I was lucky enough to attend the last DWAS Riverside event for The Crusades so when it was announced that a follow-up event for The Moonbase was to be held there too, I had to grab a ticket. It was a good job I did it early too because the event sold out — and I can confirm it was packed! It’s fantastic to see that Doctor Who in the cinema can still pull in the crowds: take note BBC; please do more cinema releases!

Travel from where I live isn’t easy, though a few people I know who live in Portsmouth seem to make it look so, and thanks to strikes and a football game, there were fewer trains than normal. I’d originally booked to travel to London Victoria but had to change to Waterloo; this meant getting a new ticket, and paying the difference, so things didn’t really get off to a great start! Then thanks to the football match, the train was packed with fans going to watch Portsmouth versus someone-or-other, so I ended up stood on the train from Havant all the way to Guilford. Then people moved and I grabbed a seat and sat down for the rest of it, but it did make me wish for a TARDIS to get me there instead.

Then it was onto the underground which I’m gradually getting used to. There were no Yetis in or around the Underground this time, though it might have made things more interesting. Luckily, I know where I’m heading with Hammersmith, even if Google Maps decided to take me round in a circle first, rather than just telling me I needed to cross the road!

When I covered The Crusades event, I wrote about how it felt like a pilgrimage to Riverside, somewhere which until the last event I wasn’t aware was even a building that was still standing! That feeling didn’t go away either: as Hammersmith Bridge came into view, where once upon a time a Dalek left the Thames, I felt the history of Doctor Who filling the air. It’s incredible to wander around the building with a number of blue plaques commemorating some historical moments not only for Doctor Who but television in general — there were a number of excellent programmes also filmed there… though Who is the best of them all!

Meeting up with my friend Maria, a fellow writer over on The Doctor Who Big Blue Box Podcast, we caught up quickly before the event began. Heading downstairs and into the cinema screen that was once home for Moonbases, cavemen, crusaders, and even WOTAN. Going into the screen, we were greeted by a screen accurate Cyberman from this Second Doctor story, which was brilliant; apparently, the suit was original with all their pipes added on because they had long since disintegrated. Well done to the two gents who have restored it because they did a fantastic job. I would have a much closer encounter with it later!

After an introduction to Episode Two of The Moonbase, it was well underway (upstaged by a little malfunction which saw the episode begin while someone was talking about it), with Jamie soon being menaced by the phantom piper and Polly screaming at the Cybermen. Like The Crusades, the episodes were displayed in their rawest form, that which they were discovered in, so there were crinkles and pops on the screen. People had moaned about this for the previous two events, but I really liked it: as I said with the surviving episodes of The Crusades, it made it feel different, not like someone had just popped the DVD in but instead a version of the story that we hadn’t seen before.

Perhaps the biggest problem with The Moonbase is its treatment of Polly, who does very little but stand around and make tea. The Doctor and the crew asking her to make some coffee to keep everyone happy did raise a few laughs, as did the Doctor on his mission to get his hands on anything he possibly can to try and find where the disease has come from. It’s been years since I’d last seen The Moonbase so I was pleased to be reminded that Polly doesn’t let the Doctor get away with asking her to make the tea and decides to criticise his medical qualifications and knowledge as payback!

Once Episode Two had finished, interviewer Robert Dick took to the floor and introduced the first couple of guests for the event, Floor Manager Margot Hayhoe and camera man, Dudley Darby. I’d felt very sorry for Robert at the last Riverside event; he’d interviewed actresses Cleo Sylveste and Maureen Lane and neither had much to say, so it felt like Robert was having to pull answers out of them — luckily though this time, Hayhoe and Darby were much more cooperative, often talking without being prompted.

Margot spoke about her time on the show, saying that the studio space in Riverside meant that sometimes they had to be quite creative with how they used the space. We also learned that she had once been a child actress, had worked at Riverside in a programme called Women of Troy, and had known Anneke Wills from having worked alongside her in another production. And it wasn’t solely “floor manager” that Margot gets to put on her Doctor Who CV — she also basically played WOTAN in The War Machines! Thanks to her height, she was the right size to stand behind the set and twirl the tapes that indicated when WOTAN was talking.

And later, to much more acclaim, she would defeat the Weed Creature in 1968’s Fury From The Deep. For years, it’s been believed that it was Deborah Watling’s screams that eventually killed the creature — however, we now know that Watling had lost her voice (ironically from too much screaming) and so couldn’t hit the right level. Luckily though, Margot was there to step in and defeat the monster. She seemed very happy to look back on her time on a show that to her was just another job at the BBC, and while she knew it was something special, the fact that it is coming up for its 60th anniversary and still on air was something she couldn’t have predicted.

Dudley Darby also spoke fondly of his time on Doctor Who, working initially as a tracker on The Moonbase before later being promoted to Camera Man. He spoke about how massive and unwieldy the cameras were and that some of the sounds we’d heard in the episode we’d watched, was when a camera man had to change the lenses and it made it a loud clicking sound if not done properly. He also commented on how we can hear one of the people in the gallery talking in the background of the Cybermen’s ships because of how primitive the technology used was.

He seemed to find a job at the BBC by accident, having originally tried to sign up for the Air Force but being rejected because he wore glasses. He would find a leaflet about technicians and how when they completed the course they would be working four days a week more often than not, and often on locations. He had contributed to many episodes of Who but most notably, The Moonbase, The Green Death, and The Seeds of Doom, explaining that he thought it was unfair that senior cameramen were never really allowed to go out on location and never got a credit until the Eighties. He also looked back at working at Riverside, mainly being under the main flight path for Heathrow and how sometimes the planes would be so low, they would make the whole building shake and the floors and equipment would be covered in dust from the ceilings!

We then continued on with Episode Four which sees the Doctor, Ben, Polly, and Jamie defeating the Cybermen, using the Gravitron to fling the metal meanies out into space. Never before had I realised how amusing Hobson’s line to the Cyberleader, “We’ve found your passage and blocked it,” was. The cinema rolled about laughing, probably not the original intention but now the line has to become as famous as the Rani’s “Leave the girl; it’s the man I want.”

After Episode Four, it was the turn of Derek Chafer, Martin Cort, and Frazer Hines to take to the stage. Derek had played a number of monsters and creatures through the ’60s and ’70s in Who, most notably as Cybermen thanks to his height. He also played a Saxon in The Time Meddler and a cowboy in The Gunfighters. His main memories were how inflexible the costumes had been, and having to be bolted into the Cyberman mask, something that was sometimes so tight for space, people would end up with blisters on their nose because the mask would rub so badly. So anyone with claustrophobia or who doesn’t like to be too hot probably shouldn’t become a monster actor!

Martin Cort had similar memories; he was a last minute replacement for John Levene who had to pull out because of a family emergency. He had most notably played a Voord in The Keys of Marinus, but remembered just how uncomfortable those rubber suits were. He described how people would have to be almost showered in talcum powder to be able to squeeze into them and then the eye slits were at the wrong position so all they could see where the flippers they wore. There were a number of times too that actors in those suits would go off in the wrong direction when moving or miss their cues entirely because they couldn’t hear the actors underneath the rubber. Not only does it sound like a miracle that anything got made for us to enjoy but it also makes you wonder why they continued to use such heavy materials when crafting the monsters of the Sixties and Seventies!

Frazer Hines had a lot of fond memories to share, from originally auditioning as Ben — the role went instead to Michael Craze, because of Hines’ less than convincing Cockney accent — to him and Deborah Watling being chased through Snowdonia by a Yeti and the Yeti actor tripping and rolling down the hillside overtaking them both! Hines did reveal though that he’d know Craze from drama school and they would very often meet at auditions because they would often be put up for similar roles. We know that both Anneke Wills and Michael Craze hadn’t been too impressed that Jamie McCrimmon came along because it meant that a number of their lines had to go to to Frazer. Luckily, The Moonbase had been given enough time to have the script altered to include Jamie properly, even if he spends most of it unconscious.

He went on to describe how the cast would very often end up working on their days off too, due to the length and speed of the 48 episodes that would need to be recorded, often doing location work on their days off. They would break for their dinner, go up to the BBC canteen, watch an episode they had recorded only a couple of weeks ago, and then go and record a brand new one.

He also recalled how he thought he was going to be beaten up as he was walking home one night in London, but eventually found out the man following him was on his way to work as a night security guard and so had to miss an episode of Who and desperately wanted to know what was going to happen in the episode he was going to miss!

Once the interviews were done, all the guests did an autograph session, so of course I grabbed one from each as well as getting one of the specially commissioned postcards, with artwork from Alistair Pearson which he also very kindly signed for me. This also allows you to have a bit of a chat with the guests too; I asked Margaret Hayhoe how it felt knowing she defeated a Doctor Who monster. She told me it felt pretty great and not something that everyone could say they’ve done in their life!

Derek Chafer spoke about just how uncomfortable it was in the Cybermen costumes especially since they always seemed to be filming in the warmest weather possible and Martin Cort and I spoke about names — someone else with the same name as me had been in the queue in front of me; I said I used to think that my name was pretty unique, having only ever known one other Jordan in my life! He told me that he hated his real name: I’m sorry but he swore me to secrecy about what his real name is…

Finally, speaking to Frazer, I noticed he had a picture of his character from Outlander and told him about how the main character Jamie Frazer from that show and the novels were named after him and Jamie McCrimmon because he was the companion the original author grew up watching. I also said he must have a thing about the Battle of Culloden, having played a few characters over the years; he said he’s always thought it was strange too and how maybe there is something “spooky” going on — like maybe he had an ancestor that took part in the battle who keeps bringing him back to that time period!?

The final thing I did was have a good look at the fantastic Cyberman suit that had been restored by some very talented people. By this point, quite a few folk had gone so it was nice that my friend Maria and I could get a closer look. Now I’m 6’4″ and this suit must have been at least 6’6″, if not taller and I suddenly realised just how terrifying these creatures were. They were at least a handlebar’s taller than me. It’s not very often I have to look up to something and I realised just what it must have felt like to be menaced by one of these creatures. Pretty surreal!

The Moonbase was another fantastic event from the folks at The Doctor Who Appreciation Society and they always impress me with the guests they get as well as how fantastic the events are. It’s also fantastic to speak to other visitors in the queues and get chatting: everyone is always so friendly! There are two further upcoming Doctor Who events coming up at Riverside — a normal cinema viewing of The Tenth Planet on the 30th September and then on the 14th October there’s Sea and Space, a DWAS event which will be showing surviving episodes from The Underwater Menace and The Wheel Space. If you can, grab a ticket and take a lovely afternoon out at Riverside!

Following the success of the first two special screening events, The Daleks’ Invasion of Earth and The Crusades, Riverside Studios and The Doctor Who Appreciation Society (DWAS) have announced a further two events in the run up to the 60 Anniversary celebrations in November.

Hosted at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, these events are held in a screen which was once used as the studio that many Sixties and early Seventies episodes of Doctor Who were recorded in. And just outside is Hammersmith bridge, which was famously used as the stretch of the Thames that the Dalek emerges from at the end of the opening episode of The Daleks’ Invasion of Earth. Sitting in front of the cinema screen, it’s hard to believe that this small and cramped studio was once used to film iconic scenes from the early years of the show. Outside is also a plaque dedicated to the filming of the first regeneration at the end of The Tenth Planet.

There is a sold out event tomorrow (12th August) for The Moonbase, which will see Frazer Hines, and John Levene and Derek Chafer, both of whom played Cybermen; as well as production manager Margot Hayhoe, and cameraman Dudley Darby, who both worked on many episodes of Doctor Who throughout the 1960s.

But don’t worry, if you missed out on The Moonbase: on the 30th September 2023, there is an event for The Tenth Planet, a story which saw the First Doctor, William Hartnell, bow out of the series as well as the introduction of the Cybermen, monsters who we know are still going strong 50-odd years after they first appeared in the show! The Tenth Planet will be hosted by Doctor Who expert Matthew Sweet who many fans will know for the In Conversation documentaries from the Blu-ray Collection sets. He will be giving introductions and providing background information on the making of the story between the screening of the three surviving episodes. (According to Riverside’s website, the cast includes Carole Ann Ford, Maureen O’Brien, and Peter Purves — we know that none of those actors were involved in The Tenth Planet so hopefully they will be guests for the event and will be doing photo opportunities and signings afterwards.)

And then on 14th October 2023, Riverside will be hosting The Sea & Space event, which will be screening The Underwater Menace Episode 2 and The Wheel in Space Episode 6 in a celebration of the Second Doctor. So far, the guests announced for this event include Wendy Padbury who played companion Zoe; Michael Troughton, the son of Patrick Troughton and man who currently plays the Second Doctor on Big Finish; and Makeup Assistant Sylvia James, who worked on the show between 1967 and 1974. Of course, these are only the first announced guests and DWAS normally manages to grab lots of excellent guests so I’d imagine there will be even more announced in the run up to the event.

I was lucky enough to go to the The Crusades event and get a ticket for The Moonbase one too and I can tell you that these events are brilliant. Not only is it a chance to see Doctor Who in a cinema outside of the BFI (which always sells out before anyone can actually grab a ticket), but they are well hosted events too. The folks at DWAS are really lovely; I’ve met quite a few of them over the years and the calibre of guests is always excellent — from meeting the actors to those who worked behind the scenes, they always manage to deliver interesting and exciting chats about the stories they worked on. I’ve made it my mission to meet as many people who have worked on Doctor Who in any capacity for the show so I’m really excited to meet the guests that have been announced so far!

Beginning at 2pm, they normally finish at 5/6pm once you’ve grabbed photos and autographs and then take a little tour around Hammersmith to see some filming locations. Another notable location is The Macbeth Centre in Macbeth Street, which was used extensively in Remembrance of the Daleks; I think I’ll be taking a little trip there when I go!

For tickets to these events, head on over to the Riverside Studios website!

I’ve been determined to take in as many Doctor Who filming locations as I can recently following my successful trip to the village of Charlton, used in Terror of the Zygons. This time around, I’ve visited three different locations, Brighton Beach, Lakeside North Harbour – formally the IBM building and then Fraser Gunnery Range.

The Leisure Hive

Used in the opening scenes of The Leisure Hive where we see the Doctor relaxing in a deck chair in what looks like freezing weather, while Romana and K9 are taking a stroll. You might be worried that it would be a tough location to spot, but actually it’s pretty easy.

If you leave the train station and head down the main road to the beach, turn left and walk along until you reach The Queen’s Hotel. There, you’ll notice you’re pretty much wedged between the two piers, one still working, one just the metal shell, left to fall apart out at sea. When you find The Queen’s Hotel, then go straight down on the seafront and everything is pretty easy to spot.

The TARDIS would have been on the left-hand side, while the Doctor relaxes on a deck chair.

Romana and K9 walk along the water’s edge with the ruined pier behind them. When Romana gets bored and throws the beach ball into the water for K9 to get, without thinking, she is seen walking up the shingle in front of The Queen’s Hotel. Of course, the shingle has shifted and changed over time but you can match up where she then legged it back down along the beach thanks to some strategically placed chimney pots on the left hand side of the hotel. There is also some curved windows on the left hand side which you can see behind her, when she rushes to help K9.

Assuming everything was filmed in front of the hotel, then the patch of water where K9 explodes would be directly in line with the hotel; however, one patch of water looks very much alike another so I can’t be 100% certain. Again, assuming all the filming took place in virtually the same place, the scenes of the Doctor sitting on the sea front would now be on the promenade pathway; there are a number of shops and galleries with rounded entrances which are behind both the Doctor and Romana, but look out for ones with slats that go diagonally and not vertically because these are the ones behind the pair.

Brighton Beach was also used in The Sound of Drums when Martha rings her brother to warn him about the Master. I couldn’t actually work out where this was filmed but I have a feeling it was further right, more in line with the shops than the hotels on the front. There isn’t a lot of Brighton in The Leisure Hive, but it’s still fun to stop and have a look around — you never know, you might stumble across a man in a long scarf and a woman in a sailor’s costume carrying a robot dog!

Revelation of the Daleks

There were a few locations used to film Revelation of the Daleks. The forest scenes were filmed in Queen Elizabeth Country Park, while the wall that the Sixth Doctor, and Peri walk along looking for a way into Tranquil Repose, is the back of the Goodwood Estate. But I think finding that might have to be a summer-time stroll!

However, the most iconic location for this story is the IBM building in Cosham. Now, it’s called Lakeside North Harbour. If you’re like me and you have to take public transport, the two best places to stop are Donaldson Road opposite the dodgy St. George Playing Fields or Hilsea Lido. I would recommend the Hilsea stop because Google Maps doesn’t seem to understand how underpasses work to get you from one side of a giant roundabout to another… Also, if you are at Hilsea, turn to the right and follow that pavement all the way along and you’ll quickly come across the left-hand side of Lakeside. I went a bit around the town first, thanks to Google Maps, so I came out in the gigantic car park!

Once you reach Lakeside, if you walk all the way along the front of the building, the iconic location is pretty easy to spot — it’s as far right as the public are allowed to walk, though you might need to be careful as you can only enter the buildings with a lanyard (and I did think a couple of times people or security were possibly keeping an eye on me).

The first thing you’ll spot is the great big glass structure, minus the pyramids on top which the building sported in the serial. The pond in the front is home to a couple of swans and ducks that you might not want to get too close to either! Looking at this section of the building on the left, you can see where the statue of the Doctor was that the Doctor and Peri inspect before it collapses down on the Doctor.

It goes to show how good director Graeme Harper is because it’s only a small part of the building they used to film but, thanks to the close ups and mid shots, it makes it feel like the whole building was used. A good example is a close of up of Nicola Bryant as Peri, which you can match up, thanks to the reflection of the right hand side building. Nowadays, it has a tree planted pretty much where Peri would have once stood.

I would have taken some more photos are the right-hand side as this is where Clive Swift as Jobel would walk to try and ‘comfort’ Peri when the statue of the Doctor falls on the Doctor. However, as I felt like people were watching me, and I wasn’t too sure of what was inside the building (that might end up in my photos), I didn’t want to push my luck. I may give it a few months and then make my way back to get some more photos with screenshots to help me…

One final picture I took was from Peri calling out to the Doctor about the toppling statue — this is where you might meet the slightly aggressive swans and ducks, so be prepared! But the path is the same as it was in the 1980s with the odd bit of set pieces around, possibly strategically placed to hide signage and steps and doorways. Peri would have been stood almost in line with the ducks in this photo, while the Doctor is in the distance in front of the steps.

The old IBM building, now Lakeside, is a great place to visit and I think it is open-ish to the public; there is a massive car park and lots of people going around taking photos holding keys to homes. The building has tax offices as well as being home to head office of the company I work for, something I didn’t know about until talking about my visit later! Obviously I don’t want anyone to go round there and get arrested taking photographs but if you get a chance to visit then definitely visit this iconic location.

The Sea Devils

Following my trip to Lakeside, on the same day I wanted to visit Fraser Gunnery Range which was famously the navy base in the Third Doctor adventure, The Sea Devils. If you want to walk, then it’s an hour and half away from the Lakeside Building but if you’re like me and your feet are tired, then you need to walk back to Hilsea Lido and then use Bus stop M. It’s a First bus — take it to Bransbury Park in Copnor. You’ll know you’re on the right bus because it should take you past Portsmouth Football Club and Stadium.

Getting off at Bransbury Park, you’ll need to walk almost the entire length of Bransbury Road, then cross and walk the entirety of Henderson Road. It’s a walk that’ll take about 20 minutes but the back of the Gunnery is pretty easy to spot once you’re about halfway there. Once you get there, there is a large green park, but if you take a right turn by a children’s playground, you’ll actually be walking up the road that the Master and Colonel Trenchard would have taken to get into HMS Seaspite. You’ll notice the big gates at the back which once upon a time would have just been a barrier.

If you’re feeling particularly brave, you could even risk getting closer to see some of the interior locations including the area that Trenchard’s cart pulls up at, and where the Master salutes the navy personal walking past. Signs warning of guard dogs and trespassers put me off getting too close, and I advise you against going near too.

I was also a little dismayed at what a state the building was in. Each of the buildings just seemed to be the four walls and the ceiling; there are no doors or windows left, and graffiti is everywhere. It’s a shame to see such a great location that many people don’t know about having fallen into such disrepair.

Following the path to the right, it’ll bring you out onto Eastney Beach itself, and walking along the line of the property, you’ll find two big metal gates. I don’t know if they are the same ones from the serial, but here, it’s easy to spot all the other locations. There is a porch area outside of which the Third Doctor, Jo, and Captain Hart exit and spot the Sea Devils. The main gates are also open for the final episode thanks to the big fight between the Navy and the Sea Devils.

Looking down along the beach, you can spot where the Sea Devils would have come running, when Hart is in the giant gun firing on them, sending them sprawling with a series of explosions and then on the other side, there is a distant building which sees the Master running from it.

Of course, the beach has changed a lot since filming took place in the early 1970s and what I was walking along was actually sea defences — so be careful because it’s a bit of a drop down, should you fall. Also be careful because where the Gunnery is, it’s now, to my shock and horror, a nudist beach! I was walking around this section of the beach taking photos and happened to look down, trying to match up where the hovercraft dropped off Jo and some more military personal: it also happened to be right where a man was lying stark naked in eight-degree weather! So this is perhaps not a location to take the kids, but if you ignore the naked people, then it’s another great filming location on the South Coast. And as not many stories were filmed near me, it’s nice to find these little places that not many people either know about or bother with.

Other locations used for The Sea Devils were No Man’s Land fort, now a hotel in the Solent; and elsewhere on the Isle of Wight, somewhere I might try and visit in the summer.

So that’s three more locations ticked off my list. I think my next trip will be Arundel Castle where Silver Nemesis was filmed. I’ve been there loads of times and know where filming took place but strangely, I’ve never taken pictures around there. Honestly though, I don’t know what’s scarier, Cybermen or naturists? Had they been there when the Sea Devils came ashore, it certainly would’ve been memorable…

I’d had to miss out on the last DWAS event at Riverside Studios which was about The Daleks’ Invasion of Earth. Luckily though, I was able to make their second event there which saw the surviving two episodes of The Crusades played on the big screen, in a similar way to the BFI events, plus a couple of guests to meet afterwards.

I live miles and miles away from London so making a trip there has to be worth it; the train tickets alone from where I live are pushing £50 and for any Doctor Who event in London, the train is the most expensive thing. So I decided to get the most out of my day and got there about 10am — the event started at 2pm and for some foolish reason, I walked from Waterloo station to Riverside Studios in Hammersmith!

Now, it wasn’t an entirely terrible idea: I’d never seen the Mall in real life before; or Buckingham Palace of which I got a few nice pictures of. I walked the entirety of Hyde Park and then Kensington Gardens — which offered a view of, I think, The Royal Albert Opera House and then I walked through Kensington, which wasn’t as posh as I thought it would have been and then into Hammersmith. When all was done, I had walked 7 miles! (It’s a good job I quite like rambling as a hobby…)

For anyone who lives near or in London, somewhere like Riverside Studios probably isn’t much of an attraction, but for someone like me, who lives in the back of beyond, it’s much more of a pilgrimage and so seeing the place they filmed a lot of 1960s Doctor Who was quite breath-taking. To think I was walking in the footsteps of William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton, as well as their companions and many other actors, was exhilarating. And Riverside seem to be proud of their connection to Doctor Who with three dedicated plaques outside. One lets you know that between 1954 and 1974, Doctor Who, Hancock’s Half-Hour, Blue Peter, and many other programmes were made there. Another one is about Verity Lambert, the first producer and creator of the show; it was also unveiled by The Doctor Who Appreciation Society. And a final one says that a number of iconic scenes from Who were filmed there including the first regeneration and the Daleks emerging from the Thames underneath Hammersmith Bridge.

And speaking of Hammersmith Bridge, that was my next port of call. I think I’ve found where the Dalek emerged from the Thames now, matching up the bridge supports to what we see behind the Dalek, but it has all changed since filming in the early 1960s! It was very exciting to see and I do sometimes wonder what people around me must be thinking, seeing someone taking pictures of really random areas, but maybe they would be as interested as me in knowing this was the spot that one of the most iconic shots from the entirety of Doctor Who was filmed…

Meeting up with my friend Maria from The Doctor Who Big Blue Box Podcast, we caught up quickly and then went into the event. For those who don’t know, Riverside is no longer a studio lot, but a cinema with the upper floors having been converted into flats. Taking our seats, we settled in to see what the afternoon had in store. One of the first things we saw going in was Julian Glover’s costume for Count Scarlioni in City of Death and then in the cinema room, the costume he wore for Richard the Lionheart in The Crusades which were amazing to see!

It began with an introduction and then the first episode entitled The Lion. I’ve seen people complaining about the quality of the footage we were seeing but it was explained at the beginning that this was the condition the episodes were found in when the original tapes were discovered. Obviously, this quality wouldn’t have been good on the DVD or Blu-ray releases; it’s a curio and only the two episodes, so the lines on the screen, the crinkles, and cracks added to the experience, as if this were a version of the story that we hadn’t seen before.

Another problem with The Crusades is that it’s pretty racist, with many white actors being in black-face or made to look like they’ve come from The Holy Land. And while this obviously isn’t acceptable and I’m sure that really, it wasn’t incredibly acceptable back in 1965 either, I was pleased that it didn’t distract people from viewing the story. We know better now but we have accept this was how television was made in the days of the likes of The Black and White Minstrel Show.

Once the first episode had finished, Robert Dick took to the stage to interview two of the surviving members of the cast, namely Maureen Lane, who played one of Lady Joanna’s Ladies in Waiting but more famously a batton twirler in The Macra Terror; and Cleo Sylveste who was one of El-Akir’s concubines. Sylveste has recently been interviewed by Doctor Who Magazine and was recently awarded an MBE.

It was an… interesting interview, with Robert having to drag the answers from the pair. In fact, one might be forgiven for thinking that they wanted to be anywhere other than at this event. It didn’t help that they both only appear in the two episodes of the story which are still missing but the chat did pick up towards the end, with Robert talking to Cleo about her rekindling her singing career. To give Robert credit, he did try to get things from them — he asked what it was like working on Doctor Who, if they ever met the main cast behind the scenes, what other things they had filmed at Riverside, how their careers started, and if they ever wanted to be anything else other than an actor. It wasn’t a long 45 minutes but I think, given how little they seemed to answer questions, any longer would have been too long.

Episode 3 of The Crusades — The Wheel of Fortune — was up next and I’d forgotten just how dark this story was with much of the action seeing Barbara having to hide from El-Akir’s soldiers who are burning down houses trying to find her. She is hiding in the house of a man who hates Saladin and is only too happy for her to take shelter so long as she promises to kill his daughter should she fall into El-Akir’s clutches. People say this is a children’s show but this is certainly much darker than anything aimed at children.

If anything, Episode 3 made me really appreciate the strength of David Whitaker’s writing. This feels like an entire world, where the Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Vicki are at the mercy of actions taking place around them. Jaqueline Hill doesn’t get too much to say or do here, despite being the main focus of the episode but the warm round of applause at the end of the episode, which ends on her terrified face, did nearly make me cry. I wonder if Hill, who sadly passed away many years ago, would be happy to know that something she made nearly 60 years ago is still enjoyed by people who are too young to have seen it originally and that that it can still earn a massive round of applause in a cinema?

If the chat with Maureen Lane and Cleo Sylveste had been a bit of a drag, then the chat with Julian Glover who played Richard the Lionheart in this story was the exact opposite. I have met Glover before; he was the guest at the BFI’s showing of City of Death, and he was just as animated here as he was then. Glover still has the power to command a room full of people. He spoke a little about City of Death, mainly how annoyed he was that everyone else got to go to Paris and all his scenes were filmed in Television Centre in London, and that the original actress to play the Countess was to be his future wife Isla Blair. But he was primarily there to speak about his work on The Crusades. He said that they never thought of the show as a children’s show — they treated it like a Shakespeare play. We know that Who was filmed as live, with no breaks in recording, he described how challenging it was making sure everyone was in the right places at the right time. And they had filmed it at Riverside Studios!

Glover also described working with the leading man, William Hartnell, which he said wasn’t a happy experience. Hartnell wasn’t too pleased with the casting of Glover or Jean Marsh who played Richard’s sister, Lady Joanna, thinking them far too posh because of their RADA background. It’s strange he would have this opinion of Jean Marsh who, in a few stories’ time, would become one of his companions, Sara Kingdom. Glover said that he and Marsh would normally spend a lot of time together, feeling like they couldn’t really talk to the main cast because of Hartnell’s behaviour. Ultimately, this helped though as it sold them as brother and sister.

Talk then turned to Glover’s work on his recently released book Cue to Cue which, with its plethora of pictures, he described as toilet book, and to his son Jamie Glover who is also an actor and who played William Russell in the 50th anniversary docudrama, An Adventure in Space and Time. I have to be honest, I hadn’t registered that he was Julian Glover’s son, but in this case, it’s apparent that acting runs in the family; Julian said he was pleased that his son had chosen this career despite explaining how difficult it can be.

It was during the filming of his second Doctor Who, City of Death, that Julian Glover received the call asking him to play the baddie in the James Bond movie, For Your Eyes Only, and he revealed how originally he was reluctant to take the part.

With the chats and the surviving episodes done and dusted, it was then time for a meet and greet at the end; everyone there was queuing to meet Julian Glover and while I was going to grab an autograph from him, I also grabbed one from Maureen Lane and Cleo Sylveste as I genuinely want to meet as many people from Doctor Who as I can possibly can. And while they were still quiet and didn’t really say much, they both seemed happy enough to sign a quick autograph for me.

The queue for Julian’s autograph was a long one, but it did eventually start moving and I brought a copy of his book which worked out cheaper than getting a signed photo. He seemed delighted to know my name, saying that you don’t meet many Jordans now. I said, actually I suppose you don’t; I’ve only ever known one other Jordan in my life! I’m looking forward to reading his book, having given it a quick flick through — it’s not an autobiography; instead, he looks back at periods of his career he feels most proud of and periods he doesn’t. It’s all mixed in time-wise but no doubt will make for a great read.

All in all, this was a wonderful way of spending a Sunday afternoon. I got to make the long, long, long pilgrimage to Riverside and watch Doctor Who on the big screen with other fans, and meet three people who made a big enough impression to be remembered for their contributions to a show now in its 60th year! The next event at Riverside is The Moonbase, on the 12th August. I believe there is also a chance to watch their first event, which was recorded, for The Daleks’ Invasion of Earth in July. If you’ve got a free Saturday and want to spend it with other Doctor Who fans, then Riverside is just the place.

And you can order Cue to Cue now!

Where I live on the South Coast, Hayling Island to be precise, there aren’t a lot of Doctor Who locations nearby. So it’s very nice to occasionally find locations that were filmed near me. There have only been a few: The Sea Devils, Terror of the Zygons, Revelation of the Daleks, and The Mysterious Planet. Unfortunately, much of Revelation of the Daleks and The Mysterious Planet were filmed in Queen Elizabeth Country Park, and would be very, very hard to find the actual locations. Of course, The Mysterious Planet was also filmed at Butser Hill, so you can visit where the Tribe of the Free lived. And I don’t much fancy getting arrested trying to get into the Naval bases they used in The Sea Devils! But I was really surprised to find that Terror of the Zygons was filmed only a couple of bus journeys away from me…

Tulloch Moor is a pretty iconic village in Doctor Who; Terror of the Zygons was made during the time of Phillip Hinchcliffe’s horror influenced era and so the location of Charlton in Chichester makes a perfect location. There’s a country road you have to walk or drive down to get there and it’s nestled between two big hills. For people using the bus, if you get the bus to Chichester, then take the 60 to Midhurst and get off at the stop after Weald and Downland Museum, it’s about a 20-minute walk from the nearest bus stop. Don’t let that worry you though: you actually get there pretty quickly and as you get closer, and the silence encroaches around you, it’s not hard to imagine why this area was chosen as the perfect creepy village.

When you arrive, you’ll first notice the distinctive road that Zygon-Harry tries to run down, away from UNIT and Sarah Jane. I was astonished to find that virtually nothing had changed; it was made even better by the fact that the roads were still wet from the previous day’s rain and I had arrived early enough, at about 10am, that there was still a little mist on the ground and in the hills. It was like I had stepped back through time, exited in 1975, and filming was still underway. So much hadn’t changed that it wasn’t hard to imagine evil-Harry legging it towards me.

If you follow that road on down, and you’re really familiar with the story, you can also identify where the cameras would have been placed to capture the action, including a little nook between a house and a wall where the camera pans to the left to watch evil-Harry pelting down the lane; and where you first come into the village, is where evil-Harry would be charging at you. I believe the house on the left-hand side of the screen, with its distinctive white doors and boarded up windows is the back of a hotel. In 1975, this could have been a couple of houses and according to a photo on the Doctor Who Locations Guide website, a photo taken in 2008 has a hotel sign hanging overhead. That sign is gone now but the distinctive white doorways are still there.

A little further on down that road is the Fox Inn. In real life, it’s called The Fox Goes Free pub. In the programme, there is a wall wrapped around the outside with a entrance to the car park which we still the Duke of Forgill pull into when he drops the Fourth Doctor, Sarah, and the real Harry Sullivan off to meet up with UNIT and the Brigadier. Nowadays, the wall and the grass verge behind it have gone to allow for more seating space but it’s still easy to see all the different spaces used for filming, including the door that evil-Harry escapes out of when he scares Sarah. I wanted to go in and ask them if they knew anything about the filming, or indeed had kept any knick-knacks, but due to the early time I was there and the fact the pub was closed in the morning, I didn’t get the chance. I may make a trek there again in the new year so I’m planning on asking around!

If you stand on the opposite side of the road facing the pub, you can get a feel for where more scenes were shot. You can see the corner that Sarah and UNIT run past to follow the evil-Harry, though the wooden bus stop is gone, replaced by a metal pole with the travel information. If you are travelling by bus around there, I suggest taking the 20-minute walk back to the nearest bus stop as a small bus from the town only goes about every hour-and-a-half and looked so old and rickety that it really doesn’t look safe!

Also, opposite the pub is another area that was extensively used in the filming. That’s the side of the barns that we will see later. You can also see you’re in the right area thanks to the red phone box at the end of the road, also seen in the episode. But the dilapidated side door on the street side of the barn is still as visible now as it was in the television episode. It’s on the left-hand side of that road, almost next to the barn that we first see UNIT soldier’s marching past as the Duke of Forgill with his three passengers drives past.

On the opposite side of that road is a wall with a gate, which is where, after she meets evil-Harry, Sarah runs to get help, to a parked UNIT jeep with soldiers playing cards on the bonnet. They then run back up that road, past the pub and the area we see Harry leg it past with the two buildings on the side. This is where the location gets quite complicated because Charlton literally goes round in a loop, so if evil-Harry kept on following that loop, he would very quickly run up behind Sarah and UNIT who had only just taken off after him; he’d have very quickly bumped into them again!

Had evil-Harry kept on running in a straight line, he’d have found himself heading out of the village and away to freedom as the direction he runs is the way in and out of the area. However, he would turn immediately left and then left again, which allows us the view of the corner of a front garden. In 1975, it was a wooden fence that helps guide us to the proper location; nowadays, it’s a small wooden fence that allows us a better look at the corner that Sarah turns down and chases Harry.

Follow that road on down and turn around to look at where you’ve just come from: you’ll see the line of cottages with their chimneys in the background. This is the road where Sarah and UNIT stop to catch their breath before deciding to split up. The road that UNIT takes does still exist but, as no scenes were shot there, I didn’t follow it down — I think it also goes in a loop and joins back up onto the main road a little down the way. Sarah takes the right way through and turns left, following the route Harry has taken. This takes her past another field and, letting out another shout, she follows him towards the barns.

Harry stops by the field to look back at his pursuers and this allows us a chance to see where this small scene was filmed. The field behind him hasn’t changed too much, but you can pretty much get an exact spot thanks to a farmhouse with a distinctive chimney stack in the background. In the episode, Harry stops in front of a wooden fence and a small barn. Neither of them exists anymore; instead it’s been replaced with a metal fence and allows a view out onto the field that once stood behind the Zygon-Harry.

Harry would then continue down that road heading towards the barns. This where the infamous scene of him attacking Sarah with a pitchfork was filmed. Unfortunately, I don’t think you’re allowed inside as it’s a business now and there didn’t seem to be anyone else around. But I was able to walk into the courtyard area, which has had some restoration done to make them all habitable, so I was able to grab a photo of the outside of the barn Sarah follows Harry into.

Unfortunately, that’s all that was filmed in Charlton for Terror of the Zygons. It’s not a very large place at all and if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was taking plenty of pictures and filming a location tour for my YouTube channel, Who’s Watching, then I would have probably just done the one trip around. But I actually did quite a few loops around the village. Interacting with people I saw was quite amusing because they didn’t ask me what I was doing; they seemed to notice my Marvel bag and my camera in my hand and just sort of roll their eyes with an air of “Oh, it’s another one!” And it was so quiet everywhere; you couldn’t even hear the birds tweeting! It was literally like somewhere from a Hammer Horror film…

There are other locations around West Sussex that played host to filming Terror of the Zygons; unfortunately they were a little too far away and, on the day I went, there were dark clouds rolling in and I didn’t fancy getting stuck in the woods and hills in rain and wind — I didn’t fancy being the main star of my own horror film! But Charlton is the main location for the story anyway, so it was brilliant that it stayed nice and dry for me; someone must have been looking after me!

If you fancy taking in Charlton and then some other nearby locations then I would suggest Arundel, which stood in for Windsor in the Seventh Doctor story, Silver Nemesis, which is eight miles from Charlton.

Filming for Terror of the Zygons took place there for one day, 25th March 1975, but everything looks exactly as it did back then. If you were ever looking for a picture-postcard, quintessentially sleepy English village, then Charlton certainly ticks all those boxes. Walking around in the peace and quiet, it’s not hard to see why the BBC production team chose the area to become Tulloch Moor; and it’s certainly not hard to imagine the Zygons plotting their takeover of our world here. In fact, who’s to say I am actually Jordan writing this now? I might have been taken and swapped with a Zygon…

I’ve done a few conventions in the past, and I’ve met a few stars from Doctor Who. But these tend to be the MCM ones, and as much a I like those events, they are so massive and packed with people that I’m sure that being bundled into a large building, so crammed with people that you can only sort of waddle like penguins, counts as a great experience.

I had been looking for a new convention to attend for a while, now that life seems to be going to normal — being trapped indoors and not getting to meet like minded people was making lots of us go stir crazy and I’m a little nervous about attending the larger events. It was while I visiting the BFI for their City of Death screening that I met up with my fellow writer, Maria, over on The Big Blue Box Podcast, another Doctor Who site, and she was telling me about The Capitol con she had been to, when cons were a thing.

I had already seen an advert for the upcoming fifth convention in DWAS’ issues of Celestial Toyroom and had been tempted. But given how I had always gone with my friends, who generally organised everything, I just had to turn up, not over-pack, and look glamorous… did I want to go somewhere by myself and risk not knowing anyone there? Well, I knew Maria was going so I wasn’t going to be completely on my own, and I had decided that I did really want to go. But it wasn’t until the tickets had nearly sold out that I decided to take the plunge and give myself a Christmas present.

Arriving on the Friday afternoon, I was pleased that checking in to the hotel – The Crowne Plaza, Gatwick – was as easy as pie. That was perhaps what I most nervous about: had my reservation been booked in properly? Then came the long wait for Saturday. Luckily Maria arrived not too much later and we went down and had dinner in the restaurant, surrounded by other Doctor Who fans. It was there I noticed one of the guests, sat in a back booth, had a startling resemblance to director, Graeme Harper. I then realised this was Graeme Harper, enjoying a large fish and chips! It was a delight then, once I’d finished my nice burger and Maria her curry, that when we went over into the bar, having recognised a number of fellow Doctor Who fans from Twitter, and met up with another writer from The Big Blue Box, Mark, who along with his friend Ritchie had come all the way from Scotland (though that wouldn’t be the furthest I learnt that other visitors had come from). We then sat in a group until just after midnight, chatting with Mark and Ritchie and David V Clarke, who has starred in and produced the fan series Devious. He delighted in telling us what it was like to work with Jon Pertwee and some of the green-room stories Jon Pertwee used to tell. Other topics of conversation included our first Doctor Who stories, the evolution of Big Finish, and Warriors of the Deep — just typical fan conversations! And I delighted in looking around the bar and seeing faces like Lee Binding, Alister Pearson, Dez Skinn, and Graeme Harper all having a blast too.

With the event starting at 9:30 on the Saturday morning, sporting a fetching Ace hoodie and Sapphire and Steel t-shirt (which proved to be a talking point for many people later on), we all made sure we were in the main hall for the opening of the convention and the first panels of the day. Graeme Harper and Eric Saward were up first, looking back on their time on the show. Harper was happy to talk about his work on both eras of the show, as well directing the tram-crash episode of Coronation Street. I describe Harper as a Michael-Bay kind of director. It’s always going to be action packed, full of explosions and brilliance. And when he’s paired with amazing writers like Robert Holmes, Eric Saward, and Russell T Davies amongst others, his work really shines. While Harper did most of the talking, Saward seemed a little more subdued, though he was very happy and engaging when talking about his time on the show, working with John Nathan-Turner and even expressed a little regret at leaving the show in the way that he did.

I would later have a nice conversation with Harper about Revelation of the Daleks, specifically about the locations they used, which are all located down by me. I said we go past places like Tangmere Aerodrome on the way to Chichester, the bus into Portsmouth takes you past the IBM building, and Queen Elisabeth Country Park is only a short-ish drive away. We all had a chuckle that it’s nice to get out of a London setting to film things and we commented on how there is only so many times one can use Daleks to destroy London before it gets boring. At his autograph table, Saward was still a little subdued and didn’t really say too much but was still happy to sign things. I got the feeling from him that while he’s a man of few words and is straight talking when he does, he’s content enough with his contribution to Doctor Who and that lots of younger fans like me, who weren’t around when his episodes aired, have discovered and love them. Stories like The Visitation, Earthshock, and Revelation of the Daleks will always be considered great, I told him, no matter the generation watching.

The next panel saw Edward Russell hosting a chat about the Eaglemoss figurines with Development Manager, John Ainsworth, and former Brand Manager, Chris Thompson. I’ve only ever brought a few of the figurines — a few Daleks, Terry Molloy’s Davros, and the Seventh Doctor and Ace — so I wasn’t too sure I would enjoy the panel. But I found it fun and informative and it gave me a new appreciation for the figures, especially as Ainsworth also agrees that sometimes the likenesses are so hard to get that the final product really is the best they could do. And we got a little leak that we were are getting an Yvonne Hartman figurine and that actress Tracy-Ann Oberman has expressed an interest in helping them with the magazine for that release.

I stayed for a further panel, this time with Dez Skinn, talking about how he got Doctor Who Magazine started, including how he didn’t seem to have any trouble in getting the rights for the magazine when other people had done in the past. He said this was possibly because he had huge success with other magazines he’d worked on like House of Hammer and Hulk Comic. But he really lit up when he was detailing some of the antics that he, Tom Baker, and Douglas Adams would get up too on the DWM press tours. Including one story about him trying to chat up a buxom Californian but she was much more interested in Douglas Adams, while Baker did his best to hide behind his newspaper! He also said he had expressed an interest in Adams in turning Hitchhikers’ Guide into a comic book but Adams was worried about flooding his franchise, despite the numerous books, audios, films, and television series that had been made by that point…

The next few hours were spent waiting and collecting a number of autographs from Graeme Harper and Eric Saward. The other guest was the delightful Katy Manning! I’d never met Katy Manning before; I knew she would be popular but not as popular as she was. We were stood in the queue for over two hours. But oh was it worth it! Just catching a glimpse of Katy Manning in the wild as I stepped into the autograph room was exciting enough, then getting to meet her, as she had to make her way round the room and quickly sign things. I was worried this would make my meeting her feel a little more rushed.

But I’d already decided to thank her for making The Daemons all those years ago, which would later give me one final great memory with my late father. She stood, listening and having signed my copy of The Daemons, holding my hands and telling me how she was touched by what I’d said. She must have remembered what I’d said because in her later panel, she described how touched she was by my comment and then later, when I had a photograph taken with her, she held my hand and spoke to me about how brave it was to divulge a story like that, not only to her but also to lots of other people who were in the room.

She was a delight to meet and has to be one of the kindest people ever!

After waiting for that long, I had another couple of panels that I wanted to attend, the first of which was An Afternoon Tea with Katy Manning. Once again, she was a delight, telling us stories from her ‘friendship’ with John Levene, the reasons why she never wanted to revisit Aldbourne, the location of The Daemons, and her thoughts and feelings on the life and death of her friend, Stewart Bevan. She was a delight from start to finish, even if the afternoon-tea aspect fell apart thanks to limp sandwiches and there being no tea in the teapot.

The following panel was a chat with Camille Coduri, who spoke about her time on the show as Rose Tyler’s mum, Jackie. I was interested to learn that originally they weren’t sure if Jackie would become a reoccurring character or not, how Christopher Eccelston confided in her that he was nervous about his performance as the Ninth Doctor, and then she told a very funny story about driving the yellow pick-up truck towards the climatic finale of The Parting of the Ways. She was ready to drive it, before someone stopped her because she didn’t have an HGV license. Apparently what they then had to do was get a man decked out in all black to sit, with Coduri straddling him to do the steering while he changed the gears and speed of the lorry. And she said that if you look really closely now you know what look for, then you can see the man she was straddling through the windscreen!

It was then more autographs for me — luckily the queue moved at a brisker pace; I think the people in charge had decided to not have everyone stood around for hours. This time I met Prentis Hancock, Michael McStay, Sadie Miller, and Camille Coduri. I’ve reviewed the last couple of Big Finish audios Miller has done and with a cover of The Seeds of Doom, told her how her mother would be proud of her carrying on the Sarah Jane Smith legacy and how impressive she was in the role. Miller seemed to be genuinely moved by this, as if no one had actually told her that and I can understand that everyone would want to ask her about her mother; indeed, she did point out that the woolly coat that Sladen wears in The Seeds of Doom is one of her favourite costumes. But I think telling Sadie Miller that her mother would be incredibly proud of her and how she has stepped into the Doctor Who family, moved her and I thought I’d best move on before I did make her cry.

When I got to Coduri’s table, she took one look at my Sapphire and Steel T-Shirt and broke out in a smile and pointed, “It’s Purdy!” she shouted. We then had a nice chat about how good Joanna Lumley’s character was in The New Avengers and then she said to congratulate my mum on getting me into Sapphire and Steel, a show that Coduri said she used to love to watch when she was a child. She was another delight to meet; while the conversation wasn’t about Doctor Who, I’ll happily talk to Jackie Tyler about anything! I also loved seeing her, sporting a warm coat, along the same lines as the Second Doctor’s distinctive Yeti-coat, leaving the event, waving at people as she went, looking really happy.

The Saturday events continued well into the evening with things not really wrapping up until about 10:30 with a charity auction, items from which included a giant maggot and the original blood-splattered artwork for the Missing Adventures Novel, Goth Opera. Hosted by Gary Russell, he very quickly got everyone involved, with actor Graham Cole doing the actual displaying of the items, including holding the Maggot in a way that made it look like something else entirely – much to the amusement of us all. All the money raised went to various wonderful charities.

I couldn’t wait to see what Sunday would hold. The first thing was an interview with Bonnie Langford; fellow actor, Richard Gauntlet; and writer Stephen Wyatt. Bonnie was on fine form as she entertained everyone with anecdotes and little insights into her career, including Violet Elisabeth, Chicago, EastEnders, and even The Masked Singer. Gauntlet spoke about how he got into stunt and played monsters in various projects. His take on how the Tetrap he played, Urak in Time and the Rani, worked, including how bizarre the inside of the mask looked with all the animatronics. Bonnie was jealous as she said she couldn’t actually breathe under her costume on The Masked Singer, so it was a miracle she could actually sing under it!

Wyatt, like Eric Saward before, seemed a little more subdued, speaking only when spoken to. Maybe it’s a writer thing? But he did say how he was a little dismayed at how some of the scenes in Paradise Towers turned out, but expressed his love for The Greatest Show in the Galaxy and how he thinks it only worked because they set up the tent in the car park of the BBC, allowing it to billow properly.

Following this panel was another hosted by Edward Russell and including Chris Chapman and Lee Binding, this time looking at the Blu-ray sets and animations. Gary Russell spoke about the upcoming animated The Abominable Snowmen and how much work went into it and how he thinks it’s perhaps the most authentic of all the animations to what was originally shown. He also expressed his dislike of Galaxy 4, something I think many fans agreed with. Lee Binding showed us some of the process he goes through when designing the Blu-ray set covers and some of the early designs that were considered. It’s clear though that the box with the slipcase was the best design they did. And they look glorious, though no further news of what series is going to be the next set came out. We were then also treated to some of the Worzel Gummidge footage from the upcoming set and BFI event. I’m not a Worzel fan but it was wonderful to see Jon Pertwee and how much work goes into the restorations.

My next port of call was photographs. I’d already managed to get one with Katy Manning on the Saturday but now I was able to get one with Carole Ann Ford and Peter Purves. They were wonderful to meet, asking me how my trip had been so far and where I had come from. When I told them Hayling Island, Ford said she knew where that was. Someone actually knows where I come from! Then when I was queuing for a photo with Roberta Tovey and Jill Curzon from the Peter Cushing movies, I realised that for £25, I could have my photo taken with all the Sunday guests including Bonnie Langford, Roberta Tovey, Jill Curzon, Carole Ann Ford, and Peter Purves. It was an opportunity too good to pass up and the resulting photo everyone says looks like a family portrait! I’d made Bonnie laugh because I had a hoodie on with ACE written across the back!

Then it was autograph time, and I was pleased that the queue moved a little quicker this time. So I got Bonnie Langford to sign the cover from Time and the Rani, and Roberta Tovey and Jill Curzon to sign my cover for the Dalek movies. Bonnie was as delightful as you can imagine, having a laugh about how she might get in touch with the BBC and ask where her companion centric clothing is. Tovey was happy to talk to everyone, talking to my friend Maria about where her costume came from and how she had to pay for some of her costume because the budget wouldn’t stretch. I then asked her if she would ever come back to the main show; I told her they’ve brought Bernard Cribbins back, and she said if the BBC were to give her ring she would be there in a heartbeat. So you never know — one day we might just get Susan from the movies coming back!

Then it was more photograph time, though this time I just had the one with Bonnie Langford, stood back to back; I asked if she wanted me to crouch down a bit, but she said we all should embrace our height! I was worried the photo would look a little strange but it ended up being my favourite picture from the event. She was just so genuinely lovely to meet.

More autographs followed: this time I met the last of the guests, including Peter Purves, Graham Cole, and Carole Ann Ford. I had a chat with Purves about how much I liked The Time Meddler and The Massacre. He agreed; they are both great and two of his favourites — he’s pretty straight talking too so you’ll know if he doesn’t like something! I was going to get him to sign my cover for The Time Meddler, but instead I chose to pay for a wonderful colour photo of him, William Hartnell, and Maureen O’Brien from the same story. Graham Cole was a cheeky chap too. The previous night I’d taken photographs of him at the auction, and sent it to my Mum who had been a fan of The Bill when it was originally on. When I told him about how much of a fan I was of The Keeper of Traken, where he played the tall Melkur, and how much my parents used to love The Bill, he told me to tell Mum that he still looked good in a uniform; even the bloke sat with him on the table found it funny.

Carole Ann Ford was the last guest I had to meet and got her to sign my copy of An Unearthly Child (of course), and then also paid for a shot of her, with William Hartnell, Jaqueline Hill, and William Russell. It’s always hard to think what you want to say to these Doctor Who legends and Ford was one where I had no idea. So in the end I decided to thank her for making history interesting. I said the history we learnt at school bored me no end, but the places and times that they visited in the early Sixties really got me interested in learning about history. While I think I’m going to stay a budding enthusiast when it comes to history and that it would be good to study it at some point, I was happy to lose myself in history books. She punched the air and said how pleased she was that Doctor Who’s original remit of teaching people about history was right and that they had done their job! She was so nice.

Then it came time to say goodbye to Maria, who had to leave on the Sunday evening; we’d already said goodbye to Mark on the Sunday morning as he’d stayed to meet a couple of people and then had to do the long drive back to where he lives. Then I was just in time to catch the final panel of the day, which saw Peter Purves and Carole Ann Ford talking about their time on the show. Carole spoke about working with Hartnell and then someone asked her about her experience on the film, The Day of the Triffids. She expressed how disappointed she was, mainly because of the endless rewrites she and the lead star were receiving. Purves then spoke about his time on Blue Peter and how he felt with Doctor Who everyone wasn’t treated very nicely by the management once Verity Lambert left the role of producer. It was an informative talk and ended with Carole Ann Ford and artist Chris Achilleos’ wife accepting awards for his outstanding contribution to Doctor Who.

With my first Capitol event under my belt, I’m very much looking forward to the next one, scheduled for April 2023, and with Doctor Who celebrating its 60th anniversary next year, I reckon we’ll be in for a treat. The first confirmed guest is Colin Baker. Following the calibre of the guests this year, I expect we’ll all be in for a treat. I enjoyed myself so much, I’ve not been able to stop talking about it, much to the chagrin of everyone around me — but if you haven’t been to one of these events, then I’d strongly urge you to grab a ticket and come along. I think I’ve made a few friends jealous enough to come along to the one next year. What I really liked was how the event was smaller and with fewer paying visitors, it made the time with the actors and writers a lot more special, allowing for moments that everyone will remember. Also I couldn’t get over how nice everyone was; I didn’t think I’d be spending my time in queues actually chatting with other people. That never happens at the MCM cons.

Doctor Who fans really are the best!

Chris Phillips is tired but buoyant. He’s just got back from the local Cheesecake Factory, where he and his family have been attending a birthday celebration. For many of us, Cheesecake Factory will instantly conjure images of The Big Bang Theory, but supposedly there’s no connection: it is, I’m informed, “sort of like Ikea for food”, where every meal is laden with calories and you can feed a family of 4 for about 15 dollars, without even touching the cheesecake. “If you’re not careful you can eat about 3 or 4 days’ worth of food by accident,” he says. “That’s America for you.”

I’d love to know more, but sadly we’re not here to talk about transatlantic dietary trends, so instead I ask him about Doctor Who. Chris, together with his partner Krystal, heads up the Velocity project, a series of fan films charting the adventures of an ‘alternative’ Thirteenth Doctor, a sprightly female incarnation played by Krystal herself. We first chatted in the summer of 2018, just as the Velocity team were putting the finishing touches on their second adventure. Fast forward to the present day and a lot’s happened: Jodie Whittaker’s first series landed, to a somewhat mixed response, and Velocity has another 3 published episodes under its belt – the latest of which is really quite special. Out of the blue, Chris gets in touch to ask if we’d like to do a follow-up piece. We certainly would, which is what leads me to a Skype chat with Chris and Krystal from their home in Boise, Idaho, on a sunny Labour Day afternoon.

For the uninitiated, Velocity features a newly-regenerated Doctor cavorting through time in a cavernous TARDIS with a series of sidekicks, some of whom are more complicated than they seem at first glance. Krystal’s Doctor cut her teeth tangling with witchfinders in Essex (prognosticating a Series 11 moment months before we knew anything about it) and then swooped back to the present to fight the Daleks, not to mention their creator. Their latest adventure sees them rewind the clock 30 years to the summer of 1989, where an underground rave is about to be rudely interrupted by some rather statesque monsters.

The talking point for Episode 4, of course, is that they managed to get Sophie Aldred. It’s only a cameo – 7 or 8 lines – although it’s enough to light the internet touchpaper. “Cameos are big at the moment,” says Chris, citing Marvel, “but it’s mostly fan service.” Those hoping for a glimpse of Aldred herself are liable to be disappointed: Velocity is shot on location in Idaho, and thus Ace’s appearance is limited to off-screen dialogue. But off-screen dialogue fits with the story: “I realised I’d set it in 1989, the year Doctor Who was cancelled. And I wondered… what would Ace be up to?”

Still. Giving it away in the episode description is a bit of a spoiler, surely? Isn’t that the sort of thing you want to keep secret, to maximise the impact? “We didn’t announce it until the episode came out,” says Chris. “I almost wasn’t going to reveal it, and leave it to be a complete surprise – but I also know, because of the horrible way the internet works, that we’d get far less views.” The number-crunching confirms his hunch. “Usually, with any kind of web series, you’ll see a kind of terminal decline after your first popular one. But this one – 2 years after our first – has been the strongest. That made me feel like there was a bit of longevity in it; we can keep making them.”

Chris and Krystal share writing duties for the series, but this particular story is his work, and you can tell: it’s an authentic pastiche of ’80s British culture, embedded with psychedelic backgrounds, archived news footage, and references to The Bill. Chris himself appears in a brief role as a policeman – “A couple of days’ hair growth makes me look like I’ve got quite a thick moustache, and I’m wearing a white shirt with a couple of black pieces of card stuck on my shoulders. That was a very cheap outfit.”

The Doctor may be fighting Weeping Angels, but it’s safe to say the episode is haunted by the spectre of Keith Flint – who died during its production and who lived in Chris’s home town of Braintree, Essex (“Everyone we knew as kids had a story about Keith”). Originally set at The Barn, the notorious club where the Prodigy supposedly met, the action was transferred to Stonehenge when Chris decided the location was too niche. Still, the legacy remains, not least thematically. “Back in the ’90s, [the Prodigy] got arrested under copyright laws because they stole everything. To me, that was the synergy between the fan film stuff and the music genre: we’re both stealing stuff and remixing it, so as a theme it worked quite nicely.”

The beat is still thudding round the Velocity team’s makeshift Stonehenge when the monsters turn up – and it was here that the team ran into some difficulties. “I muddled my way through making the Angels,” Chris admits. “I’m not sure I entirely succeeded. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to see a real person or not, and with our tight turnaround and how little time I have to make it I worried about covering someone head to foot in grey. I’d seen a lot of cosplays online and I was having nightmares about filming and then having to refilm it and spending 10 hours in makeup. I thought ‘I can’t ask someone to do that’. Although I’m sure someone would…”

The results may look a little odd at first glance, but it fits with the theme. There’s something very ’80s about the way the Angels fly in; it’s like something you’d expect to see in a music video, or perhaps a classic BBC production that’s dated far less than you feared it would. But Chris has a far simpler explanation: “They’re meant to be stuck in a time warp!”

“One of the strengths of our show is that it looks a bit different. We didn’t even have the Weeping Angel girl there on set for the others to react to, which was quite tricky to do. That’s just the way it worked out. Each episode has this ridiculous compromise where afterwards I’ll think ‘Oh, I wish we could have done that, but…’. The reality is, these things would never get finished if I did things the way I really wanted to do them. I’ll have such high hopes for each episode, but I’ve got a family and a job and other freelance work on the side. I love doing this stuff, but I love being able to pay my rent. We’ve got a 3 year old boy who doesn’t stop eating.”

This notion of ‘good enough’ is something that permeates their work – it’s something that I recognise, and when you’re doing projects like this, it’s a sound principle. “With fan and hobby films, the ones that get finished are the tip of the iceberg. Everyone else has a film they’re working on that doesn’t get done. And that’s why I’m really harsh on myself: the internet is this bottomless chasm saying ‘FEED ME! FEED ME CONTENT!’, so you have to set yourself boundaries. I wish we could have made 10 episodes already, all twice as long.”

Still. They’ve made 4, and 2 of them had Daleks. Specifically, it’s Daleks that take over your life without you even realising: a secret invasion that calls to mind the likes of Army of Ghosts and The Power of Three. There’s a sinister corporation, an amnesiac companion, and several things blow up. It all looks very impressive, with gloomy spaceship hangars and metal monsters running amok, although “The hardest thing about that one was post-production, because it was all green screen. It’s rendering time: you set the shot up and it takes 3 hours to save.”

A multi-part narrative carries its own risks and problems, but for Chris – and Krystal, who wrote the Dalek episodes – one of the biggest challenges was maintaining the social commentary that’s part of the story’s ersatz without lapsing into preachiness (something that, it could be argued, Series 11 didn’t manage very well). The Velocity Daleks aren’t just lethal killing machines: they’re an analogy for a world where anger is instinctive and echo chambers are the new black. The Daleks built by hive (no capital), the tech company providing the backdrop to the Earth-bound elements of the story, are not creatures to be feared and loathed – they’re the next generation of Alexa, available at all good online retailers.

“We were coming off the back of the 2016 election,” Chris explains, “with Cambridge Analytica hacking everyone and people putting themselves into their own digital bubble where they’re the good guy and everyone else is the enemy. The Daleks are like the snowflakes of Doctor Who: they’re angered easily and scared easily and to a certain extent that’s why they attack. Everyone is literally retreating inside their own Dalek. In America we have the right to bear arms, so the metaphor was the computer world and home defence. We’re not that far off being Daleks, and Davros was our Steve Bannon.”

It’s a chilling vision of the future, if only because it seems so close to home, permeating both political discussion and sci-fi fandom. There is a difference between being right and doing right, which culminates in what Chris refers to as an “atmosphere of extremes – we’d rather shoot ourselves in the foot if it helps us stick to our principles”. Theoretically, television should be an escape from all this, but there is a rabid unpleasantness about fan discussions these days, and both Chris and Krystal have noticed.

“There’s something about being able to so easily and so filterlessly and so anonymously share your reactatory opinion about everything, all the time, to the entire world,” says Krystal. “It doesn’t harbour fruitful conversation or togetherness, or a friendly attitude: it’s tough. And if you grew up before the internet came to be and you knew how people interacted face-to-face before, it was different. It’s not that there weren’t issues – there are issues, always, but it’s a gasoline-on-the-fire situation.”

“We’ve got a split between the far left and the far right,” adds Chris, “and the way cyberspace hypes these arguments is to make them fight each other. The internet likes conflict; it likes clicks; it likes controversy because it generates revenue. And in the middle of it you’ve got the Doctor, who’s just trying to be nice to everyone. The new Doctor has seen the fads come and go so many times that the message was ‘Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater’. There’s a tendency at the moment to want to smash everything up.”

A self-proclaimed ‘black sheep’, Krystal grew up in a small town in Idaho before coming to Boise and getting into stand-up. She met Chris when she saw him helping an old man who’d fallen in the street (“You know he’s a keeper, right there”) and taking on the title role in Velocityhas been “a really interesting acting challenge. Because there’s so many different lives that the Doctor has lived, and so there’s certain things that in each episode I want to emotionally prepare for. So you have this wealth of material that you draw from.”

Among other things, Krystal performs stand-up comedy (“You get a thicker skin the longer you do it”), but curiously it’s her role as a parent that she draws on the most when it comes to playing the Doctor. “For me, it really rests on that unique maternal spirit. I’m a mother, and I’ve always taken care of kids, so I feel like I’ve been a mother for most of my life. And I think that comes through in a bold kind of way that works very well for the Doctor.”

I apparently look a little confused, because I’m about to get a practical demonstration. “I’ve got a good Mom Eye,” she explains, whereupon she removes her glasses and gives a hard stare, one eye thrust forward, penetrating, the brow arched, her lips subtly curved in the merest hint of a smile. It is disconcerting and mildly uncomfortable and I realise I’ve seen this before; it’s a look Krystal gives when she’s chewing someone out onscreen, although it’s quite different when you’re the one on the receiving end. “Basically, it means ‘I know I’m right, and you know what you did.'”

This is all fine and dandy, but what does she think about Jodie Whittaker?

“I’ve really enjoyed watching her. I think she’s handled this frankly nightmarish situation with grace and humour; she’s just a rock star and I admire her. Rosa was really well-written. Demons of the Punjab was a beautiful, phenomenal episode. When you can draw things out of history you can apply it to the now, so I love it when they do that.”

The bad stories, supposedly, made so little impression that she can’t remember them, but I press her a little and the Mom Eye is back, only this time it’s staring very hard at It Takes You Away. “I would have loved the frog at the end if the whole thing was a satire. It’s how you set the tone. When they’ve got a brooding, deep, sorrowful tone, and then there’s a frog, that’s classic comedy juxtaposition. That’s how it works: tension, and then pop the bubble. Graham’s dealing with the wife being dead, there’s a blind daughter, innocent mom, and then it’s like ‘These people just broke into this child’s house here! What’s going on?!?'”

Did Whittaker’s casting help Velocity, or hinder it? “It was just one of those things that was on the zeitgeist. The BBC saw what we saw – there’s enough people who want to see a show where the Doctor is female. And I honestly didn’t think the BBC would quite yet; we thought they’d wait until the next one.”

Our time is at a close, and so I have to ask about what’s next for Velocity, but Krystal is tight-lipped when it comes to upcoming content: “Christmas” is about all I can get out of her. Instead I ask about Terrance Dicks – we’re speaking on the day his death is announced – and it’s Chris who points out the sheer longevity of Dicks’ association with the programme. “A lot of people work on Doctor Who very briefly and then get turfed out. To last that long, not only have you got to be good at what you do, you also have to be a master diplomat.”

And perhaps that’s it. Being good at what you do is only half the equation: treating relationships and life with more respect than the show you’re working on is the other half. In the last minute of our call, Krystal and Chris pull their children briefly into shot so they can say hello, and with that the family are off to enjoy what remains of their Labour Day. I somehow get the feeling they’ll do this while actively not thinking about Doctor Who. Perhaps I won’t either.

You can follow Velocity on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

A group of Doctor Who fans have got together to produce their interpretation of what would have been the original finale to Jon Pertwee’s fifth season: The Final Game.

The Final Game was a story devised by Robert Sloman who, with producer Barry Letts, had already co-written The Daemons, The Time Monster, and The Green Death. The story as intended was for the Doctor to face up to the Master one final time, for the arch-fiend to be revealed as either the Doctor’s brother or a synthesis of his darker personality traits, and for him to then sacrifice himself to save our hero.

Very sadly, the story was shelved when actor Roger Delgado – the definitive Master – was killed in a car crash in Turkey in 1973 while working on a miniseries, La Cloche Tibétaine (The Tibetan Bell). Jon Pertwee would later remark that the death of Delgado, with whom he had become firm friends, was one of his motives for leaving the role in the eventual replacement story, Planet of the Spiders. Elements of the original story would emerge in later stories, such as the Master’s final line in Planet of Fire in 1984, the Valeyard in The Trial of a Time Lord (1986), an in-joke in The Sound of Drums (2007), and the Master’s apparent death in The End of Time Part Two (2010). Following Delgado’s death, the Master would not be seen again until Peter Pratt took on the role in Robert Holmes’ The Deadly Assassin in 1976.

Now Black Glove Studio and Studio Severn have turned Sloman and Letts’ premise into a full-cast, fan-made audio production and Big Finish should look out. The story stars Marshall Tankersley and Terry Cooper giving impressively persuasive impressions of Pertwee and Delgado. It also features the characters of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Sarah Jane Smith, Mike Yates, John Benton, and Liz Shaw, played with varying fidelity to their originals (although Richard Gurl’s Benton sounds particularly authentic). The script was written by Chris McKeon and the production is complete with music and some very effective sound design.

The first, hour-long episode of this polished and enjoyable production is now available, below.

US Doctor Who fans were dejected recently to find out that the ReGeneration Who 5 convention had been cancelled by its organisers. It was planned for the 29^th to the 31^st of March at the Bethesda North Marriott hotel in Rockville, Maryland. Guests were to include Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred (Ace McShane), Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), and Terry Molloy (Davros). The disappointing news came just a week before the event was planned to kick off.

Since then, there has been speculation but few facts to explain what went wrong. The only authoritative information we have is that supplied at the time by the organisers, Onezumi Events Inc.:

Important Regeneration Who 5 Information

As a result of a string of last-minute cancellations, we see no alternative but to cancel (Re)Generation Who 5. We want to apologize for this as we tried every way possible to move forward but could not find a way to produce an event of the quality you have come to expect from us.

We will be working with our team to determine if there are any options moving forward.

Please note you will need to contact the hotel directly if have guest room reservations.

Onezumi Events was crowdfunded into life in 2010 on the OnezumiVerse.com blog and is owned by James Harknell, who was the organiser for the convention, which had been running for 5 years. His co-organiser was a woman called Oni Durant, but she may (or not) have ended her connection with the company several months prior to its collapse. OneZumi, for those who don’t know, is an online Lovecraftian horror comic strip. The website for Onezumi Events has been down since March and, it seems, their other project for the year, PotterVerse 2019 is also defunct.

In the absence of any further official statement from James Harknell or anyone else close to the company, all we can do is make the reasonable assumption that they suffered financial problems and were no longer able to function. Some have speculated that the company had been unable to pay money owed to Twelfth Doctor, Peter Capaldi, and that this triggered a breakdown in the other guests’ confidence in the event.

Of course, this is all very regrettable for those who had invested in the convention going ahead: purchasing admission packages, pre-paid photo ops, autographs; not to mention travel and accommodation costs. Stallholders also lost out if they had bought additional stock for which they were left with no alternative venue.

Nor should we forget that this was a missed opportunity for the most important part of conventions: fans getting together to enjoy each other’s company and to enjoy our show together.

You have to hand it to the BBC. They’ve got a cash cow on their books with Doctor Who, but they’ve never been stingy when it comes to letting others have a slice of the pie. It may be why fan projects are so prevalent: the licensing team are usually happy to turn a blind eye to the telescope, as long as they’re not for profit. The Beeb have never forgotten that it was the fans who kept the show alive during the dark years following its 1989 cancellation, and it’s this quiet, unspoken acknowledgement that keeps the show’s relationship with its audience largely healthy.
Take Velocity. It’s a fan-made ‘alternative’ take on the Thirteenth Doctor, conceived, written and directed by Chris Phillips and his partner Krystal Moore – based in Boise, Idaho. Played by Krystal, this Doctor has black leather, an extremely fetching hat and an American accent, and her TARDIS interior resembles the exhibition space in a local art gallery – but the tropes are all present and correct, right down to a jaunty arrangement of the theme (and some drum and bass). In the tail end of last year Velocity aired its inaugural episode, which saw the newly-regenerated Doctor face off against angry peasants and the Witchfinder General. BBC America liked it so much they put it on their Anglophenia page. Eight months later the team are back with another instalment – and while Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor has yet to do anything except fall out of a TARDIS and stroll through an abandoned train carriage in a video that none of us have seen, honest, the Velocity Doctor has already completed her first two adventures and seems set for a great many more.