BBC Worldwide and Fathom Events have announced a cinematic presentation of Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel as part of a two-evening celebration of David Tennant in the United States. The special, 'theatrical cut' of the story will be shown in some 620 cinema locations across the USA on Monday 16th June, with tickets also including the Tennant-narrated documentary Wings-3D the following evening.

Soumya Sriraman, EVP of Licensing and Home Entertainment for BBC Worldwide North America, said:

Dan Diamond, senior vice president of Fathom Events, said:

Tickets go on sale this morning in the United States and are available from local cinemas and the Fathom Events website.

Doctor Who makes the front cover of the Radio Times once again as the magazine celebrates this year's BAFTA Nominations. As mentioned yesterday, the Radio Times Audience Award is open to the public vote over which of Doctor Who (The Day of the Doctor), Broadchurch, Educating Yorkshire, Gogglebox, Breaking Bad, and The Great British Bakeoff is the best British drama over the last year.

As well as the latest Matt Smith/Jenna Coleman cover joining a Doctor Who collection way exceeding 50 in recent years, actor David Tennant has adorned over 20 himself, this time alongside Olivia Colman to represent writer Chris Chibnall's crime drama Broadchurch!


Readers can vote for -D-o-c-t-o-r- -W-h-o- their favourite drama via the Radio Times website.

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.

A new art portrait of Tom Baker has been released to celebrate the actor's 80th Birthday.

The print, by photographer Oliver McNeil, is for sale as a high quality art print. It joins the range of exclusive portraits of the man who played the fourth Doctor.

Each one is approximately 18 inches by 12 inches and can be purchased framed or unframed in the UK and unframed in the rest of the world. They will be autographed personally by Tom Baker who will personalise each piece of work on request.

Full details from Legend Photography

Tom Baker will be at the Stamp Centre in London in order to meet fans and sign autographs on Thursday 20th March 2014. On Saturday 29th March 2014, he will be at the London Film Memorabilia Convention at Central Hall, Westminster, where he will also meet fans and sign autographs.

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Colin Baker is to appear in a new drama, Finding Richard, based on the discovery of the bones of King Richard III in a car park in Leicester in 2012

Baker will play the grandad of a boy who starts his own quest when he hears the story of the recovery. The short film, to be shot on location in Leicestershire, has been co-written by director Rhys Davies and producer Doug Cubin. It is due to be submitted to Cannes Film Festival in early March.

Baker told the Leicester Mercury

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David Tennant has been filming Gracepoint, the US version of the ITV drama Broadchurch.

The FOX adaptation is being filmed in and around Victoria, Canada, with Tennant playing Emmett Carver, based on the character of Scottish DI Alec Hardy in the UK version of the drama. Filming is taking place in Sidney, Island View Beach and Brentwood Bay.

The 10 episodes will be filmed around the area for approximately four months. A number of pictures are available on Flikr.

Today sees a certain actor reaching a certain milestone and we couldn't let it go unrecognised, so here's wishing A VERY HAPPY 50th BIRTHDAY to Christopher Eccleston - the man who was so fundamental in ensuring that Doctor Who was a success when it returned in 2005! To mark the special occasion, here are his first and last scenes as the Doctor.


Matt Smith is to appear at the Wizard World Louisville Comic Con on Saturday 29th March, which is being held at the Kentucky International Convention Center, 221 S 4th Street,
Louisville. He will be greeting fans, signing autographs, posing for photos and conducting an interactive question-and-answer session. [Wizard World]

The first photo of David Tennant in Gracepoint - the US remake of ITV drama Broadchurch in which he also starred - has been released and published by Entertainment Weekly. It shows Tennant, who plays Detective Emmett Carver, with Anna Gunn as his sidekick Detective Ellie Miller. The 10-episode series - written by Chris Chibnall who created the original show, and directed by James Strong who helmed five Broadchurch episodes - is being made by Fox and will air next season. [Entertainment Weekly, 14 Feb 2014]

Ben Wheatley - who is directing Peter Capaldi's first two episodes - has been talking about working with the actor. "With someone like Capaldi, he's a massive Who fan. He knows Who inside out. And everything he does is very, carefully planned and thought about. I remember when they first started talking to me about doing it, and I was very nervous for just those reasons. How do you shape this performance? But then when I heard who was going to do it - when they told me it was Capaldi, [I thought] that's not really a problem. He's so good. I was relieved, pretty much. It would have been a very different situation if it had been another kind of Matt Smith character. A guy who you don't know. Moulded from the start. But with Capaldi, you look at his career and you look at his performances they are all so brilliant, and all so different as well. It was a lucky break for me, I think that." He added: "It seems to me the episodes that we're doing now seem more like classic Who. We're going back to that style. But you'll have to wait and see." [io9, 3 Feb 2014]

Carey Mulligan will be playing the former lover of a character portrayed by Bill Nighy when she makes her West End debut in Skylight by Sir David Hare. The revival will be on at Wyndham's Theatre from Friday 6th June to Saturday 23rd August and will see Mulligan in the role of schoolteacher Kyra Hollis, while Nighy plays Tom Sergeant, as "the two attempt to rekindle their once-passionate relationship only to find themselves locked in a dangerous battle of opposing ideologies and mutual desires." [BBC News, 14 Feb 2014]

Bonnie Langford is returning to play the Lady of the Lake in the hit West End musical Spamalot, which is at the Playhouse Theatre. She will be appearing in it from Monday 24th February. [The Stage, 10 Feb 2014]

The fifth series of ITV period drama Downton Abbey will see Richard E Grant joining the cast as Simon Bricker - a guest of the Granthams. The eight-part series will also see the return of Hugh Bonneville, Penelope Wilton, Samantha Bond and Raquel Cassidy. [ITV Press Centre, 14 Feb 2014]

Michael Gambon will be among those taking part in the HighTide Festival in Halesworth, Suffolk. Among the theatre festival's events are world premieres of plays, readings and music, and Gambon will be taking part in the Face To Face series, when he will be interviewed by the theatre critic Michael Billington on Saturday 19th April. The festival - which takes place from Thursday 10th to Saturday 19th April - will also see the world premiere of Peddling, a play written and performed by Patrick Troughton's grandson Harry Melling, which will then transfer to New York.

Alex Kingston, Noel Clarke and Reece Shearsmith are to star in the ITV drama Chasing Shadows. The four-part production, which focuses on the work of a missing persons field unit charged with tracking down serial killers who prey on impressionable and vulnerable people, is due to start filming in the south-east of England soon for eight weeks. Shearsmith will play Det Sgt Sean Stone, with Kingston portraying his partner, Ruth Hattersley, while Clarke will take the role of Det Insp Prior. [ITV Press Centre, 11 Feb 2014]

Actress and model Lily Cole has been cast as Helen of Troy in The Last Days of Troy - an adaptation by Simon Armitage of The Iliad - which will receive its world premiere at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester from Thursday 8th May to Saturday 7th June, before transferring to The Globe in London from Tuesday 10th to Saturday 28th June. [The Stage, 12 Feb 2014]

A forthcoming show featuring Louise Jameson that is for children who have learning difficulties needs actors and costumes after some cast members had to leave the production. The Unexpected Heroes is being put on at Sandhurst School in Berkshire on Tuesday 25th, Wednesday 26th and Friday 28th February, and producer Jonathan Turner said: "We are facing great difficulties as some cast members had to drop out due to unforeseen circumstances, so we are appealing for help with costumes and sets." Jameson is voicing a magic mirror in the show. Turner can be contacted on jonathanturner560@gmail.com [Local Berkshire, 14 Feb 2014]

Oft-rumoured to have been considered to play the Doctor, Paterson Joseph has told in an interview of his audition to take over from David Tennant. "I was in South Africa at the time, and I think if I'd been in England I probably would have suffered some sort of trauma. But I'll be very honest with you. I was overjoyed. Not that I thought I had been considered, because I hadn't been - they hadn't approached my agent at that point - but I was overjoyed." He added that after the audition "I came back and I think I pretty much knew that I hadn't got it and weirdly wasn't disappointed." [The Independent, 8 Feb 2014]

With his new TV entertainment show Superstar Dogs due to start on Channel 4 tomorrow at 5.30pm, John Barrowman has been talking about the programme and how his own dogs - Captain Jack, a Jack Russell terrier named after his Doctor Who/Torchwood character, and cocker spaniel Harris - would get on in the challenges. "Captain Jack knows how to dive underwater and swim down to retrieve a bone but I don't think he'd be good at fetching any balls because he'd burst them. And I'd probably have to train him a bit for the Dogstacle course. Harris would refuse to do anything!" [What's On TV]

An inquest into the death of former director Christopher Barry is to be held on Thursday 5th June. The 88-year-old died on Friday 7th February after falling down an escalator at a shopping centre in Banbury, near his home, earlier that day. He was taken to hospital but while there he suddenly stopped breathing and doctors couldn't revive him. [The Telegraph, 15 Feb 2014]

Lalla Ward and her husband Richard Dawkins will be sharing their memories of writer and former Doctor Who script editor Douglas Adams, as well as celebrating his life, at Highgate Cemetery, where Adams is buried. The sold-out event - entitled A Conversation At The End Of The Universe - takes place on Tuesday 11th March, which would have been Adams's 62nd birthday. Ward and Dawkins were introduced to each other by Adams at his 40th birthday party in 1992 and they married later that year. [Highgate Cemetery website]

Among those paying their respects to Roger Lloyd Pack at his funeral at St Paul's Church, Covent Garden, on Thursday were fellow Only Fools And Horses stars John Challis and Tessa Peake-Jones, plus the actor Nigel Havers. Daughter Emily Lloyd gave a reading of Kahlil Gibran's poem On Death and said afterwards that Lloyd Pack's last words to his family were "I'm fine." [The Mirror, 14 Feb 2014]

In Memoriam:

The actress Lisa Daniely - who played Madeleine Issigri in The Space Pirates - has died at the age of 84. She made her film debut in 1951 as the eponymous Lilli Marlene, starring in the sequel, The Wedding of Lilli Marlene, two years later as well. Among her other roles, she also appeared in ITV's 1958-59 version of The Invisible Man as Diane Brady Wilson - the title character's widowed sister - with Deborah Watling playing her daughter. Other TV appearances included The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Van der Valk, The Protectors, Strange Report, Danger Man and The Saint. [The Stage, 12 Feb 2014]

Doctors:

John Hurt has been voted joint first in the annual Beard of the Year Awards, alongside choirmaster Gareth Malone and England rugby player Geoff Parling. The trio came top of the poll from the Beard Liberation Front, which attracted over 10000 votes. [Telegraph, 28 Dec 2013]

David Tennant commented that he currently doesn't know whether he'll be involved in the second series of Chris Chibnall's Broadchurch: "We don’t know where the characters are going. We don’t know the story he is telling. Some people say they know they are in it. I am not sure they do, though. I think some might get a shock. I was dying of a heart attack, so I don’t know how able Alec Hardy will be to do any more crimefighting, so we will have to see." [Radio 4, via Mirror, 28 Dec 2013]

Speaking of which, a Radio Times poll saw critics name Tennant's show the best TV show of 2013. Tim Glandfield, RadiotTimes.com editor, said: "The death of event TV has been greatly exaggerated. Broadchurch drew the nation into a collective hysteria every Monday night for eight weeks, as who killed Danny Latimer became the talking point in the press, pubs, front rooms and factories up and down the country. A brilliant piece of homegrown drama with an exquisite cast of actors, Broadchurch is a fantastic example of British TV at its very best.". [Radio Times, 27 Dec 2013]

Peter Capaldi has been put forward as a candidate for the position of Rector at the University of Glasgow, though the actor himself has yet to agree to run for election. A petition was started by politics student Fiona Duncan, who said: "I’m trying to show that there is a demand from the student body for him to stand before contacting him. It would be great to have someone from the arts representing Glasgow students." [Times Higher Education, 25 Dec 2013]

Peter Cushing is considered the number one thespian from Kent, according to a county news source. Correspondent Chris Britcher observed: "He lived for much of his life in Whitstable, moving there in 1959, in a seafront home he shared with his wife. A popular figure about the town, he would love to sit and paint the view along the beach. Cushing’s View today marks the spot he so adored, while the town’s museum has a permanent section devoted to him.". The "alternative" Doctor is not alone, however, with Tom Baker also listed at number eight: "He remains, for a whole generation, their favourite Doctor Who – and is destined to be synonymous with the character at the very height of its fame. Mr Baker lived for many years in Boughton Monchelsea, near Maidstone, and now resides in Tunbridge Wells. He is a familiar sight in and around the town." [Kent News, 24 Dec 2013]

Writers:

Neil Gaiman has been named the winner of the 2013 Book of the Year Award, with his book The Ocean At The End Of The Lane winning the public vote in the National Book Awards. The writer commented: "I've never written a book before that was so close to my own heart: a story about memory and magic and the fear and danger of being a child. I wasn't sure that anyone else would like it. "I'm amazed and thrilled that so many other people have read it, loved it, and made their friends read it too." [Radio Times, 28 Dec 2013]

A new publication in the Time Trips series of e-books, The Death Pit is now out, and its setting of Arbroath in Scotland has attracted local interest. Dundee-born author Alison Kennedy said: "I know Arbroath a bit. I lived there for a few months and in Carnoustie for about a year. It just seemed a suitable place. I wanted it to be in a small town." Writing for the fourth Doctor, she said: "I was a fan of the series as a child, and I am now. When it’s at its best it hasn’t changed - it’s very resilient. It was a very happy editorial experience." [Evening Telegraph, The Courier, 28 Dec 2013]

A behind-the-scenes report on The Day of the Doctor was shown on BBC One's Breakfast today.

Presented by entertainment correspondent Lizo Mzimba, the four-minute piece included interviews with Matt Smith, David Tennant, John Hurt, and Jenna Coleman.

Watch the report below. (NB: May not play outside the UK.)

The BBC and BBC America have released a number of new publicity images to promote the forthcoming The Day of The Doctor; this batch includes images of Matt Smith, David Tennant and John Hurt as the Doctor, with Jenna Coleman as Clara, Billie Piper as Rose, and Ingrid Oliver as Osgood.

BBC Three launched its Doctor Who: Greatest Monsters & Villains Weekend on Friday evening, a ten part series looking back at some of the greatest monsters of the series, hosted by stand up comic & impractical joker, Joel Dommett.

The format features a three minute potted history of the featured villain, followed by the screening of an appropriate episode of Doctor Who. Episode 1 featured the Judoon and was followed by a screening of Smith and Jones. It achieved an overnight viewing figure of 0.37 million viewers, a 1.7% share of the total TV audience. Episode 2 was dedicated to The Silurians and featured A Good Man Goes To War. It achieved an overnight viewing figure of 0.42 million viewers, a 1.7% share of the total TV audience.

At number 8, episode 3 revolved around the the Ood and was followed by the 2008 story Planet of the Ood. It had 0.40 million viewers with 1.6% share. Finally for the evening, episode 4 looked at the Clockwork Droids and featured a screening of The Girl in the Fireplace. The episode had 0.55 million viewers with a 2.5% share.

BBC Three outrated the other digital channels for most of the evening, just edging ahead of ITV2 and ITV3.

Thursday's showing of The Science of Doctor Who had an Appreciation Index of 85. Buzzcocks: The Doctor Who Special had an AI of 82.

The Radio Times has revealed that David Tennant received more votes than any other Doctor combined, achieving a 56% share in their 50th Anniversary poll. The current incumbent of the TARDIS, Matt Smith came in second with 16%, whilst perennial classic favourite Tom Baker took the bronze with 10% of the votes.

Meanwhile, the poll for the Doctor's favourite sidekick revealed that the Tenth Doctor's companion Rose Tyler, as played by Billie Piper, also came out on top with a quarter of voters considering her the best. A much closer competition to those of the Doctor, his (first) best friend Sarah Jane Smith (aka Elisabeth Sladen) achieved 15% of the share to take second place, with bronze this time going to another 21st Century TARDIS occupant, Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), who received 12% of the votes.

Tim Glanfield, Editor for RadioTimes.com Editor, said:


The complete results are below:

Best Doctor		Best Companion
56.1%	David Tennant	25.09%	Rose Tyler (Billie Piper)
15.93%	Matt Smith	15.42%	Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen)
10.05%	Tom Baker	12.32%	Donna Noble (Catherine Tate)
6.59%	Christopher Eccleston	9.09%	River Song (Alex Kingston)
2.86%	Patrick Troughton	4.79%	Amy Pond (Karen Gillan)
2.38%	Jon Pertwee	4.1%	Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines)
1.59%	Peter Davison	3.49%	Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman)
1.36%	Sylvester McCoy	3.09%	Ace (Sophie Aldred)
1.35%	Paul McGann	2.65%	Clara Oswald (Jenna-Louise Coleman)
0.9%	William Hartnell	2.54%	Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman)
0.88%	Colin Baker	2.39%	Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart (Nicholas Courtney)
		15.03%	(Others)

There were a total of 21,384 valid votes cast in the two polls on the Radio Times website during October and November 2013.

Radio Times DiscoverTV

Radio Times DiscoverTV is a new app designed to provide recommendations to daily television and radio, enabling users to discover new favourite programmes be they on TV, catch-up, or on-demand. The app is free to download and provides a 14 days customisable schedule for TV and radio listings, by provider and location, with basic programme information. A premium service with enhanced features is also available, with a 30 day free trial included.

As part of the launch, the app will be used to promote the twelve collectible Doctor Who Radio Times covers out next Tuesday to celebrate the 50th Anniversary. Three of the covers will be revealed within the app on Saturday, Sunday and Monday leading to all twelve being made available this coming Tuesday - the publication day of the print magazine itself.

The app is currently only available to iPad users (optimised for iOS7), with the intention to roll out to other platforms in due course.