Doctor Who Festival - an epic welcome

Today was day one of the Doctor Who Festival at London's ExCeL exhibition centre.
It has a weird feeling of continual de ja vue, bringing back memories of the Doctor Who Celebration at the same venue two years ago. The queue seemed a shorter this time around.

I got there about 45 minutes before it opened, and was happily within the first 50 or so in the queue. They progressively move us forward towards the entrance, but I could feel a strange whispered buzz amongst the security staff who were guiding us.

Then I noticed a small press pack with cameras taking photos of the waiting crowd, before the shutter doors went up in front of us. You'll never guess Who was there waiting to welcome the fans - Peter Capaldi himself!!

The press moved around behind him, and he turned to them to give them a photo op backed by the amazed fans.

You can just see me on the back row, towards the left.

Once the press had got their shots, Peter took a moment or two to shake a few hands and speak to some of the fans waiting, before he was whisked away and we were allowed in.

But what a way to get welcomed to the event!

Doctor Who Festival - photo shoots

Remembering how things panned out at the Doctor Celebration two years back, I decided to book all my photo shoots for the Friday, when the queues should be shorter.

I’ve booked for two shoots - Peter Capaldi and the Iconic Set, the latter being a bit vague to say the least.

First up was my Peter Capaldi shoot. Compared the the Celebration, this was a much better shoot, with a slick service including a digital file download.

I’m pretty happy with the result.

I then moved on to the Iconic Set, which I had found out was simply Clara’s lounge. Not very inspiring.

Not the most inspiring of sets, but I had an idea of putting the framed Peter Capaldi photo on the coffee table before the shot was taken.

BBC promo pictures - Sleep No More

Tuesday means its BBC promo pic day - and the pictures for Sleep No More are the usual fare of concerned looking characters running around dark corridors in what appears to be a classic haunted house episode.

BBC promo pictures - The Zygon Inversion

After this week’s cliff-hanger, the promo pictures for the second part of the Zygon adventure doesn’t give much away - though it looks like The Doctor survives the plane crash! Phew!!!

BBC promo pictures - The Zygon Invasion

The Zygons are back - and here are the promo pictures from the first part, The Zygon Invasion.

BBC promo pictures - The Woman Who Lived

With Massie Williams returning in this week’s episode, it goes without saying a lot of the publicity shots for The Woman Who Lived concentrate on her.

Here are just the images featuring Peter Capaldi as The Doctor.

Quite a nice pack shot - but where is Clara? Jenna Coleman seems to have been sidelined in these photos.

Pocket props - record collector

It’s always fun to complement a costume with a pocket pop or two, whether it be a sonic screwdriver or a pair of sonic shades.

But this week’s episode got me thinking about tracking down a copy of the two identified LP records seen in the pre-credit scene.

As ever eBay is the place to look for quick results and it came up trump for me on both discs.

HAYDN Symphonies No. 94 (Surprise) & 100 (Military) LP Record

For the Haydn I had to go a little far afield to track it down. The seller was in Germany.

BEETHOVEN - Symphony No 5 LP Record

The Beethoven was easier to find, and from a UK seller too.

Both ordered, I just got to wait for the postman to bring them to my door!

BBC promo pictures - The Girl Who Died

This week’s episode of Doctor Who will mark the first appearance this season of Game Of Thrones star Massie Williams, and she features prominently in the main publicity image for the episode.

We can see The Doctor continues to wear his dark Cromie coat, with the All Saints hoodie underneath.

Below this is the first outing for the Label Lab Negative Flowers design t-shirt, as well as some new trousers in a bold light check on dark navy.

This promo image is also the cover of this week’s Radio Times magazine.

If you look closely you’ll notice as well as knocking back the trees in the background, the two co-stars have been cut out and moved slightly closer to Peter to make a more compact composition.

The Doctor’s Desert Island Discs

This week’s fourth-wall breaking opening monologue by The Doctor showed us a little of his record collection.

These would make great pocket props - the handy additions that turns a run of the mill cosplay into something special.

I haven’t been able to identify the first record, but the others are:

Haydn Surprise & Military Symphonies 
Conductor : Otto Strauss
Orchestra : Philharmonia Orchestra Of Berlin
Label: Fidelio
Catalogue No : ALT 4048
Published 1963

Beethoven Symphony No 5 in C minor Op 67
Conductor : William Steinburg
Orchestra : Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
Label : Music For Pleasure
Catalogue No : MFP 2104
Published : 1967

There is also another album with 1970s looking text beginning HA, but its difficult to identify that one.

By the way, did anyone notice the reference to The Idiot’s Lantern with the Magpie Electricals badge on The Doctor’s amplifier?!

BBC promo pictures - Before The Flood

It’s that time of the week again, and the BBC have issued the promo pictures for Before The Flood.

Last week we had the carefully composited pack-shot representing Under The Lake, so I guess they decided not to do one for this week’s second part.

Doc Martean boots - when a lie becomes the truth

Back in late January 2014, when Peter Capaldi’s costume was first unveiled to the world, the BBC stated the new Doctor was wearing:

Peter Capaldi, who replaces Matt Smith, will have a dark blue Crombie coat with red lining, dark blue trousers, white shirt and black Dr Marten shoes.

Fan quickly realised this wasn’t entirely correct - in fact the coat turned out to be custom-made, and not cut by Crombie; and the boots were Loakes, not Doc Marten’s as written.

Now the new series is well underway, the high resolution images used to publicise the episodes are revealing a few secrets, including the Doctors NEW boots!

Posting the pictures from Under The Lake has prompted a spate of comments from readers who have identified the new boots - as Doc Marten’s.

This photo in particular shows the boots very clearly - and you can see they are not Loakes.
In fact, they are not the Doc Marten alternatives to the Loakes, but appear to be Mayer boots, available on their website.

Dr Martens (Germany) - Mayer Boots

At the moment I can’t find them on the UK site - so if I’ve missed them, let me know and send me a link.

But here they are on their other regions - Catch them while you can!!!

Dr Martens (France) - Mayer Boots

Dr. Martens (Netherlands) - Mayer Boots

BBC promo pictures - Under The Lake

It’s tuesday, so the publicity pictures for Saturday’s episode have been released by the BBC.

The quaffed pack-shot image shows The Doctor wearing his hoodie/Paul Smith jumper combination yet again.
I’d quite like this image, if it wasn’t for Jenna’s vacant expression!