DW Production Team Interview

Doctor Who fans, including many local children, attended a special face to face question and answer session with members of the Doctor Who production team on the opening night of the three-day Celtic Media Festival in Caernarfon.
The 30th Celtic Media Festival brought together film and TV from the Celtic nations and also revealed a few tricks of the trade from behind the scenes of the hit TV show. Unfortunately, Executive Producer and lead writer Russell T Davies could not attend as scheduled due to his demanding workload, which includes the start of filming on another of the four specials which will end when the present Doctor, David Tennant, regenerates into Matt Smith.

The question and answer session started after a short welcome and introduction from the panel consisting of Julie Gardner (Executive Producer), Euros Lyn (Director), Edward Thomas (Production Designer), Ian Grutchfield (Brand Manager) and Barnaby Edwards (Dalek Operator).

Following questions submitted by fans through the Doctor Who website, the audience then had their opportunity to quiz the panel. This led to an array of amusing anecdotes, interesting production facts, memories of past experiences and glimpses of what we can expect to see in the future.

Among the interesting facts and trivia was a story from designer Edward Thomas who explained why the TARDIS is a police box. Apparently when the original series was in production the designer was told to "go into the props department and look for something commonplace in which to disguise the TARDIS ". He soon returned with the familiar police box, which was more of a common sight on the streets of Britain at the time.

As well as this exclusive question and answer session with members of the production team, the children also had a further taste the Doctor Who experience by meeting Daleks and Cybermen, as well as experimenting with several Doctor Who applications on one of the four laptops provided by the BBC.

The Easter special is already completed and the audience was also treated to a brief montage of scenes which definitely whetted the appetite, but gave nothing away apart from the fact it involves a bus, sand, and lots of running.

The Doctor Who event was recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 7 this Saturday night at midnight (and will be available afterwards as a podcast via the Doctor Who website).