Events
Doctor Who Live: The Monsters are Coming!
Dec 17th
On the 19th of October 2010, I went to see Doctor Who live in Birmingham.
Now as you may know, previously this year, I went to the Doctor Who Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. So not only will this be review by me, I will also be comparing it to it’s older brother.
First of all I must point out that this show was not put on by the BBC, this was a third party company who had brought the rights of Doctor Who and created a show to make a profit, and the profit side of it was clear as soon as you entered the
The Daleks and Cybermen battled live on stage during the show
building. There was, DVDs, t-shirts, booklets, CDs… you name it, they where selling it. The costs of these products where very expensive as well. The brochure cost £10, and for what? A several pieces of paper stick together full of adverts for more
Doctor Who related stuff you will be able to buy later this year.
The venue wasn’t exactly the Royal Albert Hall but you could see why they chose to preform the show there. The show did offer us a lot of monsters, possibly more than the proms.
Matt Smith made an appearance, but only as pre recorded video displayed on several screens around the stage. This is disappointing, but they must have spent a lot of money to be able to employ the actor alone, so the fact that this company
didn’t have Matt Smith live every night wasn’t surprising to me in any way.
Dispute all these things through, the show was very good, not as good as the proms, but all the same it was very good. The only thing that spoilt the show for me through, was the audience. They where really
impatient when waiting for the show to start, hardly ever clapped or cheered during the show and where in a huge rush to get back home again. This to me, really spoilt the show. This wasn’t for true Doctor Who fans, this was for the audience of small kids who watched Doctor Who every week just to get their TV fix and then flick
channels as soon as the credits start rolling.
This is really sad because the show itself would be greatly improved, if the crowd of the proms had turned up instead of the audience that came to live.
At the end of the day through, if you are a Doctor Who fan, a REAL Doctor Who fan. Please buy your place on the next Doctor Who live show, because your all that’s needed to make this one of the best shows of the year!
BBC Doctor Who Proms, Royal Albert hall
Oct 11th
On Saturday the 24th of July 2010, after five years of trying and failing to get tickets each year, I finally managed to go to the BBC Doctor Who Proms in the Royal Albert hall. I dressed up in my bow tie, tweed jacket and my brilliant fez and went down to London for a few days. The proms itself where very enjoyable. All the music, creatures and most of the main cast for series 5 including the Doctor (Matt Smith), Amy Pond (Karen Gillian) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) appeared during the show.
But it wasn’t just a pantomime of monsters and aliens. This was the BBC proms, and therefore the music was brilliant! If you’ve ever seen the TV show since it’s resurrection in 2005 by Russel T. Davis you will know that the shows composer Murry Gold has done a brilliant job setting the tone for the episodes. Murry Gold was himself a huge Doctor Who fan when he was young, as was Russell T. Davis, and that love and emotion shows through in the stories and music that go together so well, the music for characters can even be very moving at times.
The venue, obviously, was brilliant! The Royal Albert Hall almost seems to be made for the Doctor Who proms having loads of seats for all the fans, a big stage for the orchestra and the presenters and a great central area clear of seats for the creatures and monsters to walk through the crowds. There are plenty of entrances for them to walk in from, giving an impression that we’re surrounded by some of the worst possible animals ever to arise from our universe (and even the universes beyond that) and also room for a trap door for an unexpected visitor…
Seeing the Doctor turn up like that was really enjoyable, and as I said before, unexpected. Previous years have only ever involved the Doctor being pre filmed and maybe a monster making it’s way into the hall through the Doctor’s time portal (aka the screen) and attacking the audience with a water pistol, so actually having the Doctor there this year was a brilliant experience. I only wish I was nine again so I could have been the Doctor’s volunteer…
The Doctor Who Proms was the best show I’ve seen so far this year, and possibly even in the 14 years of my lifetime… I can’t wait for the Doctor Who Live later this year, I hope it lives up to this… But on what I’ve seen of this years proms, I will definitely fight with all my might to get the tickets for the proms 2011.