On Friday, Russell T Davies, Executive Produducer, writer and re-inventor of Doctor Who collected his OBE from Buckingham Palace. The award, for Services to Drama, was presented to him by HRH The Prince of Wales. He told BBC News after receiving the award “Writers are the lifeblood of a lot of stuff that gets made… so I was really honoured to accept it on behalf of everyone slaving away at keyboards.”
Incidentally, it was Prince Charles who Russell referred to as ‘a miserable swine’ for turning down the offer to appear in the series; although a statement issued later from Clarence House said that the prince hadn’t even seen the offer as it was turned down on his behalf.
The countdown has begun for the Christmas Special - The Other Doctor. As in previous years, the BBC website has an advent calendar, each door leading to a video clip, photos, downloads and other sneak preview material for the Christmas Special.
If you missed the BBC’s annual Children In Need fundraiser, the showed a short preview of this year’s Christmas special, The Next Doctor. The clip will probably throw more questions than it does answers…
There’s been a history of Doctor Who doing something special for Children In Need from the showing of the 20th Anniversary Special The Five Doctors to last year’s Steven Moffat mini season joiner Timecrash which starred both David Tennant and Peter Davison as The Doctor.
David Tennant announced at last night’s National Television Awards where he picked up the award for Outstanding Drama Performance that he is to quit as The Doctor after four specials in 2009. Tenannt started work on the show in 2005, replacing Christopher Eccleston in the the newly revamped series. He said that with Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner leaving it felt like a “natural stepping off point” but added that “What became very difficult was when it was announced that Steven Moffatt was taking over because I’m such a fan of his!” The BBC website carries the full interview.
The announcement can be seen in the following video, filmed at the National Television Awards.
With the Christmas special being called The Next Doctor even more speculation is likely to arise in the coming months and with Russell T Davies having tipped both Russell Tovey who played Midshipman Frame in last year’s Christmas special Voyage of the Damned and Harry Lloyd who played Baines in Human Nature and The Family of Blood.
Firstly, we’d like to say congratulations to Billie Piper and Laurence Fox on the birth their first son, Winston James Fox on Tuesday 21st October. That should make their Christmas special!
In other Doctor Who news, in the TV Quick and TV Choice awards 2008, David Tennant was awarded Best Actor for the second year runninng and Catherine Tate was awarded Best Actress for her portrayal as Donna Noble. Best Loved Drama was awarded to the show for the third year running.
The BBC are giving viewers the chance to quiz director Graeme Harper, who has worked on Doctor Who over many years. Graeme worked in various capacities before directing his first show on Doctor Who; Peter Davison’s finale, The Caves of Androzani. Previously he’d worked on shows with Daleks and The Master in the Jon Pertwee Era, including Planet of Spiders; the finale in which Jon Pertwee’s Doctor gave way to Tom Baker. He also directed one of Colin Baker’s best stories, Revelation of the Daleks.
To my mind, some of the most visually creepy and best acted stories since 2005 have been directed by Graeme Harper from Rise of the Cybermen, Doomsday (a season finale) to last year’s three-part finale (Utopia, The Sound of Drums, Last of the Timelords) and this year’s Turn Left, The Stolen Earth and Journey’s End.
Turn Left blew me away, frankly. See the Turn Left live blog we did when the show was transmitted if you don’t believe me! Acting, script and direction. Amazing. Although if the direction had been ‘Turn Right” that may not have made such an interesting story.
To submit questions to Graeme Harper you need to go to the official BBC Doctor Who website. Questions need to be submitted by before 10th November at noon, GMT.
Back to Christmas, and Gloucester in Gloucestershire where filming took place for the Christmas Special.
Now, my parents live in the ’shire and had mentioned something about filming going on near Gloucester Cathedral. It’s a quaint old part of town and a very good double for Victorian England.
Now let’s remind you of the very latest trailer, because the countdown starts soon…
And yes, that’s David Morrissey as…
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