Sheffield!

Standing: David J Hose, Sam Stone, me, Andrew Mark Thompson
Seated: Damaris Hayman, Keith Barnfather

Sheffield book & DVD signing. And look at the queue outside Galaxy Four ...

DVD on amazon.co.uk

Book on amazon.co.uk

White Witch Update

Updated appearances for the White Witch book tour... how cool does that sound?

Friday 10th November. 
Forbidden Planet, 179 Shaftesbury Ave, London WC2H 8JR
5-6pm

Saturday 11th November.
Galaxy Four, 493 Glossop Road, Broomhill, Sheffield S10 2QE
12-3pm

Sunday 26th November.
Waterstones, Arndale Centre, Manchester M4 3AQ
2-4pm

And possibly Birmingham on 2nd December and Derby on 2nd February 2018. Watch this space!

Feel free to come along and buy a book - signed by any/all of the attending contributors. Or just pop in and say hello ...

Return to Devil's End!

It's all happening this Autumn. November will finally see the launch of the White Witch project that I've been involved with for so long. This is a DVD in which Olive Hawthorn, the White Witch of the title, recounts her life since the days of the Daemons and her encounter with the mysterious man known as The Doctor. Olive is played by Damaris Hayman, the original actress who appeared in the 1971 tv adventure The Daemons and the episodes were written by myself and other writers.

In addition to the DVD, there will be a book - a novelisation of the film scripts, which is published by Telos Publishing. This expands on the stories on the DVD and is proving to be a collector's item already, judging by the number that have already sold on pre-order via the Telos website.

And we are going on tour! The DVD and book launch at Forbidden Planet in London on November 10th - click the link for more details. On 11th November, we'll be at Galaxy Four in Sheffield and on Sunday 12th, we hope to be at Waterstones in the Arndale Centre, Manchester. Damaris herself will be at some of the events, as will the film's producer and director Keith Barnfather and some/all of the other writers and editors.

So if you're around those venues in November, pop in and pick yourself up a signed DVD and/or book. Or say hello. Or both!

I'm thrilled to be involved in something with a Dr Who link. It's such an iconic series with legions of fans of all ages around the world. Even people who don't watch it now, or have never watched it at all, have at least heard of it. It's amazing to be a part of it.

White Witch

So the White Witch project is finally moving again. This began life way back in 2012 when I was commissioned to write a short film script for Reeltime Pictures - a spin-off from an early 1970s Dr Who Episode The Daemons and starring the original actress Damaris Hayman.

Script delivered and all went quiet for a while for a variety of reasons. But now I've signed a contract for the story in the accompany anthology (to be published by Telos Ltd) and things are moving forwards. A couple of weeks ago, I went to Lincoln to record a short interview for Reeltime Pictures, the story is delivered and there's music by Linzi Gold - and we're all set for a release in November 2017.

You can pre-order the DVDs from Galaxy Four.

From a dalek to a jedi ....

Where will you see every incarnation of Dr Who occupying the same space-time co-ordinates as a jedi knight, Chewbacca and Mike Myers?

Answer: At this year's Sci-Fi Weekender in North Wales.

I was lucky enough to get invited to this event as a guest author with an access-all-areas "artist" pass and the chance to witter on at great length on stage about genre writing - and my genre writing. You can read more of this side of the event on 6th April in my monthly blog over at AuthorsElectric, but here I thought I'd talk more about cosplay and role-playing in general.

Up until recently, I'd never even heard the term cosplay. While I've been to (and organised) many conventions over the years, they've been more aimed at the literary and art side of the science fiction, fantasy and horror genre - more concerned with discussion, readings and art shows. This is the first event I've attended that celebrates the shows themselves, where 6000+ attendees turn up to meet stars and dress up as their favourite characters. I used to do a lot of live role-play (of the Treasure Trap variety), but other than a brief and uncostumed appearance at a Star Trek convention in the early 1990s, I've never experienced such a large group of people having so much fun with costumes before.


Witness  Peter Capaldi's new incarnation of Dr Who arguing at great length with a dalek over which of them is the bigger star and has the biggest BBC contract; Pennywise the clown wandering through the arena menacingly, with his clutch of balloons; a blue-skinned woman browsing books in the dealer room, Willy Wonka watching a panel or Obi-Wan Kenobi doing battle with Darth Vader by the outdoor bar.

And that's not doing homage to the steampunk crowd in their beautifully-detailed Victorian outfits. Men and women - whole families having a weekend away from television, playstations and the internet, and mixing with like-minded people. I could have stood outside all weekend just watching the interplay, the impromptu re-enactments of scenes from film and television.


In the trading area, I was helping to man the Telos table. The stand across the way had a whole wall of artwork - mostly by the wonderful fantasy artist Rodney Matthews, whose posters papered my walls in my student days (who remembers Athena posters in the early 1980s?). And I had a complete fangirl moment when I realised that the man himself was there, helping to run the stall! So I had a chat with him and bought a signed print. Totally made my weekend!

Would I go again? Definitely. Not sure I'd dress up myself. I did feel sorry for the cosplayers on occasion - everywhere they went, they'd stop to pose and have their photograph taken. But I guess that's what it's about for some of them - the appreciation of the onlookers into the sheer amount of effort it's taken to put some of these outfits together and the character-playing throughout the entire weekend. Hiding behind a persona can be fun in that you can do all sorts of things the real you would never dare to do! Which is kind of what we do when we write isn't it? Put on another identity and experience life as somebody else.

Edited to add this.... 

White Witch of Devil’s End

Reeltime Pictures are pleased to announce a new drama production for release on DVD to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of Doctor Who.

White Witch of Devil’s End is a spin-off from the highly regarded Jon Pertwee Doctor Who story The Daemons and will star Damaris Hayman reprising her role as Miss Hawthorne.

At the grand age of 84 (in June this year), you’d expect Damaris would be happy to be enjoying retirement quietly in her Cheltenham home … but no! When approached by producer Keith Barnfather about the idea she jumped at the chance. “I shall retire, I think in my coffin!  Miss Hawthorne was my all-time favourite role and I was enchanted by the thought of being her again for a little while.”

“I was amazed and delighted that, as an octogenarian, Damaris was prepared to take this on,” says Keith. “We had recently recorded an interview with her for our Myth Makers series profiling actors who had appeared in Doctor Who and I already knew she still had a hunger to act. But I really didn’t expect her to be so keen.”

Although eager to take the project on, Damaris knew she had to pace herself, so in an innovative move, director Anastasia Stylianou decided to film the drama in a “talking head” style – adding dramatic cutaway material to bring Damaris’s words to life!

Says Anastasia; “I knew it would be a challenge. We needed to film a 50 minute drama at least, so I decided to make an asset out of a limitation.”

Primary filming has already taken place at a cottage near Damaris’s home. The crew collected and returned Damaris each day – allowing her to return home each evening to recover and study the next day’s script!

“We used autocue to help Damaris,” says Keith. “It was an impossible task for any actor to learn so much dialogue. Damaris was a true professional and took to it instantly.”

With a planned release date of 31^st October, which is appropriately also Halloween, Anastasia hopes to have the project completed for the 50^th anniversary celebrations. “It’s just getting all the dramatic cutaway material ‘in the can’ that is crucial. The drama is really an anthology – a set of connecting stories about Olive’s life told, as it were, in her own words.”

When considering who to approach to write these stories which would exist within an overall theme, Keith immediately thought to contact old friend David J Howe at Telos Publishing. “I thought it would be fantastic to ask individual writers knowledgeable in the occult and magic to write each story and David, through Telos, knew so many of the best young talent in the country.”  

“I was delighted when Keith got in touch,” says David Howe, “and immediately started to think of who might be a good fit for the project. Along with my partner, the award-winning author Sam Stone, we contacted several authors who we felt would be sympathetic to the material and were pleased to get them all on board for the project.”

“I took on the task of outlining the whole story,” says Sam Stone, “and then asked the writers to come up with ideas which fitted that framework. We needed to tell stories at different points in Olive Hawthorne’s life, and the writers rose to the challenge and delivered scripts which exceeded all my expectations. I then worked with them to refine the scripts into the completed screenplay.”

The writers involved in the project are, as well as David J Howe and Sam Stone, Raven Dane, Debbie Bennett, Jan Edwards and Suzanne J Barbieri, with a final script-polish from Big Finish writer Matt Fitton. All have brought a unique perspective on Olive’s life, and the end result is an anthology of tales which will surprise, entertain and hopefully move the viewer.

Does Damaris have any regrets about throwing herself into such a big commitment? “Definitely not! I was enchanted to work with Anastasia and Keith again, who are great friends anyway. After a lot of working together consulting over the scripts, I’d subsequently never enjoyed filming more - and I can’t wait now to see the final result.”

RRP: £12.99

PROVISIONAL RELEASE DATE: 31/10/2013

PRE-ORDER FROM: Galaxy4: www.galaxy4.co.uk/product.thtml?id=3556&vts=geBkAgQ

Telos

If you're wondering why I have a link to Telos' website, it's because not only is MD David a very good friend of mind, but I also handle their retail orders and do occasional editing work for them. It's an online book store - check it out for factual tv guides, novels and classic reprints, especially if you're a Dr Who fan as there are lots of Dr Who goodies for sale.