Doctor Who: 2004

After episode 696 (Doctor Who): the first day of filming on the new series
Sunday, 18 July 2004
<< back to 2003

Eccleston and the Space Pig
My feature for
Doctor Who Adventures #277

Hidden away in the archives of the official BBC Doctor Who website, there's a fun video of a press conference with Christopher Eccleston from just before the new series was broadcast. One question is about his first day of filming.

"My first day, I chased a brilliant actor of restricted height called Jimmy Vee dressed as a pig dressed as a spaceman... I had to chase him up and down a corridor."

I adore the space pig. It's brief time in Doctor Who is a perfect example of the show as written by Russell T Davies - daft, funny, exciting, scary and moving all in one quick scene. I badgered the poor then editor of Doctor Who Adventures, Natalie Barnes, to let me run a feature on the space pig and she finally relented. (She also gave kind permission to post it here.)

But I also know exactly where I was when the scene was filmed. On Sunday, 18 July 2004, Big Finish held a party to celebrate five years of new audio adventures for old Doctor Who. I'd written a few short stories for them and was busy writing my first audio play, so got to go along - the first posh drinks I was ever invited to as a writer.

Before I was lost to the miasma of free fizz, I met actors Lisa Bowerman and Stephen Fewell for the first time, who I'd late be boss of on the Benny plays. And a young actor I'd seen on the telly said "Thanks, mate" to me. It was David Tennant.

Next episode: 2005

Meat feast

Had lunch at the Westfield Byron Burger today with m'learned colleagues and chose the double Byron because I is a pig. Finished before anyone else too. Oink oink.

Tales from the cryptic

On Saturday, I finished a draft of something which hasn't been announced yet so cannot be spoken of now.

On Sunday, I made amendments to something else which hasn't been announced yet and so cannot be spoken of either.

And this morning I was on the 07.02 train to Victoria to spend most of the day visiting something related to another as yet unannounced thingie.

I can reveal, however, that on the way home I was bought some Percy Pigs on expenses. Ooh, my showbiz life. But mmm, Percy pigs.