Doctor Who Magazine 551

The super new issue of the official Doctor Who Magazine is out now, and features former show runners Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat interviewing one another, and my wise mate Mark Wright interviewing the series current composer Segun Akinola.

There's also "Contact Has Been Made", in which I spoke to editorial assistant Emily Cook and Strax actor Dan Starkey about all the exciting Who-related stuff going on during lockdown. In fact, there's so much going on it was a struggle to fit it all in - and then no sooner had I delivered the feature than there was more stuff being announced.

Also in this issue, Jamie Lenman reviews Susan's War, delighted by the Robogrons in my The Uncertain Shore. He says the excellent sound design - by Howard Carter - makes the play like "Saving Private Susan", and concludes that it's, "A glorious, if faintly bewildering, runaround." Hooray!

Doctor Who Magazine 550

Issue 550 of the official Doctor Who Magazine is out tomorrow and comes with posters, a cardboard TARDIS control room to make and plenty of other treats. That includes my in-depth interview with director Michael E Briant about The Robots of Death. That story is part of the Season 14 box-set to be released on Blu-ray as soon as the global crisis allows...

What with all that hullabaloo, magazines are facing a thin time so now would be the perfect opportunity to subscribe to this noblest of all titles. Please and thank you.

Also, this afternoon I took part in the Stay-at-Home! Literary Festival, on a panel about writing Doctor Who books alongside esteemed colleagues Una McCormack, Jonathan Morris and Jacqueline Rayner. Jac commissioned me for the very first bit of fiction I ever got paid for, and it was nice to be able to remind and thank her. 

Doctor Who Magazine 549

The new issue of the official Doctor Who Magazine includes a feature I've co-written with Sophie Iles, a preview of the animated version of 1967 story The Faceless Ones.

We spoke to producer/director AnneMarie Walsh, sound restorer and remasterer Mark Ayres, colour artist Adrian Salmon, 2D animator Kate Sullivan and character designer Martin Geraghty.

Celestial Toyroom 502

Issue 502 of Celestial Toyroom, the journal of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society, features a big interview with the authors of various titles in the Black Archive series of books - which analyse individual Doctor Who stories. I'm one of those spoken to, about my study of 1967 story The Evil of the Daleks.

I've also got my name in issue 548 of the official Doctor Who Magazine - out today - with news of the Big Finish audio series Susan's War, for which I've written an episode. Oh, and writer Sophie Iles, who's been writing for the magazine for the last few months, has been kind enough to tweet that I've been secretly mentoring her.

DWM 2020 Yearbook

Doctor Who Magazine
2020 Yearbook

Doctor Who Magazine's 2020 Yearbook is now out, with exclusive access to the cast and crew of the new series plus Nick Setchfield's moving tribute to writer Terrance Dicks, speaking to Terrance's widow Elsa and former editor Brenda Gardner.

I've written two short pieces for the mag, too:

Who-Ray
The producers of the Doctor Who: The Collection Blu-ray box sets discuss the past, present and future of the successful range.

Terry Nation Army
An interview with the researchers behind a series of Dalek documentaries that built a dedicated following on YouTube in 2019.

Doctor Who Magazine 546

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine is out today, with plenty of exciting stuff about the forthcoming new series.

I've also researched the Cinderella pantomime that starred Peter Davison in Tunbridge Wells (1982-83) and Colin Baker in Southampton (1984-85), and the way it overlapped with the production of Doctor Who at the time - even down to dictating the locations used for filming. As well as lots of digging through archives, I spoke to both Jodie Brooke Wilson and Nicola Bryant, who each played the title role, and to Stephen Broome and Andy Ledger who were in the audience. I was also there, for the matinee performance on 5 January 1985, when I was the same age as my son is now.

There are exclusive new photographs - including one from the filming of Logopolis (1981) that is quite my favourite thing. Thanks to Stephen Cranford for providing some of the other archive material (from the collection he inherited from writer/director John Nathan-Turner) and to Daniel Blythe for a fact check. I'm also grateful to Ben Isted at the Assembly Hall Theatre in Tunbridge Wells and Holly Scott at the Mayflower Theatre (formerly the Gaumont) in Southampton.

Doctor Who Magazine 545

Out tomorrow, the new issue of Doctor Who Magazine names the writers and directors of next year's TV series, and details the results of a Twitter poll on the greatest Dalek stories ever. And that's just the start of the splendid things.

At the back, I've reviewed Christopher Eccleston's autobiography, I Love the Bones of You: My Father and the Making of Me (which I read in September). There's also a nice review by Alex Romeo of The Target Storybook - apparently, in my story, first-person narrative is used "to great effect."

Doctor Who Magazine 544

Doctor Who Magazine 544

It's 40 years - and six days - since the first issue of Doctor Who Weekly, which is now Doctor Who Magazine. Issue 544 celebrates this ridiculous milestone with all sorts of goodies, including - hooray! - and index of features and interviews that is really useful for a job I'm doing today.

Also in the issue is a short interview with me about my forthcoming Doctor Who audio story, The Home Guard.

I Love the Bones of You, by Christopher Eccleston

My review of Christopher Eccleston's autobiography will be published in Doctor Who Magazine #544 in just under four weeks' time. As last week's headlines made clear, it's a brave and honest account of his own and his father's struggles with mental illness, told with the intensity Eccleston brings to his acting roles.

I've, obviously, concentrated my review on what he says - and doesn't say - about his time in Doctor Who, but that's a small part of the story. As well as all the revelations about the inside of his head, it's fascinating to read his reasons for turning down roles other actors would beg for - Begbie in the film Trainspotting, Sylar in the TV series Heroes - or to learn what drama and actors inspired him. How strange to think of this iconclastic, bolshie star so bristling with terror when meeting his own heroes, whether actor,  footballer or pop star. He tells us that, having been wary of Doctor Who conventions in the past, he's now embracing fandom.

"It has headled something in me." (p. 167)

And why not - because he's just as much the obsessive, anxious fan as the rest of us.

For a flavour of the book, here's Eccleston's recent appearance at Rose City Comic Con, answering audience questions with honesty and love:

Doctor Who Magazine 543

Doctor Who Magazine #543 is out in shops now, and features my interview with TV and radio presenter Stephen Cranford about his friendship with the late producer John Nathan-Turner.

Nathan-Turner died in 2002, and Stephen inherited his photos, tapes and paperwork relating to Doctor Who, which he's kindly shared with the clever lot working on DVDs and Blu-rays. We've been able to publish many of the photos for the first time.

Doctor Who Magazine 542

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine is out in shops tomorrow. I've written the preview of the Season 23 Blu-ray box set, comprising the 14 episodes of The Trial of a Time Lord (1986). It's Doctor Who's longest ever story, made at a time of great crisis in the show's history. But the new extras I've seen are full of mischief and fun.

For the preview, I spoke to Russell Minton (head of international production consultancy at BBC Studios, and the person in charge of these box sets), Chris Chapman (director of three new documentaries on the set) and Dr Matthew Sweet (interviewer). Matthew tells me that he begins the research for his in-depth interviews on these box sets by immersing himself in "Pixleyana" - a phrase I shall now adopt - and explains why he thinks Bonnie Langford long ago passed into "the realm of the symbolic".

Doctor Who Magazine 541

"Four Doctors... Forty-three episodes... One groundbreaking director". The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine boasts hidden treasures from the archive of director Chistopher Barry. I interviewed fellow director Michael E Briant and writer Marc Platt about their memories of working with him.

Doctor Who Magazine 540

The superb new issue of Doctor Who Magazine is out tomorrow and devoted to Third Doctor actor Jon Pertwee, who was born 100 years ago. There's a lovely interview with his son Sean, and a rediscovered interview with the man himself from the very first Doctor Who convention.

I've compiled a special Time Team in which Beth, Christel, Gerard, Kez and Zainab watch three episodes I chose to show a different side of the Third Doctor. Thrillingly, we were also joined by Katy Manning who played companion Jo Grant.

Gerard, Zainab, Christel, Kez, Katy Manning and me

The issue also includes news of something else I've written:

"The Target Storybook, a new collection of short stories, will be published by BBC Books on 24 October, RRP £16.99. The book promises that each story will 'expand in thrilling ways upon a popular Doctor Who adventure'. Authors include Colin Baker, Steve Cole, Jenny T Colgan, Susie Day, Terrance Dicks, Simon Guerrier, George Mann, Una McCormack, Vinay Patel, Beverly Sanforod, Matthew Sweet, Mike Tucker, Matthew Waterhouse and Joy Wilkinson."

I'm thrilled to be included within such august company. By coincidence, last week I went to see Joy Wilkinson's amazing play, The Sweet Science of Bruising, at Wilton's Music Hall. It took my idiot brain merely until the interval to work out that Aunt George was played by Jane How, who was Rebec in Third Doctor story Planet of the Daleks.

Doctor Who Magazine 539

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine marks my debut as compiler of the "Time Team" - the regular feature in which a group of 20-something fans watch old episodes of the series with a connecting them. 

This time, the theme is "Is Doctor Who a kids' show?" - something I've been thinking about a lot over the last year as I've watched my son and his school friends get caught up in the adventures of Jodie Whittaker's Doctor. So, I set Beth, Christel and Luke watching The Web Planet (1965), Full Circle part one (1980) and The Caretaker (2014). We were also joined by Ariana - who has never seen an episode of Doctor Who before.

Here's my interview with Andrew Smith, writer of Full Circle.

Doctor Who Magazine 538

Robert Allsopp's first work on Doctor Who was to make the question mark handle for Sylvester McCoy's umbrella in 1987. He's worked on the series on-and-off ever since - his workshop supplied the mechanical version of the Dalek creature hugging poor Charlotte Ritchie in this year's episode, Resolution.

I've interviewed Rob about his career for the new issue of Doctor Who Magazine - out now.

Costume design in Doctor Who

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition focuses on costume design - an often neglected aspect of a series that has otherwise been studied exhaustively.

Running through the special is a decade-by-decade history of costume in the series written by Piers Britton, co-author of the seminal academic study Reading between Designs: Visual Imagery and the Generation of Meaning in The Avengers, The Prisoner and Doctor Who (2003), and its full of gems like the way Sandra Reid had to find plausible ways to put companions from Earth's past into more contemporary clothes.

"Her solution for Victoria, in the character's second serial, The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967), was especially clever. Details of Victoria's original crinoline, with its ruffled bodice, were echoed in a demurely knee-skimming mini-dress, made from a very similar sprigged material but embellished with knife pleats, rather than ruffles, running from shoulder to belt." (p. 8)

The special also includes interviews with costume designers and actors from the series. I spoke to four of the Doctor's travelling companions from contemporary Earth: Anneke Wills (Polly, 1966-7); Katy Manning (Josephine Grant, 1971-3, 2010); Sophie Aldred (Ace, 1987-9); Jackie Tyler (Camille Coduri, 2005-6, 2008, 2010). I also spoke to fan Tim Wearing, who happens to own his favourite costume from all of Doctor Who.

This all dovetails with my ongoing work for the Doctor Who Figurine Collection, where I'm writing 1,200 words for each of the characters I'm assigned from the whole history of the series - as well as longer pieces for the Companion Set issues focused on Doctors and their companions. Here's a list of the issues of Doctor Who Figurine Collection I've written.

Doctor Who Magazine 537

Doctor Who Magazine #537 is in shops from tomorrow, and includes my interview with Samuel Oatley, the actor who played terrifying teeth monster Tzim-Sha - or Tim Shaw - in last year's The Woman Who Fell to Earth and The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos. 

Doctor Who Magazine 536

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine reveals a lost Dalek story from 1966 - in my feature on how Eric Laithwaite, professor of heavy electrical engineering at Imperial College, was nearly Doctor Who's first scientific advisor. I had a lovely time working with Dr Rupert Cole at the Science Museum to uncover the story.

The magazine also includes word of my latest effort for Big Finish, part of The Early Years box-set to be released in November:

"[In] The Home Front by Simon Guerrier, the Second Doctor and Jamie McCrimmon (both played by Frazer Hines) will reunite with Polly (Anneke Wills) and Ben Jackson (Elliot Chapman) to face off against the Master (played by James Dreyfus)." 

ETA: In fact, it's called The Home Guard and there's a blurb up on the Big Finish site. 

Doctor Who Magazine #535

Out today, Doctor Who Magazine issue #535 includes my interview with Feifei Ruan, the illustrator and visual storyteller who created the extraordinary images used to promote Doctor Who in China.

I'm also a page 3 model, with my photo and short biography carefully placed to scare off readers of a nervous disposition. The Dr and the Lord of Chaos were commissioned for the special photo shoot, which included this dramatic moment.

Doctor Who Magazine #532

The super new issue of Doctor Who Magazine is out tomorrow - but reaching subscribers already. Among the treats inside, I've interviewed costume designer Ray Holman about the current "TARDIS team", with tips for cosplaying the Doctor, Ryan, Yaz and Graham.

As Ray and I were talking on the phone about the practicalties of the Doctor's new costume, Lady Vader (or "Pting" as her brother now calls her) took it all to heart. Soon she was insisting I zip up her favourite princess outfit which she wore with owl backpack and wellington boots. The interview over, I then had to take her out for adventures, splashing in puddles while looking 100%.

Time for an adventure...