A surfeit of H20

Something new. That’s what you can expect from ‘The Waters of Mars’, which was screened to journalists this morning at London’s Soho Hotel.

To describe it as “dark” isn’t terribly helpful, but this is probably as hopeless (in the sense of lack of optimism) Doctor Who has ever been. Screening over, and in the Q&A with Russell T Davies and David Tennant, one person was moved to ask if they still considered the show suitable for children.

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Barry Letts, 1925-2009

Like all major figures involved with Doctor Who, producer Barry Letts seemed to have his own personal anecdote about working on the show, one which  got endlessly trotted out to the benign bemusement of fans.

In his case, it was a bizarre story about recieving a letter containing a poem advising him of the proper pronounciation of ‘chitinous’. Yet that, and several other similarly prominent anecdotes about eyepatches and ‘Katy’s fella’, belied the fact he also had a great many fascinating stories to tell about the years he spent working on a fascinating programme, many of them relating to a pivotal moment in television history.

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Fools rushes in

The BBC has announced Inbetweeners star James Buckley has been cast as the young Del Trotter. Read more