Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular...

Last Saturday night Stuart treated me to a night seeing the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular at Wembley Arena.

The evening featured Murray Gold's music from the hit series performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the Chorus of Wales conducted by Ben Foster. The music was accompanied by giant screens showing montages from the show, Cybermen, Daleks, The Silence, hideously emaciated mummies prowling the aisles and Peter Davidson hosting.

Also in attendance was showrunner Steven Moffat and Murray himself.

As Doctor number five Peter Davidson made many a joke about if his abilities as host weren't up to scratch his contract would be (ex)terminated he be replaced by Colin Baker (Doctor number six). Ho ho.

The show was great fun. The music fantastic with notable pieces the wondrous I Am The Doctor, The Impossible Girl (Clara’s theme), Abigail’s Song, Last Christmas Suite, Wherever Whenever and the thunderous Pandorica Suite.

One for the fans - but who isn't a fan on Doctor Who?

It Was Evil - Victor Gregg first hand account of the Dresden Bombing...

Still makes me choke up. Victor Gregg and his first hand account of the Dresden Bombing. Powerful stuff. And let's face it if the Daily Mail is criticising the BBC over showing it then it must be worth a look, right?

BBC iPlayer London Collection...

Loving the BBC iPlayer London Collection. A collection of fascinating mainly black and white documentaries from the 1950s, 60s and 70s about good old London town. Well worth a look.

Blackfish...

Watched Blackfish on BBC iPlayer last night. Powerful stuff. Well worth a watch.

BBC Spoil Kate Bush Comeback...

So @BBCBreaking is tweeting the songs on Kate Bush's first night set list. FFS! Boooo BBC! Boooo!

Oh good. BBC News at Ten is now getting in on the spoilers act now.

And now Newsnight too.

Boooooo BBC! Booooo!

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Celebration...

Last month I had a fantastic day out with Dean, Jim, Phillip, the Doctors, the Companions, the Monsters and all the madness that goes along with Doctor Who at the Excel Arena in London's not so glitzy East End for the official Doctor Who 50th Celebration.

Needless to say I took zillions of pix but will spare you the avalanche and just post a few in the next week or so.

Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor 3D...

Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor 3D cinema tickets booked. Show starts 7:30pm Saturday 23rd Nov and lasts 80 minutes. Squeee!

Led Astray...

Oh heaven help us. Prepare for the worst. If you thought Vicious was bad....

"Led Astray

New comedy starring Paul O'Grady and Cilla Black, written by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran (Birds of a Feather and Goodnight Sweetheart). 

Tanya (Cilla Black) discovers she has a long lost half-brother Arthur (Paul O'Grady), currently serving time in HMP Wymott. It seems they will never really get to know each other, but with some skilful forging Arthur fixes his release - the only conditions: he wears an electronic tag and stays with his newly found half-sister Tanya. 

Date: Thursday 31 October

Time: 7.30pm

Venue: Elstree Film Studios 

To apply for tickets, visit the BBC Tickets website. 

We do hope you can join us. 

Kind regards

BBC Studio Audiences"

The Day of the Doctor...

So the Doctor Who 50th anniversary episode will be called The Day of the Doctor and be 75 minutes long and screen on Saturday 23rd November.

Other shows around that time will be:-

• An Adventure in Space and Time by Mark Gatiss and starring David Bradley as William Hartnell.
• A BBC Two lecture by Professor Brian Cox discussing the pseudo-science behind Doctor Who.
• BBC Four is running a restored version of An Unearthly Child and the rest of the 100,000 BC serial that kicked off the show back in 1963.
• BBC Two’s The Culture Show is to screen Me, You and Doctor Who, hosted by lifelong fan Matthew Sweet.
• A 90-minute documentary on BBC Radio 2 asks Who Is The Doctor?
• BBC Three will be home to several commissions, including Doctor Who: The Ultimate Guide.

Yay!

BBC Television Centre...

So it's farewell to BBC Television Centre.

Swap Shop, TOTP, The Goodies, Dr Who, Record Breakers, Children In Need... Ah memories.

It was never the same after it went from "W12 8QT" for competitions to "W12 7RJ" for the suits.

Daleks’ - Invasion of Earth: 2013AD...

Daleks’ - Invasion of Earth: 2013AD.

Last Sunday the Daleks were out in force - recreating those iconic black and white images from the 1960s to promote the Mark Gatiss penned An Adventure in Space and Time - a one-off drama exploring the genesis of Doctor Who - which debuts later this year.

Absolutely Fabulous Olympic Special...

Last night the BBC finally showed the Ab Fab Olympic Special. And it was really funny. Back to to it's old standard. Patsy and Edina were up to their old tricks of trying to muscle in on what hip, happening and cool but ended up in the usual embarrassing mess.

Booth Maps...

Charles Booth was one of those remarkable English Victorians who can justly be described as one of the great and the good. Profoundly concerned by contemporary social problems, and not a pious nor even a religious man, he recognised the limitations of philanthropy and conditional charity in addressing the poverty which scarred British society. Without any commission other than his own he devised, organised, and funded one of the most comprehensive and scientific social surveys of London life that had then been undertaken. Booth also added his voice to the cause of state old age pensions as a practical instrument of social policy to alleviate destitution in old age, established as one of the commonest causes of pauperism. Simultaneously he was a successful businessman, running international interests in the leather industry and a steam shipping line.

One of Booth's greatest acheivements was the survey into London life and labour and the maps he created. These maps were of London coloured street by street to indicate the levels of poverty and wealth. They show a fascinating insight into London life in the late 1800s.

They also form the basis of a recent BBC television show The Secret History of Our Streets - a six-parter, with each episode telling the social history of a particular London street.

As an example, click here to see the map of where I now live.

Queen's Diamond Jubilee River Flotilla and Concert...

Singer Jessie J performs on stage during the Diamond Jubilee concert at Buckingham Palace on June 4, 2012. For only the second time in its history the UK celebrates the Diamond Jubilee of a monarch. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II celebrates the 60th anniversary of her ascension to the throne.  (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

I hadn't really mentioned the Queen's Diamond Jubilee River Flotilla and Concert from last week. The river cruise was good to watch - although the BBC's coverage was rather inane at times. The concert at Buckingham Palace the next night was brilliant though. I had tears rolling down my cheeks with pride - especially when will.i.am and Jessie J sang I Gotta Feeling. Always gets me that song. The fireworks at the end were pretty special too.

I think I must have been worn down by all the pageantry - even I was feeling a tincy bit patriotic. I'm sure it'll pass.

The Infinite Monkey Cage...

On Monday night Mark and I went to watch a recording of BBC Radio 4's The Infinite Monkey Cage being recorded at the Shaw Theatre in London's not so glitzy Euston.

I'm signed up the the BBC Tickets who offer free invitations to various BBC events. Most are done on a ballot and so getting tickets to the more popular ones is pretty hit and miss. This time I was lucky.

Atheist beef-cake Professor Brian Cox and and atheist cupcake Robin Ince run The Infinite Monkey Cage show and it takes a sideways glance (and occasionally head-on) at science. This week they were talking about the oceans and they had Dave Gorman joining the panel along with a biologist and a geologist. It was fascinating stuff. And funny too.

Philip Glass Disney Opera The Perfect American UK premiere at ENO...

Philip Glass's opera about Walt Disney is to get its UK premiere at the English National Opera (ENO) next year according to the BBC.

The opera, called The Perfect American, imagining the final months of the life of Walt Disney as told by a fictional Austrian cartoonist who worked for Disney in the 1940s-50s, will have its world première at Madrid's Teatro Real on 22nd Jan 2013.

Eastenders: The sitcom...

Best use of canned laughter. Ever.

Two Great Dramas Coming Soon To BBC Soon...

Hattie: Ruth Jones playing Hattie Jacques coming soon on BBC Four
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/05_may/17/hattie.shtml

Christopher And His Kind: Matt Smith playing Christopher Isherwood coming soon on BBC Two http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/05_may/19/christopher.shtml

Kangaroo, Canvas and Darwin...

All UK broadcasters and most content owners are now pretty much convinced that the internet offers a technically viable means to distribute content to consumers. For some, but not all, it will be commercially viable too. But will it be limited to just the internet? The answer is definitely “no”.

Project Kangaroo, the joint venture between BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4, wanted to offer its online platform for archive rights to the likes of the Freesat digital-satellite service. The Competition Commission reviewed the Kangaroo proposition after a flurry of complaints and announced it was a no-go. The technology was then sold and has been relaunched earlier this year as Seesaw. A small player at the moment but nothing a big advertising push couldn't solve.

Project Canvas is particularly interesting as it would see the UK public-service broadcasters create an open platform to offer video-on-demand over IP using the “open” internet to the television set. For the first time, it will give the PSBs a digital platform they can truly own, but it also raises some competition concerns, which must first be overcome to avoid Canvas drawing a blank. Virgin Media aren't too happy about Canvas as they would have no control over the branding - so they have lodged a complaint to Ofcom. Sky are yet to respond. Watch this space.

Finally we have Project Darwin which is BSkyB’s initiative to connect its high-end set-top boxes to the internet. It wants to use the open internet to do this next year rather than investing heavily in a managed IPTV network. It’s a smart move, as Sky needs a comprehensive on-demand service to compete in the connected world. It’s likely to use “progressive downloading”, where the content starts downloading to the hard disk of its digital-video recorders before playing on screen to ensure that quality of service can be (virtually) guaranteed.

There is a lot at stake so don’t be fooled by the silly project names. Online TV distribution is starting to define the next phase of the broadcasting industry.