BFI announces 50th anniversary screenings series
BFI have announced that they will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who with a special year-long event.
To commemorate the landmark year, throughout 2013 each month will be dedicated to an incarnation of the Doctor, with a screening of an adventure from their era accompanied by Q&As with its respective cast and crew. The event will begin next month and climax in November 2013 with a screening of An Adventure in Time and Space, the new drama by Mark Gatiss exploring the origins of the series.
“The BFI is very proud of its long relationship with the BBC and the Doctor Who team,” Justin Johnson, BFI Programmer commented. “We’re delighted to be screening complete stories featuring each incarnation of the Doctor, supported by Q&As with special guests.”
He confirmed that newly digitally restored versions of the Peter Cushing movies will also be screened for the first time in 2013, adding: “This is the perfect opportunity for fans both old and new to learn about the genesis of the show and also its continuing journey.”
Caroline Skinner, Doctor Who Executive Producer, said: “To be doing this enormous and exciting project with the BFI is a dream come true. We are delighted that in the show’s 50th year we have such support for our celebration of Doctor Who’s cultural heritage.”
The confirmed screenings taking place in the 50th anniversary series are:
Saturday 12th January 2013, 3:30pm
Screening: The First Doctor (William Hartnell) in… An Unearthly Child
- Q&A guests: Waris Hussein, Carole Ann Ford, William Russell, Jeremy Young, Mark Gatiss, Donald Tosh, Brian Hodgson, Clive Doig, Jessica Carney (watch highlights here and here)Saturday 9th February 2013, 2:30pm
Screening: The Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) in… Tomb of the Cybermen
- Q&A guests: Anneke Wills, Deborah Watling, Shirley Cooklin, Bernard Holley, Michael Kilgarriff, Michael Ferguson, Michael Troughton (watch highlights)Sunday 10th March 2013, 2pm
Screening: The Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) in… The Mind of Evil
- Q&A guests: Katy Manning, John Levene, Richard Franklin, Tim Combe, Terrance Dicks (watch highlights)Saturday 20th April 2013, 2pm
Screening: The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) in… The Robots of Death
- Q&A guests: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, Philip Hinchcliffe (watch highlights)Saturday 4th May 2013, 2pm
Screening: The Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) in… The Caves of Androzani
- Q&A guests: Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding, Matthew Waterhouse, Graeme Harper (watch highlights)Saturday 15th June 2013, 2pm
Screening: The Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) in… The Two Doctors
- Q&A guests: Frazer Hines, Tony Selby, Eric Saward and Mike KeltSaturday 27th July 2013, 2pm
Screening: The Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) in… Remembrance of the Daleks
- Q&A guests: Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Dick Mills, Ben Aaronovitch, Mike Tucker
Share your 50th anniversary hopes and dreams in our dedicated discussion…
I am a huge fan of the classic episodes and I was very excited to find out that they are reviewing the past Doctors!! I was hoping they would do something like that! I also hope that some of the past Doctors show up in the 50th anniversary episode… ;)
I was ten and that weekend I was unable to see the first episode.I can’t remember exactly but somehow my younger sister saw it.I was jealous .Because of the Kennedy assassination the BBC put the first episode on the following week and without any apparent explanation ,the second episode followed.I was confused for a moment .My sister had explained the first episode and now I was watching it for myself……”An unearthly child “seemed to be very haunting….We had just previously watched “The old Curiosity Shop” and it had featured Patrick Troughton… The “Grandfather” had watched little Nell die.Doctor Who carried on that strange genre of Victorian malevolence…..at least for the first episode…..Best wishes to Carole Ann and William…It would be nice to see them in an anniversary episode….