A new audio musical drama, Children of the Circus, is reuniting the cast of the seventh Doctor story, The Greatest Show in the Galaxy for a unique special.

The limited edition CD set will be released on December 14th, 2023, exactly 35 years to the day that the first episode of The Greatest Show in the Galaxy was broadcast on BBC One.

Based on the Season 25 story by Stephen Wyatt, Children of the Circus is a brand-new, original, musical play on audio from AUK Studios; written by Kenton Hall (with songs by Christopher Guard) and based on an idea by Barnaby Eaton-Jones.

The special features the return of Sylvester McCoy (the Seventh Doctor) and Sophie Aldred (who played the Doctor’s traveling companion, Ace). But not as you’d expect. McCoy plays the High Poet; all befuddled charm and with a whisper of duplicity and danger. Aldred gives two magnificently different characters in the form of Captain Gren (the gruff owner of a Time Ship) and AJ (a sentient piece of rust, who navigates the Time Ship).

McCoy himself sums it up 

Joining the cast in a major role is 1980’s icon (singer/actress/songwriter), Toyah Willcox. It’s long been known she was a fan of Doctor Who, as she appeared in Kevin Jon Davies’ acclaimed documentary 30 Years in the TARDIS, but to get her to create a multi-voiced role as The Band of Infinite Harmony (and get her own solo song, which can heard in full after the end credits as a bonus extra track) was something she clearly relished…

Ever since producer/director Barnaby Eaton-Jones saw the original broadcast of The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, he was fascinated by the world that Stephen Wyatt had created…

Songwriter, Christopher Guard, who played Bellboy in the original TV serial, added…

 

Starring Christopher Guard as Bellboy, Dee Sadler as Flowerchild and Ella, Sophie Aldred as Captain Gren and AJ, Toyah Willcox as The Band of Infinite Harmony, Ian Reddington as Delios and the Chief Clown, and Sylvester McCoy as the High Poet.

With Daisy Dunlop, Verity White, Kim Jones, Kenton Hall, Barnaby Eaton-Jones and Ian Kubiak.

Special guest appearances by Ricco Ross as The Ringmaster, Jessica Martin as Mags, Chris Jury as Deadbeat, Deborah Manship as Morgana, Gian Sammarco as Whizz Kid, Daniel Peacock as Nord, and Dean Hollingsworth as the Bus Conductor and Station Announcer.

Produced and directed by Barnaby Eaton-Jones, for AUK Studios.

A preview can be heard here

Limited Edition CD available to pre-order now: 

This month's Doctor Who Magazine unveils the secrets of the Seventh Doctor

Highlights of this issue include

• The story behind the discovery of Season 24’s previously unseen footage.
• An interview with 1980s production secretary Kate Easteal, who shares her memories of producer John Nathan-Turner.
• Margaret Toley describes her role as secretary to Doctor Who’s story editors in the 1960s and early 70s.
• An in-depth preview of the new Season 24 Blu-ray box set
• Inside the comic-book sequel to the Season 24 story Paradise Towers, with comments from the original story's writer, Stephen Wyatt.
• Some of Doctor Who’s key visual effects designers reflect on their time working on the show in the mid-1980s.
• Collectivity explores the miniature world of Dapol, the company that launched the first range of Doctor Who action figures.
• A tribute to the late Frank Cox, one of Doctor Who’s first directors.
• Apocrypha looks back at the 1989 comic strip Who’s That Girl!
• The Fact of Fiction continues its analysis of 1970s The Ambassadors of Death.
• Sufficient Data crunches Doctor Who’s numbers.
• Previews, reviews, news, prize-winning competitions, Time and Space Visualiser and more.

Doctor Who Magazine Issue 565 is on sale from panini.co.uk and WH Smith from Thursday 27 May priced £5.99 (UK).

Also available as a digital edition from pocketmags.com priced £4.99.

From the Doctors... to all doctors. A thank you to the NHS and all frontline workers.

As seen on the BBC One programme The Big Night In

The Doctors Say Thank You | #TheBigNightIn

The latest audio release from Big Finish, the Seventh Doctor crossover story Doctor Who: Dark Universe is released today.

Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred and Mark Bonnar star in a brand new story that picks up the threads of the relationship between the Doctor and an older Ace, in her now grown-up role as CEO of A Charitable Earth,.

Doctor Who: Dark Universe is available now as a collector’s edition CD or on download at the Big Finish website from £12.99. Mark Bonnar returns as the Eleven, a Time Lord psychopath in his eleventh incarnation who retains the personalities of all his previous incarnations, in his first chronological meeting with the Seventh Doctor.

Producer, David Richardson, said Actor Mark Bonnar said Doctor Who: Dark Universe is available now as a collector’s edition CD or on download at the Big Finish website from £12.99.

Pupils at a special needs school in Wales have produced their own episode of Doctor Who, narrated by Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy.

Ysgol Pen-y-Bryn is a school based in Swansea, for pupils aged 3-19 years, with a wide range of special needs.

Throughout the past year, their film enterprise group have been filming around Wales and making their own props for a special Doctor Who project.

Today sees the launch of the completed episode (just under 40 minutes in length) on the school's YouTube channel for free.

Doctor Who: At Childhood’s End, the first novel from Sophie Aldred who played the Seventh Doctor’s companion Ace, is to be published 6th February 2020.

Once, a girl called Ace travelled the universe with the Doctor – until, in the wake of a terrible tragedy they parted company. Decades later, she is known as Dorothy McShane, the reclusive millionaire philanthropist who heads global organisation A Charitable Earth.

Dorothy is haunted by terrible nightmares, vivid dreams that begin just as scores of young runaways are vanishing from the dark alleyways of London. Could the disappearances be linked to sightings of sinister creatures lurking in the city shadows? Why has an alien satellite entered a secret orbit around the Moon?

Investigating the satellite with Ryan, Graham and Yaz, the Doctor is thrown together with Ace once more. Together they must unravel a malevolent plot that will cost thousands of lives. But can the Doctor atone for her past incarnation’s behaviour – and how much must Ace sacrifice to win victory not only for herself, but for the Earth? Past or future, which path do you choose?

Sophie Aldred said Doctor Who: At Childhood’s End by Sophie Aldred is published by BBC Books on 6th February 2020. RRP £16.99.

It will also be available as an audiobook in CD and digital download narrated by Sophie Aldred.

BBC Studios have announced that Season 26 will be the next instalment in the DOCTOR WHO: THE COLLECTION Blu-ray range

Released on Monday 23rd December is the acclaimed final season from the series’ original run, starring Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred:

Doctor Who – The Collection: Season 26

• BATTLEFIELD
• GHOST LIGHT
• THE CURSE OF FENRIC
• SURVIVAL

In 1989, Doctor Who was on a creative high, with the Seventh Doctor and his companion Ace revitalising the programme for a new generation. Season 26 featured four epic adventures traversing a future Britain invaded by inter-dimensional knights, a strange Victorian house haunted by ghosts from Ace’s past, an alien world populated by Cheetah People and a 1940s army camp under siege from monstrous vampires.

With guest stars including Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), Anthony Ainley (The Master), Jean Marsh, Nicholas Parsons, Anne Reid, Ian Hogg, Sylvia Syms and comedy duo Hale & Pace, this fondly-remembered set of stories saw the end of an era for Doctor Who, and set the stage for its hugely successful revival.

With all episodes newly remastered from the best available sources, this Blu-ray box set also contains extensive and exclusive special features including:

Rare Restored Extended Cuts

• The Curse of Fenric VHS Extended Version
• The Curse of Fenric DVD Special Edition
• Battlefield VHS Extended Version
• Battlefield DVD Special Edition

5.1 surround sound & isolated scores

• On all 14 broadcast episodes, plus 5.1 sound on all extended versions of The Curse Of Fenric and Battlefield.

Behind the Sofa

• New episodes with Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, plus companions Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton, Anneke Wills and Jodie-Whittaker-era writers Pete McTighe & Joy Wilkinson.

Showman - the Life of John Nathan-Turner

• A feature-length look at the life and career of Doctor Who’s longest-serving producer, who fought to keep the programme on-air during the 1980s. Contributors include Peter Davison and Colin Baker.

Making ‘The Curse of Fenric’

• A brand new documentary featuring Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Tomek Bork, Nicholas Parsons, Cory Pulman, Marek Anton, Ian Briggs, Andrew Cartmel, Mark Ayres and Ian Collins featuring unseen behind-the-scenes footage and photographs.

In Conversation

• Matthew Sweet chats to companion Sophie Aldred.

The Writers’ Room

• Ben Aaronovitch, Marc Platt, Ian Briggs, Rona Munro and Andrew Cartmel discuss their work on Season 26.

Becoming The Destroyer

• Actor Marek Anton and prosthetics designer Stephen Mansfield recall the creation of one of Doctor Who’s best ever monsters.

The seven-disc box set also includes hours of special features previously released on DVD.

Pre-order on Amazon.

On Saturday 23rd November, the BFI Southbank will be screening Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric (from the Special Edition Blu-ray) and holding a Q&A with actor Sophie Aldred and script editor Andrew Cartmel. Tickets are available from the BFI on the following dates:

• Monday 16th September – BFI Patrons and Champions
• Tuesday 17th September – BFI Members
• Tuesday 24th September – public booking

The latest in the series looking in detail at the making of Doctor Who, Black Archive, has been published by Obverse Books

Edition #34 looks at the seventh Doctor story Battlefield and come from range editor, Philip Purser-Hallard.

Often seen as the black sheep of the final season of 20th century Doctor Who, Battlefield also happens to be one of Purser-Hallard's favourite Who stories, but he's not allowed that fondness to blind him the serial's faults - though fair to say he doesn't pan it either.

Battlefield (1989) sees a clash of mythologies, as the progressive, anti-racist, sporadically pacifist Doctor Who of the late 1980s takes on Britain’s authoritarian, chivalric national myth of King Arthur. With a script by Ben Aaronovitch, now a bestselling urban fantasy novelist but then only the writer of the previous year’s acclaimed Remembrance of the Daleks (1988), it forms with its predecessor a ‘philosophical pair’, replacing its 1960s setting with an imagined 1990s and showing a Doctor dealing with the repercussions of his future actions, rather than his past. Even as a script Battlefield falls short of complete success, yet it remains an emotionally literate, politically engaged and thematically complex piece. It finds areas of overlap between Andrew Cartmel’s radical conception of Doctor Who and Arthurian myth in the legend of a past golden age, represented by the return of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT, and in the identification of the Doctor – always presented by the series as a wizard, a prophet and a mentor – with Merlin. It interrogates the patriarchal attitudes of both the Arthurian myths and 1970s Doctor Who from a contemporary perspective, and questions the attitudes to war found in both.

It also does an exemplary job of worldbuilding, sketching in a convincing near future based on a handful of lines, and presents a complex, questionable, even sympathetic villain motivated by a value system alien to our own. Finally, it raises questions of predestination: through the other characters’ foreknowledge of the Doctor’s future; through the fate apparently decreed for Ancelyn and Bambera; and, perhaps, through the Brigadier’s survival of a story whose structure seems to demand that he should die.

Philip Purser-Hallard is the founding editor of the Black Archive range, the author of The Black Archive #4: Death in Heaven and co-author of The Black Archive #13: Human Nature / The Family of Blood.

He has published five novels, including a trilogy of near-future Arthurian urbanfantasy political thrillers, The Pendragon Protocol, The Locksley Exploit and Trojans, and a Sherlock Holmes novel, The Vanishing Man.

Link to Website

The latest in the series of Black Archive books, detailing the seventh Doctor story, The Curse of Fenric will be released on 3 September 2018.

The Curse of Fenric is one of the last stories of Doctor Who’s original 26-year run and the first to make use of a Second World War setting.

Complex and thoughtful, the story and its various extended editions draw on a range of sources and responds to a variety of social and cultural contexts. It explores themes of history, maturation, progress and collective action

The story is detailed by Dr. Una McCormack, a New York Times bestselling author of novels based on Star Trek and Doctor Who and who teaches creative writing at the Angela Ruskin University.

The Dark Archive is available from Obverse Books.