The Doctor Who Appreciation Society is to present a special convention in June to celebrate the making of Doctor Who:
The event takes place on the 1st June, full details and ticket booking can be found via their website.

Competition:

We have a pair of tickets to the event up for grabs, courtesy of DWAS. In order to be in with a chance to win simply answer the following question:
Send your answer along with your name, address and where you heard about the competition to comp-mythmakers@doctorwhonews.net with the subject line "Mythmakers in Time and Space". Only one entry per postal address will be accepted. The competition is open to readers worldwide, and the closing date is 31st March 2014. If you are a winner and have already purchased tickets for the event, DWAS will refund them (up to two tickets only!).

The 50th Anniversary episode of Doctor Who has been nominated for a 2014 BAFTA Craft award.

The Day Of The Doctor has been nominated for Special, Visual and Graphic Effects with the nomination going to Milk VFX, Real SFX and The Model Unit for their work on the story.

Doctor Who has been nominated in the same category for the last seven years, but has lost out on each occasion. This year the full nominees are

Television Craft | Special, Visual & Graphic Effects in 2014
• David Attenborough’s Natural History Museum Alive 3D
ZooFido
• Doctor Who: The Day Of The Doctor
Milk VFX|Real SFX|The Model Unit
• Micro Monsters with David Attenborough: Predator
Robert HollingworthJonathan Watts
• Peaky Blinders
Blue BoltRushes

Danny Hargreaves of Real SFX said on twitterThe drama set during the making to the first years of Doctor Who, An Adventure in Space and Time is also nominated in three categories, for Costume Design, Make Up and Hair Design and in Editing Fiction.

Television Craft | Costume Design in 2014
• An Adventure in Space and Time
Suzanne Cave
• Da Vinci's Demons
Annie Symons
• Downton Abbey
Caroline McCall
• The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: The Murder in Angel Lane
Lucinda Wright

Television Craft | Make Up And Hair Design in 2014
• An Adventure in Space and Time
Vickie Lang
• Burton and Taylor
Lucy Cain
• Da Vinci's Demons
Jacqueline Fowler
• Death Comes to Pemberley
Loz Schiavo

Television Craft | Editing - Fiction in 2014
• An Adventure in Space and Time
Philip Kloss
• Broadchurch (Ep 8)
Mike Jones
• The Fall
Steve Singleton
• Top of the Lake (Ep 6)
Alexandre De Franceschi

Also earning a nomination this year is Doctor Who at the Proms 2013 which is nominated on the Entertainment Craft Team award.

Television Craft | Entertainment Craft Team in 2014
• Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway
Production Team
• Doctor Who at the Proms 2013
Bernie Davis, Eryl Ellis, Huw Thomas, Keith Ware
• Dynamo: Magician Impossible
Alex Hartman, Saul Gittens, Dan Evans, Amer Iqba
• Top Gear
James Hart, Dan James, Andy Hodges

The winners will be announced on Sunday 27 April 2014

Big Finish want to know your thoughts on the audio range and are offering a prize of £250 worth of Big Finish digital products to encourage people to take part in the BIG Survey.

There are 50 questions and the survey will take around 10-15 minutes. The answers are confidential. The survey will run until the end of March and one person will be selected at random, from all returns, to receive their choice of £250 worth of Big Finish digital products.

Click the link below to start the survey.

Survey

Christopher Eccleston has recorded an audio version of a short story by award-winning author Patrick Ness in aid of Read for RNIB Day.

The story, Now That You've Died, takes readers and listeners on an exhilarating journey into the afterlife. It was written by Ness especially for the Royal National Institute of Blind People, the leading UK charity helping blind and partially sighted people.

The story can be heard for free here. In return, listeners are asked to consider making a donation to RNIB to help make reading more accessible to blind and partially sighted people.

The RNIB Day campaign manager, Becca McRow, said:

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David Tennant is lending his voice to the upcoming Xbox One game Kinect Sports Rivals as the narrator.

The game is produced by British video game developer Rare. A video has been released which includes a behind-the-scenes interview with Tennant as well as footage of the recording sessions.

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Tom Baker has said he's thrilled that the classic Doctor Who series is to be screened in the UK on the Horror Channel, as reported here. The Horror Channel has completed a deal with BBC Worldwide to broadcast 30 stories from the classic series, which ran from 1963 to 1989, featuring the first seven Doctors, starting with William Hartnell and concluding with Sylvester McCoy.

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Sylvester McCoy, will be making an appearance at FantasyCon this July. The Con will be held in Salt Lake City, Utah. Tickets are now on sale.

Arthur Darvill has taken over the role of Guy in the West End production of Once the Musical.

The actor, who played Rory Williams in Doctor Who, took over the role on Monday when the production celebrated its first birthday in London's Phoenix Theatre. Darvill previously played the role on Broadway and will stay with the London production until 10th May.

Once the Musical is based on the 2006 film of the same name, written by Enda Walsh. It includes many of the songs, including the Academy Award-winning Falling Slowly performed by Darvill in the play. It tells the story of an Irish busker and a Czech girl who meet through a shared love of music. The original production won 8 Tony Awards in 2012 and the London one has been nominated for six Olivier Awards.

Doctor Who News was invited to a special preview on Wednesday afternoon when Darvill and the company performed a number of songs from the musical.


For more information on the production visit the official website or the Once the Musical Facebook page.

Pictures of the TARDIS-style police box bound for Bournemouth have been tweeted by the Dorset force as the construction moves closer to its spring installation.

As previously reported, the TARDIS-style box is being put up to combat crime and anti-social behaviour as well as act as a tourist attraction for the south coast resort, and a picture tweeted at the time showed its basic frame.

Now, though, pictures have been released showing its unmistakeable "TARDIS" look, which comes from the iconic 1929 design created by Gilbert Mackenzie Trench for the Metropolitan Police.

The first image, tweeted on 14th March, shows the steel box ready for galvanising, while the second one, tweeted on 17th March, shows it being moved on a fork-lift truck for the next stage of its build.

Once finished, the police box will be installed at the western end of the precinct in Christchurch Road, Boscombe, where it will be manned throughout the day. It will also have a phone attached to it via which the public will be able to contact the police at other times.

Weighing more than two tonnes, it is three metres high by 1.8 metres wide. It has been paid for by local businesses and organisations and is being built by AMK Industries of Christchurch, Dorset, having been designed by James Roberts at the Christchurch-based architect and design practice of Anders Roberts Cheer.

Actor Olaf Pooley has been talking to ABC News on the occasion of his 100th birthday. The centenarian told the station the secret of a long life.

A Facebook fan page for the actor has been set up here.

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A two-part, fully illustrated & extensive interview with Doctor Who companion actress Katy Manning has just been released online.

Both parts are available to be heard on her official website, katymanning.com. The interview covers her early career, her friendship with Liza Minnelli, Doctor Who, her TV/theatre work in Australia, and beyond. It's also available as a free download. Katy Manning has also recorded a comedy sketch during this interview, which is an affectionate parody of both classic Who and Big Finish.

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Marian Deuchar who was interviewed in Return To Devils End and had a scene in The Daemons where she grabbed a young child and took it indoors, died peacefully in Aldbourne Nursing Home on 24th February 2014 aged 91. Her funeral service was held at St Michael's Church as used in The Daemons.

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Siv-Art Productions has announced that Sylvester McCoy is joining the Inspector Chronicles guest cast that already includes Robert Picardo (The Doctor in "Star Trek: Voyager", "Stargate: Atlantis"), Chase Masterson ("Star Trek: Deep Space Nine"), and Mayim Bialik ("Big Bang Theory", "Blossom"). They'll all be joining existing cast members Travis Richey (Inspector Spacetime on "Community"), Eric Loya, and Carrie Keranen.

Instead of a second season of the web series, the team will be producing a feature-length film. "Untitled Web Series" will now become The Inspector Chronicles: Untitled Motion Picture About A Space Traveler Who Can Also Travel Through Time.

The film is currently entering the pre-production phase, and is seeking help from fans and investors. Pledges can be made here.

Matt Smith will be playing football for England when he takes part in this year's Soccer Aid.

And he'll be facing a former nemesis in the shape of Michael Sheen - who provided the voice of the sinister House in The Doctor's Wife - at the charity event at Old Trafford on Sunday 8th June. Doors open at 5pm and kick-off is at 8pm, with the match being broadcast live on ITV.

It is being held in aid of the global children's charity UNICEF, with Smith signed up for Robbie Williams's England team. Meanwhile, Sheen is heading the opposing Rest of the World side. Joining Smith on the England squad will be Bradley Walsh, who appeared in The Sarah Jane Adventures story The Day of the Clown.

Before he became an actor, Smith's dream was to be a professional footballer, and he played for the youth teams at Northampton Town, Nottingham Forest, and Leicester City, but the spinal condition spondylosis wrecked his sporting hopes. However, he retains links to the game through his avid support for Blackburn Rovers, and the 2010 episode The Lodger saw the actor don a number 11 football shirt as the Doctor and lead fictional pub team The King's Arms to victory.

Williams, who is UNICEF's UK ambassador, said: And UNICEF UK executive director David Bull said: In the past six years, Soccer Aid has raised more than £12m to help children around the world.

Tickets for the match cost from £20 for adults and from £5 for under-16s and over-65s, with premium seats at £40 (plus booking fees), and can be bought via the Soccer Aid site.

Sheen features briefly in his kit in the promotional video below, while The Lodger guest star James Corden can also be seen cheering:


Other celebrities on the England team are Stephen Moyer, Jamie Theakston, Mark Owen, Jack Whitehall, Damian Lewis, Paddy McGuinness, John Bishop and Olly Murs, while Sheen's celebrity players will include James McAvoy, Nicky Byrne, Adam Richman, Patrick Kielty and Gordon Ramsay. Former professional footballers joining the England side are Teddy Sheringham, Jamie Redknapp, David Seaman, Paul Ince and Jamie Carragher, with Jaap Stam and Edwin van der Sar among those playing for Rest of the World.

UPDATE - 8th JUNE: Sadly, Matt Smith was unable to take part in the game because of an injury. In a statement, he said:

The publishers behind the unofficial Peter Cushing Dr. Who fannual are seeking story pitches for a similar follow-up volume - this time centring on UNIT.

Entitled The U.N.I.T Fannual 1974, the setting will be "the near future" following the end of the Doctor's exile on Earth, with the stories showing how the organisation is coping without his help as scientific adviser.

In the Writer's Guidelines, editors Scott Burditt and Shaqui Le Vesconte say: The main characters will be Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Captain Yates, Sergeant Benton, Jo Grant, Corporal Bell (who appeared in The Mind of Evil and The Claws of Axos), Sgt Osgood (who was in The Daemons), and Dr Harry Sullivan. Other characters associated with UNIT from The Invasion to The Three Doctors can also be used, with the editors stating that Harry Sullivan has been included as the sole exception. As far as the fannual's continuity is concerned, he has been newly seconded as UNIT's medical officer and does not yet know of the absent Doctor's physiology.

It is preferred that the Doctor doesn't appear in the stories, although he can be mentioned as being away, for example. The guidelines say that this book "is essentially U.N.I.T's 15 minutes of fame - so don't overshadow them!"

They further state: They add: The fannual website also gives a recommended reading/viewing list.

Burditt told Doctor Who News that the announcement of the follow-up publication had gone down very well with fans, adding: Story pitches should be sent via fannual@outlook.com. The same address can be used by people interesting in contributing art and comic strips.

UPDATE - 6th APRIL: The publishers announced today that new story pitches must now be submitted by Wednesday 30th April to be considered for inclusion. They stated:

As previously reported, in February Lego announced that it would begin accepting proposals for Doctor Who Lego sets. It took less than two weeks for one proposal to reach 10,000 supporters, which is the threshold for Lego's review team to consider a project. (This is apparently the third-fastest that any Cuusoo proposal has reached the 10,000 supporter mark.) The proposed Doctor Who set will be considered alongside any other projects which reach 10,000 supporters by the early May deadline. Other proposals which have already reached the review stage in the current period include an Apple store, the flying train from Back to the Future Part III, and a Lego bird project. These will be considered alongside the Doctor Who project for potential production as an official Lego set.

This was the official comment from Lego: