almostwitty | Entries tagged with doctor who

In our drive to reduce our possessions and be able to see things like walls and floors in our tiny 2-bed flat, it was gently pointed out to me that I might want to consider getting rid of my precious collection of Doctor Who Magazines. Which have been left to rest covered in dust in a distant corner of the living room.

However, unable to countenance such a vile piece of vandalism without at least the possibility of reading them again someday, I looked on the Internet to see if any kind souls had digitised them.

And lo and behold, a Russian site has PDF copies of what appears to be every single edition of Doctor Who Magazine to the end of 2016! Perfecto!

Except, foolishly, I wasn't browsing in incognito mode. Thus by the end of the day, every banner advert was kindly telling me that I could find Hot! Russian! Ladies! through their website. I wonder what their stance on the UNIT dating controversy would be...

Next step: to tackle the six boxes of Empire magazine which have been preserved in a distant cupboard...

After all, any device that, when blown up, destroys the universe should be treated with care.

So it’s very good to see the BBC are taking their responsibilities very seriously.

(Taken courtesy of the BBC, who invited me to a preview of their actual TARDIS studio tour, which you can now take in Cardiff till the end of August.)

Mirrored from almost witty.

As a professional media creator and writer, this is going to come off as incredibly snooty, out of touch and sneering at people who are working on content for the sheer love of it. So be it.

GSG2DWS5 has a very short interview with the editor of Doctor Who magazine, Tom Spilsbury. It’s eight questions long, and since one of the questions is: “Do you have a girlfriend at the moment?” (prompted by Mr. Spilsbury, admittedly) we can ascertain it’s not going to win a Pullitzer Prize any time soon.

The highly amusing element is the legal disclaimer at the bottom:

“This interview has been officially endorsed by Tom Spilsbury himself. This is EXCLUSIVE to GSG2DWS5 and we reserve all rights on this interview. Any reproduction of this interview without consent from both GSG2DWS5 and Tom Spilsbury will result in legal action being taken. All Rights Reserved.”

Really…

Mirrored from almost witty.

As a professional media creator and writer, this is going to come off as incredibly snooty, out of touch and sneering at people who are working on content for the sheer love of it. So be it.

The highly amusing element is the legal disclaimer at the bottom:

“This interview has been officially endorsed by Tom Spilsbury himself. This is EXCLUSIVE to GSG2DWS5 and we reserve all rights on this interview. Any reproduction of this interview without consent from both GSG2DWS5 and Tom Spilsbury will result in legal action being taken. All Rights Reserved.”

Really…

Mirrored from almost witty.

as released for the new BBC One press pack.

See the carousel image? Keep scrolling right till you find Doctor Who - it's the third programme along.

A quite scary and spooky minute too!

If you fancy getting some Doctor Who books (including Russell T Davies' The Writer's Tale, and The Stranger - a novel-length Black Lace equivalent of slashfic featuring someone who might just be The Eight Doctor) at half price, pop along to rbooks.co.uk ("the online store for the Random House Group") and put a book (or twelvty) in your basket.

Then use the discount code of MACKIES50 and you get all the books for half price. Even better, put in £12.50 worth of books, and p&p is free!

Spotted via HotUKDeals - and it seems to work!

About a decade ago, I had my first experience of Hamlet, via Kenneth Branagh's full-length sumptious cinematic adaptation in glorious 70mm. I remember at the time, thinking the following:

- blimey, 70mm is gorgeous
- I can't follow everything that's going on, but I can follow enough to get by
- how many phrases from the English language were plucked from this ?!
- If Ophelia isn't the archetypal Doctor Who companion, I don't know who is...
- Kate Winslet. She'd make a great companion (she wasn't the all-conquering Titantic heroine she is now)

Fast-forward to this weekend, and we three (times two, making six) ended up voyaging from various corners of the UK (and one eBayer from Bermuda) to the twee country town of Stratford-upon-Avon to see a RSC production of Hamlet, with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart leading the cast.

After all the hassles of buying the tickets and getting there, getting into the play was one huge anti-climax. It was a relatively small venue in a quiet part of Stratford's riverside, and we just showed the usher our tickets and entered a stunningly stark place, with mirrors acting as a theatre backdrop. No props, no set dressing, it was a real courtyard, with the actors entering and exiting the stage through corridors amongst the audience, and I loved the idea.

Unfortuanately, as the play progressed, they brought in a prop here, a set dressing there, until by the end the small space was festooned with props and things, which somewhat spoilt it. The ananachronism of it all - helicopters, guns, notepads, condoms - didn't help either. Why use a gun to shoot someone when at the end you end up with a fencing fight?

I'm not too sure what I was expecting - probably epic acting histronics, but I didn't really get the whole experience. It's a production I think I admired more than I liked or loved - I certainly didn't come out of it gabbling or loving it. One of my party left after thirty minutes, saying it was the worst production she'd seen. The rest of my party seemed to love it, although one of them was more star-struck than anything else.

Not being a Shakespearian acolyte, it was to be fair a little hard for me to seperate the actors from the production. For the Tennant fans, there was a fair amount of TimeLord/Tennant-esque dashing around the stage like an epileptic gazelle. Oh, and he wore alternatively a tuxedo, and then a student-esque T-shirt. He's certainly a very very skinny fellow - I need his thyroids. He strangely lacked stage presence - there was one speech where I totally lost interest and had no idea what he was talking about, and he pretty much mumbled his way through To Be or Not To Be (oh baby can't you see, we're gonna make it to the toooooppppp) For the Stewart fans, despite looking a lot like Professor X, he seemed far more convincing and Shakespearian actorly than Tennant. Of course, afterwards there was a mad rush for autographs, although I elected to have a pint instead until other members of my party came back.

Since I haven't been to the theatre in eons, I also forgot that theatre tends to bring out the maudlin and confused in me, mostly because there's no filter between me and the actors, like you have in cinema and television. Then again, I love stand-up comedy, where there's no filter at all. I'm still trying to process that particular thought, but then again: "For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

courtesy of b3ta

"A friend of a friend had been an enthusiastic user of psychedelic drugs in his younger years. He ended up dragged along to a nightclub after imbibing acid and was seriously not enjoying himself. In the throes of a bad trip he cut his losses, ditched the club to head home as quickly as possible.

The trip got worse and worse: at one point he was chased into an alleyway by a horde of marauding Daleks. Faced with a brick wall dead end, he dropped to his knees and pleaded for his life, but still the evil Daleks kept coming for him. He arrived at his flat, soaked in sweat before bolting the front door and closing the curtains.

So shaken up was he that he didn't leave his flat until the following Monday morning when he left for work, still traumatised. The Dalek episode had seemed so real... must have been bad acid.

Our hero's confusion cleared when he picked up the local newspaper on his way to the office and read the headlines... the shortcut past the back of the town hall? Being trapped in an alleyway by Daleks? Turned out he'd had the misfortune to be running past the back of the town hall just as the exhibits for that weekend's Dr Who convention were being unloaded from the back of a van." (PJM)"

Maybe it's just me, but amidst the applause (and the odd tear - that hasn't happened in a long time!) in the latest Doctor Who episode, The Doctor's Daughter, did I spot a few echoes of what used to go on with ye olde Doctor Who? To whit...

(SPOILERS AHEAD!)

( More... )

If there's one wish I'd had for the forthcoming season of Doctor Who, it would be: 'No More Daleks please'.

Yes, I appreciate they are definitively the most famous of foes, and guaranteed good viewing figures. But when you've reduced the kind of enemy who can obliterate an omnipresent God-like Time Lord race to a snivelling sobbing half-human hybrid wrapped in chains running at the first site of a brown raincoat, maybe it's time to give them a bit of a rest, eh?

Throughout all the sneak peeks of season 4 thus far, there's been nary a site of a pepperpot or an eyestalk. Which was a good thing. (The hint of the ye-olde companion-in-love-with-the-Doctor subplot is not a good thing. Even if it has the suddenly easy-on-the-eyes Catherine Tate).

However, amongst the mini teasers for the new season, there's one for the Dalek. Harumph.