The album cover for Daniel Radcliffe’s Broadway play “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” has been released. The album featuring the cast was recorded on April 11 at NYC’s Manhattan Center and will be available June 7. The play, Daniel’s second on Broadway, is currently playing at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre

Read the original:
‘How to Succeed’ album cover released

A few months back Rod, of A Journal of Improbable Things Podcast, and I decided it might be rather nice if we organised a Doctor Who Twitter fan meet up in the form of a picnic, or Twitnic if you will. We then realised that we’d probably need to wait until the summer for good enough weather and being as impatient as I am, plans were changed to so we could be inside if the weather was bad. And the legend of Twubcrawl was born!

The idea of the Twubcrawl was for Doctor Who fans who knew each other via twitter to meet up and get to know each other in real life. Combining pubs with a few filming locations en route seemed the logical step for a Doctor Who tour guide.

The event took place on Saturday 2^nd April 2011.

We started at The Centre Page on Knightrider Street in The City, the location of the Cyberman invasion in the Patrick Troughton serial The Invasion. We had a lovely view of St Paul’s Cathedral as we waited for the first guests to arrive. I’m not going to lie, I was pretty nervous and wondering if anyone was actually going to turn up since the whole event had relied almost entirely on word of tweet, if you will. Turns out I didn’t need to be worried at all!

Lots of people, including The Pharos Project crew, turned up and soon we had a pretty decent sized pub crawl going on! We even had a Fourth, Eighth, and Eleventh Doctor turn up, one of whom managed to get themselves on Canadian telly within about 5 minutes of arriving!

After some drinking and Rod and I unconvincingly re-enacting Cybermen walking down Knightrider Street for his podcast, we headed across the Millennium Bridge towards The Globe and Cardinal Cap Alley used in the The Shakespeare Code and Talons of Weng Chiang respectively. We did manage to cause a little bit of trouble on the bridge as we held up tourists while we took photos of the folks in costume!

Making it safely to The Anchor on Bankside and tweeting our new location we were joined by more Twubcrawlers…..in fezzes. Twubcrawlers wear fezzes now, fezzes are cool. I think the total count for the funky hats came to 6. It certainly was a Feztastic day! What do you mean feztastic isn’t a word? Well it is now, ok? We were also joined by the Staggering Stories podcast at this point who had just been to The Doctor Who Experience and had acquired a cute little Adipose stress toy, “Gray-am” who too joined in with the festivities.

To get to our next pub, the Old Thameside Inn we went via Clink St, another location from Talons of Weng Chiang, where we were given an impromptu talk about the serial’s filming by a lovely guy who worked at the Clink Prison Museum who seemed to know a lot about the stories and the episodes themselves. Well, it saved me the job of saying it all!

Fast forwarding a little we went via Southwark Cathedral (The Lazarus Experiment) and along to the Horniman at Hays for something to eat to soak up all the drink! It was then on to our final stop for some lovely twilight group photos in the Shad Thames/Butler’s Wharf area (where Resurrection of the Daleks was filmed) before settling at The Dean Swift on the corner of Lafone St. where the hardcore pub crawlers among us had a well earn cup of tea with a shot of milk (much to the barman’s disgust)!

All in all I think it was a pretty successful day. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Lots of new friends were made, lots of TARDIS cupcakes eaten and many, many giggles had. I even managed to get myself onto 2 podcasts, which was a little bit of a crazy experience I must say. It was also a nice way to introduce people to our tour of London Locations.

If you missed out on the action you can find photos and podcasts etc covering the event at the links below:

The Pharos Project Podcast including a chat with Rod and I (please note there is some adult language used in this podcast as well as much drunken rambling from The Pharos Project guys! You have been warned.)

Tim’s Take On….Podcast

Tim Drury’s photos on Flickr

Photos on our Facebook Group

Video from the Beeblebrox Co
Sad that you missed the Twubcrawl? Don’t fret! We shall be organising another event in the summer break between the first and second halves of Series 6. This time it’ll be a Twitnic in a Doctor Who location. Follow us on twitter @DW_Tours for all the updates . We might even manage another Twubcrawl in the Autumn…

-x- Helen -x-

The First Ever Doctor Who Twitter Pub Crawl (Twubcrawl)!

What?

The Twubcrawl will be an opportunity for Doctor Who fans on twitter to meet in person and get to know each other over a few drinks at various pubs along a walking route designed to take in various Classic Doctor Who locations.

The idea is for people to tweet the progress of the group using the hashtag #twubcrawl  so others can join along the route, as well as documenting the event in the same way by uploading pictures to twitter etc.

It is organised by Helen, from Brit Movie Tours, who specialises in Doctor Who Location Tours of England and Wales and Rod, from A Journal of Improbable Things: The Podcast, who will be documenting the event.

You don’t have to be on twitter to join in, so feel free to bring along people that haven’t quite gotten into the whole tweeting thing yet, maybe we can convince them by the end of the day!

Please feel free to get dressed up as The Doctor or your favourite companion although this is completely optional.

When?

The Twubcrawl will take place on Saturday 2^nd April 2011. We will be meeting at the first pub at 3pm. We are expected to finish at about 8pm.

Where?

The Twubcrawl will start at The Centre Page pub on Knightrider Street in the City of London near to St. Paul’s and will be finishing in the Shad Thames/Butler’s Wharf area (near Tower Bridge).

Things to remember:

-          Wear sensible shoes! We’ll be doing a fair amount of walking.

-          Wrap up warm as we will be by the river for a lot of the walk between pubs.

-          You must be 18 to join in with this event. Please bring ID with you if you’re lucky enough to look young. We really don’t want anyone to get refused entry into pubs because they can’t prove they’re over 18.

You can say hello to us or ask questions about the event on twitter @DW_Tours or @JOITPodcast. Don’t forget to use the #twubcrawl hashtag!

Disclaimers

This is not an official Doctor Who event and is not endorsed by or connected with the BBC or any of the writers, authors or publishers. Doctor Who logo ™ & © Copyright BBC 1963. Doctor Who, Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Adventures are registered trademarks of the BBC. No infringement intended. Licensed by BBC Worldwide Limited.

Brit Movie Tours and A Journal of Improbable Things do not accept responsibility for any loss of personal items or injury that may occur during the event and encourage responsible drinking.

Pictures and audio recordings will be taken/made at the event and may be used on the internet/ in publicity material. If you do not want to appear in these you must tell the organisers at the start of the event.

Nicholas Courtney (1929 – 2011)

The very first episode of Doctor Who that I owned on VHS was Spearhead from Space. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve watched it. Sometimes at uni when I couldn’t sleep I’d put it on to help me drift off because it was so familiar. This is the story that introduced me to what was to become one of my favourite characters in Doctor Who, The Brigadier. Or to give him his full title, Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart.
The actor who played The Brigadier, Nicholas Courtney, sadly died last night at the age of 81.

Courtney’s first appearance in Doctor Who was back in the 1965 serial The Daleks’ Master Plan where he played a Space Security Agent alongside the First Doctor.

The character of the Brigadier first appeared alongside the Second Doctor in the serial The Web of Fear (even though he was just a Colonel at the time) where he was seen fighting Yeti in the London Underground for the military. By the next time he met The Doctor, Lethbridge-Stewart had been promoted to Brigadier and was now part of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce aka UNIT (The Invasion).

He went on to fight alien menaces alongside the Third and Fourth Doctor (in numerous episodes), the First and Fifth during the events of The Five Doctors, and was reunited with The Doctor is his Fifth (Mawdryn Undead) and Seventh incarnations (Battlefield) on screen.

He also appeared alongside The Doctor in his Sixth and Eighth incarnations on audio, The Sixth Doctor in the Children in Need special (Dimensions in Time) as well as The Doctor’s companion Sarah Jane in her spin off series, The Sarah Jane Adventures (Enemy of the Bane).

Despite being mentioned in the revived series of Doctor Who he did not appear.

While he is not technically considered a “companion” of The Doctor, for me he is up there with Sarah Jane, Jamie, Harry, Ace, and Donna as one of my favourite non-Doctor characters. He was brash at times and often had to do things that The Doctor simply couldn’t do (the final episode of The Silurians is a great example of this), but his heart was most definitely in the right place. He had a genuine camaraderie with The Doctor, despite the pair of them disagreeing a fair bit of the time.

In his final outing as The Brigadier in Doctor Who itself (Battlefield) his heroism is evident. When asked if humanity could afford a better champion he simply replies “Probably. I just do the best I can”, which I rather think does a great job of summing up The Brigadier’s character.

Courtney was a hit on the convention circuit and was Honorary President of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society.
Unfortunately, I only ever saw Courtney once when he walked past me at the Doctor Who Proms last summer. I’m not ashamed to admit that I let out the girliest squeal I have ever made in my life on seeing him unexpectedly! For me he is such a huge part of Doctor Who, a constant if you like. When The Doctor and Master changed their faces, companions came and went and even The TARDIS had a face lift, The Brigadier was there, the same as ever.

Splendid chap. He will be sorely missed.
————————–
My Top 5 lines from The Brigadier:
5. “But Doctor, it’s exactly your cup of tea. The fellow’s bright green, apparently, and dead.” – The Green Death
4. Not a very good quote out of context, but the delivery is superb: “Oh no!” – [on seeing the previous incarnation of The Doctor to which The Second Doctor replies "Oh yes!"] The Three Doctors
3. “Jenkins! Chap with wings there: Five rounds rapid!” – The Daemons
2. “You know just once I’d like to meet an alien menace that wasn’t immune to bullets” – Robot
1. “Wonderful Chap. All of them” – The Five Doctors (We could not agree more, Brig)

——————–
Here’s hoping I don’t get teary when I’m in Aldbourne with my 3 day Doctor Who Locations tour group in April (the 40th anniversary of the filming of The Daemons) and I have to say those words “Jenkins! Chap with wings there: Five rounds rapid!”.
RIP Brigadier.
———————————
Not seen much of The Brigadier? Here are my recommendations to get you started (in order of air-date):
1. The Invasion – Second Doctor serial featuring the Cybermen and, for the first time, UNIT.
2. Inferno – Third Doctor story that features a parallel world and evil Brigade Leader Lethbridge-Stewart (what? Eye patches are cool, ok?)
3. The Three Doctors – First multi-Doctor story featuring the first 3 Doctors and The Brigadier’s first trip in the TARDIS.
4. The Daemons – Third Doctor story set in the spooky village of Devil’s End, featuring that famous line.
5. Mawdryn Undead – Fifth Doctor story where there are two Brigadiers! Yes two!
6. Battlefield – Seventh Doctor story, and the Brigadier’s final Doctor Who appearance.
Helen
x

I went to the second preview day on Friday 18th February and what follows is more of a walkthrough of the Experience than a review. I suppose it’ll be quite good for people who can’t get to the Experience themselves.

So….Allons-y!

Please be warned, this contains spoilers for the Doctor Who Experience at Olympia, London. If you are going to the Experience and want to be surprised by it, I suggest you to stop reading now.
Entering the interactive part of the experience, we were led into a small screening room and sat down on some benches to be shown a bit of a compilation of series 5 on a screen which I instantly noticed had a crack down the centre. I was wondering if it was meant to be there or not when The Doctor began talking about the cracks in time that we saw throughout series 5 and it was brought up on the screen. It then rotated and fitted with the crack that I had spotted on the screen. I was just congratulating myself on anticipating what was going to happen when the crack opened up! The screen split down the centre and opened up onto a fantastically detailed set of the Starship UK. Ok, I wasn’t expecting that!

We were being welcomed to the Starship UK’s museum by one of those weird information points from The Library planet when we were rudely interrupted by The Doctor….trapped in the Pandorica…..well, the Pandorica 2 to be precise. Yes, they had a back up and The Doctor was not impressed, not least of all because they hadn’t even bothered to get one in a different colour!

The Doctor may have been trapped in the Pandorica 2, but fear not! He had a plan. Except, well, like most plans that The Doctor makes, it wasn’t exactly going the way it was expected to. Amy and Rory were nowhere to be seen and it was down to us, the “shoppers” to rescue the Doctor from his trap. To do so we were going to need the TARDIS. Cue her materialisation!

Understandably we weren’t allowed to touch the proper controls of the TARDIS (and probably a good job too, me being as clumsy as I am), and besides they don’t work for humans apparently (hmmm)! The Doctor had, however, put in some simpler controls for Amy a while back to keep her from moaning and we got to use those instead.

Materialising in a pretty standard sci-fi corridor, we were rushed out of the TARDIS via the newly created back door only to be greeted by, yes you’ve guessed it, those pesky Daleks! We were scanned and found to be friends of The Doctor…uh oh! With The Doctor unable to help, how were we going to make it out?
Now, this is a bit that really surprised me, and made me smile a lot. If you know me, you’ll know I’m not exactly a fan of the new Daleks/United Colours of Skaro/Duplo Daleks/iDaleks/Mighty Morphin’ Power Daleks, whatever you like to call them, so when the “proper” Daleks (namely Dalek Sec from reused Doomsday footage) turned up on the screen to destroy the new ones I gave a little bit of a “wooop”.

After surviving an encounter with the Daleks we then had to face the Weeping Angels in a cave type thing similar to that in the series. Having recently been to the real caves used as the Maze of the Dead I didn’t find this quite as creepy, but my mum seems to have blocked this bit out of her memory because she’s scared of the Angels! She says she must’ve had her eyes closed, which is the exact opposite of what you’re meant to do mum! Useless!

The final part of the interactive section required us to wear 3D glasses, something I was very reluctant of. I’ve never been a fan of 3D, it gives me a funny headache, but I went with it. I’m so glad I did!

Somehow we had rescued The Doctor (how that happened, I’m not really sure….maybe if I go again it’ll become clear?) causing the Pandorica to open up revealing the time vortex with Daleks and Weeping Angels flying through it. It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen anything in 3D so I’m guessing the technology has moved on a lot. It was very surprising how far out of the screen the Weeping Angels and Daleks came. It really felt like they were about to touch us, it was pretty creepy! The TARDIS in flight was the best part. It didn’t even look like it was attached to the screen, but floating in mid-air!

After the interactive section came the exhibition of props and costumes from the show. If you’ve been to the (soon to close) exhibition in Cardiff Bay you’d know that it is quite small and the only nod to the classic series was a poster of the previous Doctors at the start. The Experience’s exhibition was very different. There was an excellent blend on new and old and props and costumes from every era of Doctor Who. I particularly liked the section that showed the evolution of the Daleks from the 1960s to the most recent series, and the same that was done for the Cybermen (be it just their heads) and Sontarans. It was nice to see an Ice Warrior and Zygon amongst Slitheen and Judoon too.

Seeing all of the Doctors’ costumes in the same room was brilliant. Was particularly nice to see the beautiful 8th Doctor’s costume and the shockingly bright 6th Doctor’s coat, but the best has got to be the 5th Doctor’s coat complete with real stick of celery!

We then got to the most exciting bit for me personally, and that was the real TARDIS sets from the 9th and 10th Doctors’ and the 5th to 7th Doctors’ reigns. I actually got to walk on the real grating of the TARDIS which was brilliant! I am informed, by one of the designers, that all of the piping, grating, and sponge on the Experience set is in fact 100% authentic.

As well as costumes and props from the show, there were also some backstage information including a booth on the sound effects/theme tune and the making of the monsters. There was also a mock up of the production office in Wales complete with various little props from the series including a Leadworth Library sign.

Even though the main interactive section of the experience was over, there were still opportunities to get involved. Green screens were available to have your photo taken inside the Pandorica and various other locations, there was a booth where you could learn to walk like a monster, and there was even a Dalek you could operate from behind!

I wasn’t really sure what to expect of the Experience, but overall it was much better than I thought it would be. The interactive section was fantastic with wonderful scenes from Matt just being brilliant, really detailed designed sets, a TARDIS you can actually control, and a brilliant 3D section. The exhibition was full of great props, TARDIS sets and costumes, even if some were slightly random (Melkur? Wasn’t expecting that!). The only things that let the experience down were the shop and the organisation of the green screen/photo payment.

The shop was small and badly stocked. Not at all what was promised in the promotional information and press releases. There was noticeably a lack of Classic merchandise, the only items being the Tom Baker retro style bags and wallets that have been in Forbidden Planet for ages. Now, as this was only a preview day, they may have a more fully stocked shop by the time it opens properly. This doesn’t, however, excuse the prices of the merchandise available. I knew that there would be a certain mark-up on the stuff in the shop, there always will be at these sorts of places, but I was quite surprised at how much.

There was quite a large selection of DVDs making up an entire wall of the shop, but the mark-up on them was far too great. The Series 5 boxset for example was over £70, when you can get it on Amazon for £46. The Classic DVDs were selling for over £20 each, which for some of the serials is a mark-up of about £12 on their online prices.

This isn’t so much a problem for those of us who live in the UK as we can get this stuff much cheaper elsewhere, but for tourists I feel it really took advantage of the fact that it is difficult to get hold of Doctor Who Merchandise in their own country. Even more so when you consider how much money they have spent do get into the Experience.

Not wanting to end on a down note, because I really enjoyed my time at the Experience and I don’t want to leave you with the impression that it wasn’t worth the trip I give you my Top of the Pops style Top 5 Favourite things about the Doctor Who Experience:

5. The Fifth Doctor’s coat having real celery on the lapel. This made me chuckle. Nice and authentic, I thought!

4. The surprisingly brilliant and scary 3D section. The Weeping Angel nearly touched my face, I swear!

3. Dalek Sec telling the new multi-coloured Daleks that they weren’t real Daleks and that they should be destroyed. It was what everyone else has been thinking since Victory of the Daleks, no?

2. New scenes of Matt being fantastic as The Doctor. I can’t get enough of him as The Doctor and new scenes were very much appreciated and will hopefully keep me going until the next series.

1. Stepping onto both the Eleventh Doctor’s and the Ninth/Tenth Doctor’s TARDISes (and seeing the Fifth Doctor’s). This was always going to be number one really, wasn’t it? It’s every Doctor Who fan’s dream to set foot on the TARDIS and it really was not disappointing.

For my photos of the Experience check out our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=282866&id=165311164935

If you’re in London or Cardiff why not take a Doctor Who Tour of Locations.

2011 is a big year for Harry Potter fans. With the record breaking release of the first part of Deathly Hallows fans are in for a huge treat this summer when the finale comes out in cinemas across the world. Harry Potter has a huge fan base and now you can choose from a number of different Harry Potter Tours to visit the film locations and inspirations in London and across England.

Smitten by Britain is the world’s first blog for Britophiles: people who love all things British. Melissa discusses British culture, history, travel, telly and so much more. If you’re an Anglophile or love Great Britain, visit now & see what makes Britain great!
http://www.smittenbybritain.com

The BBC TV Centre in Shepherds Bush in West London is perhaps the most famous TV centre in the world. Year after year the BBC produces great programmes shown in London and throughout the world. You can get to have a look inside this fascinating building where so many stars have performed and where so many great shows have been made.

You can experience one of the BBC Tours and make a day of it by combining it with a London Film Locations Bus Tour or London Film Locations Walk. Ideal for groups, students, school classes you will get to see sets from your favourite films and also see the real workings of a TV programme or newscast at the TV Centre.

With the release of the latest Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, Brit Movie Tours is pleased to announce the addition of new locations on its film location tours.

Our popular Harry Potter Bus Tour of London and Harry Potter Walk will take in new sites featured including the public toilet entrance to the Ministry of Magic and the cafe scene.

Muggles love our tours so grab your wand and join the fun.

Saturday 30 October sees the launch of Brit Movie Tours’ new Jack the Ripper Tour. The 2 1/2 hour walking tour will take visitors to actual murder sites from the Autumn of 1888 as well as other sites linked with the serial killer who was never brought to justice. Our tours will have restricted numbers (20) so visitors can actually hear the guide and enjoy the tour. For more info