Wednesday 31 July 2013

Anniversary antics

"Oh look, here's a bit with you in it, see...?"
Hanging around with the Special Weapons Dalek, at the BFI last Saturday.

As you may have picked up from one or two of my previous posts on this blog, I am, have been, and always will be a Doctor Who fan. I make no apology for this, as I think it's a fine thing to be and has, in some small way, made me a better and more productive member of society than I might otherwise have been.

With the fiftieth anniversary of the show coming up in November, I'm rather pleased to have been able to be involved in fandom a little more than I have been of late... Or for the past several years, come to that!

When I was in my teens I was forever writing pieces about the show, usually for Celestial Toyroom, or for any number of websites. But it had been a while since I actually sat down and wrote any kind of proper review of a Doctor Who episode, until earlier this year when my friend Tim pointed me in the direction of a project called Celebrate Regenerate, being run by a chap called Lewis Christian.

The concept is very simple - a collection of reviews of every episode of Doctor Who, written by fans. I was keen to make at least some small contribution towards the fiftieth anniversary celebrations in some minor way, so was pleased to have a piece about the episode The Beast Below accepted by Lewis.

The book came out earlier this month, and can be purchased as a hard copy from Lulu, downloaded for free as a PDF, or read online at the Celebrate Regenerate website. It's nice to have something in print in a book again, even if I only contributed a few hundred words among the many thousands!

All through this anniversary year, the British Film Institute has been running a series of special screenings of Doctor Who stories, one for each Doctor. Last weekend I was very fortunate indeed to be able to attend the Seventh Doctor event, a showing of Remembrance of the Daleks, an excellent story which means a very great deal to me as a fan. It had been many a long year since I last attended any sort of Doctor Who event, but I was glad I was able to go along, as it was a highly enjoyable afternoon.

You can find my review of the event in the reviews section of the Doctor Who News fansite, here. And speaking of Doctor Who News, I was also very pleased last month to be able to contribute an instalment to their series of articles telling the story of the creation of the series as it happened, fifty years ago. You can find my effort, Who's that Girl?, available here, and I hope to be able to contribute one or two more pieces to the series in the coming months.

There's still a way to go before we get to the climax of the celebrations in November, of course, so perhaps I'll get to flex my fan writing muscles a few more times by then. I'd certainly like to.