from Big Finish.

The Sontaran Ordeal, by The First Sontarans writer Andrew Smith, will feature the Eighth Doctor combatting the Ninth Sontaran Battle Fleet, previously seen in 1985’s The Two Doctors.

The leader of the bloodthirsty fleet eager to participate in The Last Great Time War will be played by Sontaran familiar Dan Starkey, and in an announcement no-one could’ve predicted he’ll be reprising his role as Jask from 2010’s The End of Time Part 2.

Producer David Richardson said:

“I love the Sontarans, so I relished the opportunity to tell a story with the New Series batch of the clones, who are eager to become part of the Time War, while the Doctor desperately attempts to help the innocents caught up in its devastating effects.”

Accompanying Dan is another Sontaran familiar Christopher Ryan, this time playing General Stenk (possibly the inventor of the Sontaran’s Stenk 11 pistol from the Torchwood novel The Undertaker’s Gift? Start your fan-theories now!), Sean Connolly as Ensign Snipe, and Blake’s 7 regular Josette Simon as Sarana Teel.

Director Barnaby Edwards said:

“It’s a tribute to the strength of Andrew’s script that we got such an impressive cast. It was great to see Dan and Chris reunited. And Josette Simon and Paul McGann worked so well together they were asking for their own spinoff series!”

Coming out in 2016, The Sontaran Ordeal will accompany other adventures featuring Weeping Angels, Judoon and Sycorax in the Classic Doctors, New Monsters boxset.

The post The Eighth Doctor’s Sontaran Ordeal Casting Announced appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

The Wedding of River Song, Rome Style [NEWS BLAST]

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.

Today’s News Blast is very much centred on a much-loved era of the show: the Eleventh Doctor’s tenure!

I’m sure that pleases many Kasterborous readers, as it does me, so let’s get stuck in already…

Rome: A Romantic Destination for Romantic Romances

River Song got married to the Doctor on top of a pyramid, called Area 52, full of the Silence, in an alternative timeline. Alex Kingston, meanwhile, married Jonathan Stamp, in Rome, surrounded by loved ones. There probably aren’t too many parallels, though in fairness, if the Silence attended Alex’s ceremony, we’d never know.

Held at the All Saints Anglican Church on Saturday 18th July, Alex married her long-time partner, , a TV producer who rather appropriately produced the BBC drama, Rome. The bridesmaids included Alex’s 14 year old daughter, Salome, and the pair were serenaded by a violinist on the way to their reception.

Why not head over to the Daily Fail to see one or two bitter comments about her choice to wear a green dress?

Congratulations to Alex and Jonathan, from all of us at Kasterborous!

Two other famous people have cropped up in Rome and in their best effort to make something of nothing, the Daily Mail posted photos of Matt Smith and his girlfriend (and Cinderella star) Lily James under the headline “NO, REALLY, THIS IS NEWS.” Okay, they didn’t really. But apparently the couple have enjoyed a ‘romantic’ weekend. The paper has this startling insight:

“Showing off his strength, Matt hoisted their bags into the car’s boot as Lily watched on.

“However, the TV star didn’t appear to quite have control of the situation as a couple of water bottles sprang out from one of the rucksacks, falling to the cobbled street.”

Journalism, my friends. Journalism.

One might suggest that Matt was in Rome to attend Alex’s wedding, but I’d hate to throw any assumptions into this obviously-unbiased sect of the Internet.

Pride ‘n’ Prejudice ‘n’ the SDCC

Matt Smith was also at the San Diego Comic Con on the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies panel. Matt plays Mr Collins, opposite Douglas Booth, Charles Dance, and Sam Riley – most of whom were already Matt’s friends!

Interestingly, Lily James is also in it, and Matt jokes:

“Lily, you know, I’d never met before, and the fact she was doing it, ‘I thought, oh yeah, there’s something quite interesting about that.’ I get to propose to her, she gets to say no …”

And he does quite a bit of improvisation in the film too! He says it’s becoming quite a trait:

“I really like that sort of acting, but some directors don’t like it. Burr [Steers] was really wonderful because he gave me actual freedom, and it was cool. A lot of the improv’s have actually snuck in, which I was really pleased about… I like that, if you can improvise around the structure of a scene, and it does have that purpose. I think it’s quite an interesting way of working.”

While admitting that he’s “desperate” to work with Steven Moffat again, he further said:

“I do miss Doctor Who. I miss the people involved in making it, but we passed it over to Peter Capaldi who’s just a joy and a brilliant Doctor.”

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies comes to cinemas next year.

Hyding Behind The Sofa

Speaking of Mr Moff, there’s a fascinating look at how Steven’s 2007 show, Jekyll was essentially a prelude to his showrunning Doctor Who and Sherlock.

The six-episode series starred James Nesbitt as Dr Tom Jackman, descendant of the original Dr Jekyll, who Louisa Mellor describes as a classic Moffat villain, “dangerous, bananas, and sexy.” She is obviously trying to parallel Jackman with Missy, who proclaims herself bananas, as well as Jim Moriarty – both of whom were of course created by different people (Arthur Conan Doyle for Moriarty, and numerous individuals but notably Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks for the Master), yet their Moffat interpretations are pretty wild, thanks to regeneration, and Sherlock‘s different canon.

With small spoilers, Mellor goes on to point out:

“Later in Jekyll, Hyde’s superpowers make him cross over not with Moriarty, but Sherlock himself. Emerging from a sci-fi doohickey chamber as an even stronger Hyde, Nesbitt’s character only has to sniff a bystander to deduce their entire life in a quick-fire monologue, from their marriage to pets, diet and cancer prognosis.”

And then dryly adds, “The script is full of ‘Honey’ and ‘Sweetie’, as befits a writer whose dialogue is ninety per cent chat-up line.”

Jekyll also starred Michelle Ryan, before her association with Doctor Who, perhaps trying to shed her EastEnders persona, alongside Meera Syal (The Hungry Earth/ Cold Blood) and Fenella Woolgar (The Unicorn and the Wasp), the latter two of whom mirror Vastra and Jenny.

It really is a great examination of how recent Who is a refinement of Jekyll, including meta-storytelling, Victoriana, and general slapping. Check it out, and then maybe grab Jekyll on DVD.

Riptorius Pondicus?

And finally to Arthur Darvill, who, in light of his time-travelling escapades in DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, says he’s not majorly into sci-fi…

“I’m not a massive, massive fan of it. If I were, I wouldn’t be able to do it, if that makes sense? What I like about the way these science fiction shows are going — and I suppose it’s always been historically like this — is that the stakes are really high, and the people who write them really, really care about them. There’s a whole community. You get to tell stories about humanity and about what it is to be a human being, what it is to be a person, and good and evil. That’s what’s exciting to me.”

Darvill plays Rip Hunter, and he says he’s looking forward to his toy-form, for one primary reason:

“I can make my Doctor Who action figure and my Legends of Tomorrow figure fight each other. That would be quite amazing.”

Rory would win.

The show airs next year, and you can find out more in this short but sweet interview.

And that’s all for today. But there are exciting times ahead for both Doctor Who and these alumni.

(And kudos to whoever first notes that the featured image isn’t from The Wedding of River Song.)

The post The Wedding of River Song, Rome Style [NEWS BLAST] appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who Series 8 Finally Makes it to Netflix!

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.

Celebrate, Doctor Who fans – Series 8 is heading to Netflix in August!

It might have been a long time coming – especially since we had the saga of indecision over whether the show would continue on Netflix – but we can finally tell you that the Series 8 will be added on August 8th 2015, where it will join a raft of other TV shows and movies, as Netflix performs one of its regular library updates. This means that the 12 part run from Deep Breath through to Dark Water/Death in Heaven, with instant classics like Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline on the way, will be available on demand through your PC/phone/games console/smart TV/dedicated streaming device.

So if you have been dying for Series 8 to come along, you should be able to start watching and marathon well before Doctor Who Series 9 hits BBC One and BBC America on September 19th!

The post Doctor Who Series 8 Finally Makes it to Netflix! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Who or What Is Stalking the Doctor in Series 9?

Jeremy Remy is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Doctor Who news is still coming out of the recently wrapped up San Diego Comic-Con, where Peter Capaldi, Michelle Gomez and Steven Moffat all sat with TV Line’s Michael Ausiello to answer a few questions about Series 9 of the series. Between the group fielding the typical questions about the relationship between the Doctor and his companion, the alien nature of the Doctor and the inevitable return of Missy, Capaldi was asked if there was a special moment in the new season that would resonate with fans. His answer to this question was twofold, and has caused an eruption of fan speculation:

I think the Doctor has realized that, even at two and a half thousand years of age, life is short. And he’s in a great position and he should enjoy it. But, at the same time, there’s something stalking him that will make life less pleasant for him.

Capaldi goes on to add that the Twelfth Doctor will be taking on a couple of classic monsters, “and one in particular… which will make you have to think carefully about regeneration.”

While it’s unclear whether these statements are referring to the same situation, it hasn’t stopped fans on Reddit from putting forward contenders for the classic monster stalking the Doctor. Theories have ranged from unlikely to suspected and known contenders (with the potential of greater significance than previously anticipated).

The unlikely include the Watcher—a mid-regeneration manifestation of the Doctor, who haunted the Fourth Doctor in Logopolis and the Fifth Doctor in the Big Finish audio, Circular Time, as a spectral omen of death—and the Valeyard—an amalgamation of the darker side of the Doctor’s nature from between his twelfth and final incarnation. The Valeyard has been a fan favorite for a return since a bearded meta-crisis Doctor with an evil twist appeared to pop up in IDW Comic’s The Forgotten. The mention of his name in The Name of the Doctor and revival of the character in Big Finish’s Trial of the Valeyard have only served to stoke the flames.

The suspected return monster is Davros—Kaled scientist and creator of the Daleks. The appearance of what seemed to be a Skaro city in the Series 9 trailer, and rumors of a pre-Dalek Skaro in The Magician’s Apprentice, have fans considering the Doctor’s previous failure to eliminate the Daleks’ creation in Genesis of the Daleks. The other suspected return is Morbius, based on the appearance of a disfigured cloaked man in the trailer, and the verified casting of Clare Higgins (who previously played one of the Sisterhood of Karn in The Night of the Doctor). Morbius was a renegade Time Lord who extended his life past his regenerations through taking a body of scavenged parts, and attempted to obtain the Sisterhood’s Elixir of Life in The Brain of Morbius.

The known return monster is a Zygon—one of the orange, sucker-covered race from the planet Zygor, previously seen in The Day of the Doctor. Likely linked to the return of Osgood, fans speculate the shapeshifting nature of these aliens may also have ties to the similarity in appearance between the Twelfth Doctor, Lucius Caecilius (from Fires of Pompeii), and John Frobisher (from Torchwood: Children of Earth)—each played by Peter Capaldi.

All of this remains fan theorizing, and until Doctor Who returns to our screens on 19 September, we won’t really know. Still, it’s fun to guess. What or who do you think is stalking the Doctor? What classic monster could cause you to question regeneration?

The post Who or What Is Stalking the Doctor in Series 9? appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Keep Up With LEGO Dimensions on Instagram!

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.

Coming September 27th 2015, LEGO Dimensions features a big chunk of Doctor Who content as well as a dedicated Time Lord expansion pack. The LEGO Dimensions Instagram account has been regularly updating fans about what to expect, with a collection of screen shots and photos from the game’s launch.

If you’ve missed them, now is the time to catch up. Here’s a collection of some of the more interesting photos in the feed.

When the #LEGO multiverse is under attack, alliances will be formed and a new adventure will begin. Pre-order #LEGODimensions at the link in our description and get ready to #BreakTheRules A photo posted by LEGO Dimensions (@legodimensions) on Jul 12, 2015 at 2:22pm PDT

There’s big and then there’s Dalek Emperor big. #LEGODimensions #BreakTheRules #DoctorWho A photo posted by LEGO Dimensions (@legodimensions) on Jul 12, 2015 at 10:28am PDT

From one Doctor to another… #BreakTheRules #LEGODimensions #DoctorWho

A photo posted by LEGO Dimensions (@legodimensions) on Jul 11, 2015 at 2:37pm PDT

Smash the Cybermen, take on the Daleks, battle the Dalek Emperor and more in #LEGODimensions! #BreakTheRules A photo posted by LEGO Dimensions (@legodimensions) on Jul 10, 2015 at 6:13pm PDT

“There’s a lot of things you need to get across this universe. Warp drive… wormhole refractors… You know the thing you need most of all? You need a hand to hold.” #DrWho #LEGODimensions #BreakTheRules

A photo posted by LEGO Dimensions (@legodimensions) on Jul 11, 2015 at 11:55am PDT

#Repost @jenna_coleman_ ・・・ Peter Pocket @legodimensions #SanDiego #ComicCon2015 #Lego

A photo posted by LEGO Dimensions (@legodimensions) on Jul 9, 2015 at 11:50pm PDT

The Doctor. K-9. Oz. #BreakTheRules A photo posted by LEGO Dimensions (@legodimensions) on Jul 10, 2015 at 11:43am PDT

#DoctorWho minifig from the #LEGODimensions space at the @hardrocksd

A photo posted by LEGO Dimensions (@legodimensions) on Jul 9, 2015 at 3:43pm PDT

Travel across time and space with the Doctor! #DoctorWho #LEGODimensions #BreakTheRules #SDCC A photo posted by LEGO Dimensions (@legodimensions) on Jul 9, 2015 at 12:31pm PDT

Follow @legodimensions on Instagram for all the latest photos. You’ll be able to order the game for around £100, depending upon the retailer. If the price is of concern to you, check our LEGO Dimensions buyer’s guide.

The post Keep Up With LEGO Dimensions on Instagram! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Colin Baker Wants to “Rise above” Sixth Doctor Criticism

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.

As you may have seen, the new Doctor Who Magazine #489 features an interview with sixth incarnation actor Colin Baker, in which he praises Peter Capaldi and bemoans the lack of respect his Doctor receives.

Baker – who we spoke to on the podKast back in 2013 – knows that he has fans. However it is those that (still!) criticise Colin Baker’s time on the show that upset him.

“I know there are some people who rate my Doctor quite highly. It’s just there’s an even greater number of people who don’t rate him at all. And it wounds me. I should be able to rise above it, and pretend I don’t care, but I actually do care.”

I don’t know about you, but having grown up with the Sixth Doctor looming large every Saturday night, his coat of many colours and his collection of interesting spin-off merchandise (from video games to Choose Your Own Adventure-style books) I can’t really get my head around any criticism of Colin. He never put in a bad performance, and had the character – as it was conceived – from the very beginning. Sure, he was a bit grumpy, but the same can be said of all of the Doctors from time to time.

Speaking of which…

“It was drawn to my attention before I noticed it myself, but a lot of people said, ‘Peter Capaldi is just like your Doctor’. I don’t mean to diminish his performance, because I think he’s superb, and he might be appalled to think he was anything like me, and I would quite respect that. But there are certainly similarities of attitude.”

“I wish people could have understood it in the 1980s as much as they do now. [Capaldi’s Doctor] is grumpy and curmudgeonly and intolerant, and gosh – I should be playing it now. I wasn’t old enough when I did it. I can do intolerant!”

Of course, talk had to turn to the satorial differences between the Sixth and the Twelfth Doctors… “[Capaldi’s] costume is less annoying! I love his style, and I love his character – and it’s kind of like mine. Every six, they get it right!”

Read the full interview and much more besides in the superb new issue of Doctor Who Magazine, out now!

The post Colin Baker Wants to “Rise above” Sixth Doctor Criticism appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Big Finish Reveals Weeping Angels Cast!

Nick Kitchen 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.

Bless my soul! It isn’t a secret but the Weeping Angels remain my favorite monster of both the new and classic series of Doctor Who. Imagine then, how excited I am that these creatures will finally get to menace one of the classic Doctors in the upcoming box set, Doctor Who: Classic Doctors, New Monsters. Big Finish has finally released more details about the cast and the title of the story.

Entitled Fallen Angels, the audio finds the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) facing off with the Angels. Producer David Richardson had this to say:

“The Weeping Angels have been voted one of the best Doctor Who monsters ever, and it’s easy to see why. They are utterly terrifying – and it’s so thrilling to be able to explore an Angels story with an earlier Doctor.”

And the audio’s director, Barnaby Edwards thinks the story is in the vein of Blink:

“Phil’s ingenious script achieves the impossible and makes a famously visual monster work brilliantly on audio,’ says director Barnaby Edwards. ‘If you liked ‘Blink’, I think you’ll like this – it’s very much a chip off the old block!”

Joining Peter Davison in the audio are Sacha Dhawan, Diane Morgan, Matthew Kelly, Joe Jameson, Dan Starkey (yes, Strax but not playing Strax). The release date is stil TBA but keep an eye out here as we’ll provide more details as they become available. The box set is available for preorder now.

What do you say, dear readers? Are you interested in seeing the Fifth Doctor take on the Weeping Angels? Or is this something you’re planning to pass on? Let us know below

The post Big Finish Reveals Weeping Angels Cast! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who The Companion Chronicles: The First Doctor Volume 1

Peter Shaw 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.

Ahead of the charter renewal, the BBC is under increased scrutiny. Should it stop producing populist programmes? Or maybe there’s a way to make existing Saturday night TV a bit more niche..? For example, singing contest The Voice could become The Voice… Of William Hartnell! – an eager group of wannabes compete to do gruff justice to the first Doc’s dulcet tones. Who can best reproduce the original time traveller’s characterisation, which ranged from cross old gent to kindly grandpops…?

First up, in this box set, it’s Carol Ann Ford. I was somewhat surprised at how very good Carol is as narrator and Susan Who (joke!) in the first play, The Sleeping Blood by Martin Day. I’m not saying she’s a poor actress (she’s not), but I watched Shakedown: Return of The Sontarans back in 1994 and I still have nightmares. And not about Sontarans. The first 20 minutes-or-so of The Sleeping Blood is mostly just Susan exploring the research center, unfolding in that gentle, measured way that many early Hartnell’s do. This is her, alone and afraid without the help of her wise and well-travelled grandfather: think Susan’s terrifying journey to fetch anti radiation gloves… drugs… through the petrified forest on Skaro.

The story is a rare foray into pre-An Unearthly Child territory and it has a very clear moral lesson at the centre: ‘There are never any black and white answers.’ Yes, that’s it. It’s an actual quote from the Doctor in The Sleeping Blood. Is that a lesson a fifteen-year-old girl (or 150-year-old Time Tot) needs to learn? Did they only ever encounter moral certainty back on Gallifrey? The place they stole a time ship and ran away from, and now fear the consequences if they return? The civilisation that has a Death Zone where they invite angry aliens to battle it out to the death? Plus, when both sides are guilty of gruesome murder (as they are in The Sleeping Blood) it’s not that it’s not black and white, nor is it a ‘grey area’, both sides are wrong. It’s black and black.

The Sleeping Blood is an engaging but relentlessly bleak listen. I was aching for Ian Chesterfield… Chesterton to pop up in his Coal Hill School tie and cardigan and do a little dance, or for Barbara to give an ‘it’s all right really’ speech and furnish Susan with a big hug. From this story you get the impression that the ‘spirit of adventure’ really did only start when the two schoolteachers got mildly curious in a junkyard.

So, what are Carol Ann’s chances on The Voice… Of William Hartnell? Umm, her Billy impersonation is quite something to hear. She only delivers one line as Doc-the-first, and I think that was just a bit too many. I can only imagine the reaction of the Director, Lisa Bowerman, when she listened in her cans. ‘Can we try that again Carol?’ ‘And again?’ ‘Once more’ ‘Do you want a listen to a bit of Hartnell speaking?’ ‘It might help’ ‘OK, once more’ ‘Just one more for safety’ ‘And again’ ‘Last one?’ ‘OK, that’ll have to be it’ ‘No, it’s fine, really. We’ll do some technical stuff on it’ ‘No, you sounded great’… All I can say is, if Big Finish got their licensing fingers on some Harry Potter spin-off audios (and wouldn’t that be wizard?) and Toby Jones wasn’t up for voicing Dobby the House Elf, they already have an ideal candidate on their books…

And so we’re transported from pre-season one to mid-season two in The Unwinding World by Ian Potter. The Doctor has ditched his granddaughter (presumably after catching her doing her granddad impressions in the bath: ‘Just go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that you don’t actually think I sound even vaguely like that.. I mean, honestly, hmmm?’) and the time team is now plucky Vicki and (hooray) cosy action man Ian alongside lovely but hard-as-nails-in-a-crisis Barbara.

It’s a much jollier tale with plenty of humour, mostly about doddery old people in a care home – he he! Vicki takes centre stage and Maureen O’Brien (72) is shockingly brilliant at playing the 25th century teenageer. It’s uncanny. I know it’s still her, but it’s 50 years later! Has Maureen got a enchanted tape recording of her voice in her attic that sounds like it’s smoked 40-fags and two bottles of Bells-a-day? (Who said, ‘Oh, you mean it sounds like Katy Manning?’ That’s very naughty. Stop it.) This one ends with a lengthy rambling moralising speech from Vicki and it’s meant to be slightly excruciating (I assume). And it gets nicely subverted in a neat twist-in-the-tale ending. Jolly good.

Despite her impressive vocal skills, O’Brien doesn’t attempt to a Billy impression, in fact the Doctor’s lack of voice is a running joke throughout the play. So, Maureen doesn’t even have the opportunity to face the back-of-the-heads of The Voice… Of William Hartnell coaches. That means Carol Ann (astonishingly) is the front runner so far…

The cover of this box set has the First Doctor front and centre, and it’s called The First Doctor Volume One. So it may be a surprise to casual listeners (not familiar with the Companion Chronicles format) that the white-wigged one is largely absent from the first two tales. He’s confined to his sick bed offstage for most of the first, and is packed off to an old folks home in the second. But we all know that it only took a good sneeze for Billy to set off on an extended sick leave. The result is there are plenty of Hartnell-era stories where the Doctor hardly appears. So much so that, I was expecting David Bradley to nip off for a 20-minute nap in the second half of An Adventure in Space and Time, just for authenticity. But the final two plays in this set, The Founding Fathers and The Locked Room, more than make up for the lack of Doc in the others. In fact they present us with two versions of our favourite doddery Time Lord, the original you might say, and an imperfect copy.

Which brings us to our next contestant, Peter ‘promotional film’ Purves. I’m not (quite) old enough to have enjoyed the Hartnell years on the telly (I rocked up somewhere around Destiny of the Daleks). So, for me and many others, the First Doctor stories are experienced both on a telly set and CD, and the majority of those in the good company of Mr Purves. His vocal tones are inexorably linked to the sound of the early Who for me. So it’s always a pleasure to have Peter as narrator.

And he’s developed a cracking sideline as the voice of mid-to-late era First Doctor. While Willian Russell (sadly not in this boxset) has the grumpy time traveller of Season 1 all sewn up, Purves has the twinkle-in-the-eye granddaddy of later Hartnell down to a tee. It’s very, very good but lacks – I think – the authority and spikiness of the First Doctor a little. While, as I said, it’s an excellent impersonation it does on occasion remind me of two people. The first is Richard Goolden as Zaphod Beeblebrox IV (Zaphod’s deceased great grandfather) in the second Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio series, and that’s mainly because of how old Purves’ Doctor One sounds. The second, and apologies if you read this and can’t get it out of your head when you listen to Purves-as-Doctor from now on (welcome to my world), is Count Arthur Strong. There, I’ve said it. If you’ve no idea who that is, shame on you, but only check it out if you don’t want to spoil Peter’s Hartnell impression.

It’s an engaging enough tale in the celebrity historical mould but it’s a little uneventful and doesn’t really do the job of explaining why the copy of the Doctor is not as upstanding as the original.

The last two tales are a great reward for long-term listeners of the Companion Chronicles range, these linked adventures follow on from writer Simon Guerrier’s earlier stories The War To End All Wars and The First Wave. The War To End… revealed what happened to Steven Taylor following the events of the TV story, The Savages. In that adventure the intrepid space pilot chose to stay on to become the leader of the the Savages and Elders, and keep the peace. What also stayed with Steven was an imperfect copy of the Doctor’s brain and personality. In The Founding Fathers, this Doctor’s extracted essence is kept alive in a jar. It’s a bit of a fussy know-it-all connected to a computer now, reminiscent of Blake 7’s Orac. Steven has come out of sulky exile, accompanied by his granddaughter Sida to tell the not-quite-Doctor off. He does this by relating a story that’s meant to prove that the Doctor-essence is morally flawed and not half the man of the original.

The story he tells to Sida and the not-Doc takes about an hour and concerns an earlier encounter the First Doctor, Vicki and Steven had with Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. It’s an engaging enough tale in the celebrity historical mould but it’s a little uneventful and doesn’t really do the job of explaining why the copy of the Doctor is not as upstanding as the original. It’s a bold writer that gives his character these lines, when Steven completes the story:

Sida: And that’s it? That’s the story?

Steven: You didn’t like it?

Sida: Yeah it was fine. But I don’t understand what it says about the Doctor.

Yes, I agree with Sida. It is an OK story but Steven has to do a speech at the end explaining why it proves the Doc-in-a-jar is flawed, and then tells of an incident when the copy Doctor killed a technician attempting to free himself from the jar. But he could have done that anyway without the lengthy interlude concerning Benjamin Franklin, so it all seems a little unnecessary. And then it becomes clear that the whole story is just an interlude before the main event.

The final tale in the set, The Locked Room, takes up lots of story strands from The Savages and the earlier-mentioned Steven-narrated Companion Chronicles stories by Simon Guerrier, and it also draws on the events of The Tenth Planet. While the play offers a neat and satisfying conclusion to all those strands, it’s a strange choice for this release. My understanding was that the move to Companion Chronicles box sets was partly to offer a jumping-on-point for new listeners. So to have half the stories requiring an in depth knowledge of several prior Companion Chronicles seems counter-productive. And the lack of a recap makes it more excluding still.

But, taken as a concluding chapter to the events of War To End All Wars and The First Wave it does work well. As the title suggests, the characters are forced together and – as a result – there are lengthy discussions about the morality of the situation they find themselves in, but very little action apart from some sparkling dialogue. Casual listeners with only knowledge of the TV series might wonder why Steven and the First Doctor’s final adventure together is a showdown with a Vardan – those tinfoil creatures that crackled unconvincingly in the Fourth Doctor adventure, The Invasion of Time, until some cockney Sontarans piped up.

What The Locked Room offers in abundance is Purves’ remarkable Hartnell impersonation… on the strength of The Founding Fathers and The Locked Room, Purves is the clear winner.

What The Locked Room offers in abundance is Purves’ remarkable Hartnell impersonation (I’ll not mention Count Arthur Strong again as it’s too distracting). It’s a strange choice as a Companion Chronicle because it plays out like a full-cast drama, and surely that’s the territory of Big Finish’s Early Adventures series? This leaves a not very clear distinction between the two.

But on the strength of The Founding Fathers and The Locked Room, Purves is the clear winner of The Voice… Of William Hartnell, my aforementioned suggestion to dumb-up the popular singing contest.

But, what we learnt from the recent Desert Island Discs discovery is that the First Doctor’s voice isn’t the voice of William Hartnell at all. It’s a distinct characterisation, just as David Tennant’s sultry Scottish tones are not those of the Tenth Doctor. Would an actor be prepared to mockney-up and play Doctor 10 in many decades time, if David was sadly no longer with us? John Nathan-Turner is quoted as saying he wouldn’t recast Troughton after the actor’s death, but what was the big difference that meant he was comfortable casting Richard Hurndall as Doctor One? Even Big Finish in the early days said they wouldn’t recast deceased Doctors, now they’ve basically done them all.

In 1963 there was only one actor to play the First Doctor. Since then Frederick Jaeger, Richard Hurndall, David Bradley, William Russell, Peter Purves, John Guilor and even (arguably) Peter Cushing have all given us their take on the original time traveller. If the current rate of growth continues, then in the far future (about the time The Savages is set) the entire population of the universe will at some stage be called upon to star as the First Doctor. And they’ll all be better than Carol Ann Ford.

The post Doctor Who The Companion Chronicles: The First Doctor Volume 1 appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Gareth David-Lloyd Interested in Ianto Jones Revival

Katie Gribble 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.

Torchwood tea boy, Ianto Jones, became a fan favourite from his very first appearance in the series opener, Everything Changes. Since then his sarcastic, cheeky, no nonsense attitude brightened up every episode of Torchwood and parent show Doctor Who.

So when Series 3 of Torchwood, Children of Earth, aired in July 2009, the death of Ianto Jones at the hands (or claws rather) of the 456, whilst cradled in the arms of a weeping Jack, came as a shock and a reality check for the audience. The backlash after the characters death was phenomenal with complaints being sent to the BBC and the shows producers. Six years on, there still remains a shrine to the character in Cardiff Bay where photographs, letters and flowers have appeared on what was used as Torchwood Hub’s back door.

But now, with the announcement that Ianto Jones is returning in the Torchwood Audio dramas set to be released in September 2015, with Ianto returning as of October, lots of discussion has arisen about a possible return to the small screen. The actor who played him, Gareth David-Lloyd, is certainly up for it.

In an interview with the Radio Times, Gareth David-Lloyd stated:

“I’d absolutely come back…I think it’d have to be done in the right way and I’m sure it would be, with all the brilliantly creative people involved. But there was such drama and such uproar at Ianto’s death – I don’t think it could be something that happened too easily. It would have to be a sort of laboured resurrection, a story in itself, rather than just a case of sticking on a resurrection glove and he’s fine again.”

I certainly agree with his perspective. However in Torchwood, the whole coming back to life trick became a constant in terms of story lines with the presence of Mr Indestructable, Jack Harkness,  poor old Suzie and the series 2 story arc with the death, resurrection and death of Dr. Owen Harper. This of course only acknowledges the first two series and ignores the Miracle Day series where it was impossible to die. Defying death is a trait of Torchwood which has cunning ways for it to just happen. I think if Ianto were ever to be brought back canonically after the events of Children of Earth, this whole ethos of life and death seeming so easy and malleable should be called into question, especially with the death of Ianto being so tragic, his character deserves a mind blowing comeback. Don’t just slip on the resurrection glove and be done with it.

What are your thoughts? Should Ianto Jones return? How do you think Jack would react?

The post Gareth David-Lloyd Interested in Ianto Jones Revival appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.