Cinema Limbo: Highlander II

I'm again a guest on the Cinema Limbo podcast, in which Jeremy Phillips looks anew at neglected old films. This time, he inflicted on me Highlander II. 

• Cinema Limbo: Highlander II

We've previously discussed Ryan's Daughter and the 1976 version of King Kong.

And here's me in more positive form on some of amazing non-Bond films starring Sean Connery.

FREE - Santa Benny at the Bottom of the Sea

That splendid lot at Big Finish have a special Christmas present for you all - a free download of Dame Lisa Bowerman reading my new short story, "Santa Benny at the Bottom of the Sea". Merry Christmas!

• Free download of Santa Benny at the Bottom of the Sea

Blurb as follows:

'It will, I admit, be something of a challenge. But you thrive on challenges. And you have experience in communing with psychic populations.'
'So have you, Brax.' 
'A little, yes. Bernice, this is important. And very regrettably, I don't fit the suit.'

Deep under the sea, Nessa, Freng and Strong are trying very hard to be nice. Because if they are naughty, then Santa won’t come and give them presents. And they do want presents very much. But what does Santa really want from them? And what does being nice *really* involve..?

This story comes from Bernice Summerfield: The Christmas Collection, and is offered free for a limited time only, December 2020.

Happy Times and Places

Waaah!

I'm Toby Hadoke's guest on the Happy Times and Places podcast this week. At my bidding, Toby watches / listens to the 1967 Doctor Who story The Evil of the Daleks and shares the ideas inside his brain. These include which actors dated who, and how good director Derek Martinus was in his casting. Toby also has to guess my favourite things from each of the seven episodes.

You may like to now that I wrote a book about The Evil of the Daleks, and we recreated the sets of episode 1 for Doctor Who Magazine's recent production design special.

Doctor Who Magazine 559

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine is full of festive treats. Rhys Williams, Gavin Rymill and I have attempted to recreate the studio sets of missing 1965 Christmas special The Feast of Steven by exhaustively picking over photographs and production paperwork, and interviewing production assistant Michael E Briant and fans Jeremy Bentham, Ian McLachlan and Marc Platt who watched it go out. Some archive interviews and Ian Levine's diaries also came into play. It has been quite the endeavour...

(Inevitably, the day the issue is released, a new photograph turns up with some additional clues, including traces of fake snow. But anyway...)

There's also the second part of my feature on David Whitaker's contributions to the early history of the Daleks.