Saturday, March 26, 2016

The daughter of Sarah Jane Smith

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine, issue 498, includes my interview with Sadie Miller, discussing her new book Moon Blink and her mum, the late Elisabeth Sladen.

Oh, and there's some stuff about something Big Finish has got coming out which is quite exciting.

Friday, March 18, 2016

Essential Time Lords

Out in shops now is the Essential Doctor Who: The Time Lords, a comprehensive 116-page feast of everything you ever wanted to know about the Doctor's home planet and people.

Among the highlights are Andrew Smith's interview with Lalla Ward (Romana) and Robert Fairclough's feature on Timothy Dalton (Rassilon). Rob also speaks to T'Nia Miller about playing a Time Lord general who's "got big balls" (her words).

I've written a piece about the writers and designers who've shaped the culture and appearance of Gallifrey over the years. I also interviewed Stephen Thorne, who played the stellar-engineer Omega in The Three Doctors (1972-3).

And there's my efforts to identify who drew the sketches of potential Doctors seen at the end of The War Games (1969) and who those sketches are really of...

“Oh, he's too old!”

“Well he's too fat, isn't he?”

“No, he's too thin.”

“Oh no, that won't do at all. It's ridiculous...

Monday, March 07, 2016

BBC Radio 4 Extra: Floating in Space

This Saturday, I'll be a guest on Floating in Space on Radio 4 Extra, helping Samira Ahmed link a three-hour collection of archive programmes and clips relating to space travel.

Friday, March 04, 2016

"Grief is never healed"

"Memento mori: grief, remembering, and living" is a piece by the Dr in the latest issue of the Lancet Psychiatry - March 2016, vol. 3 no. 3, pp. 210-212 (you can read it for free but need to register with an email address).

It's about the Victorians taking photographs of their dead children, and why, and how today we shy away from grief. It is informed by the death of our daughter.

Wednesday, March 02, 2016

Gordon Tipple

Doctor Who Magazine #497 celebrates 20 years of the 1996 TV movie with a feature by Jonathan Morris and new interviews with Paul McGann (the Eighth Doctor), Daphne Ashbrook (Grace Holloway), Yee Jee Tso (Chang Lee), Jo Wright (executive producer) and Eric Roberts (the Master).

Oh, but what's that on the cover? "And even Gordon Tipple!"

Excitingly, I tracked down the Canadian actor, who gives his first ever interview about playing the Old Master for all of 29 seconds. Gordon was extremely generous with his time and great fun to talk to - and halfway through the interview mentioned that he had a photograph of himself in costume...