CT 507 - Stephen Hatcher

CT507 Information

How nice to be asked to edit another issue of Celestial Toyroom. The first thought is always ‘What should be the theme for the issue?’. My last two editions were ‘Things to do while Doctor Who is off the air’ and a Whoovers Interview Special; so that was two good stand-bys off the table for a start.

After much pondering, I concluded that CT doesn’t always need a theme. There must be so many great articles that never get published or even written, simply because they don’t fit in with a given theme. So here we are with no theme, but an eclectic selection of pieces, in which our talented writers, old and new have followed their own trains of thought and written whatever it took their fancy to write.

The current emergency “Lockdown” couldn’t be ignored – particularly as so many Doctor Who fans have risen so splendidly to the challenge and produced so much imaginative and entertaining material for us to enjoy, inlcuding DWAS itself and Fans Like Us. We speak to two other contributors; Emily Cook and Dexter O’Neill.

Beyond the lockdown, Tony Jones considers the often-overlooked influence of John Wyndham on Doctor Who, Nick Headley looks back at the final season of classic Who in the light of the recent blu-ray release, Jez Strickley reviews the role the Tardis itself has played in the show and Huw Turburville analyses Series 1 to 10 of 21st century Who in an attempt to decide, “Who is the Greatest, RTD or Moffat?” Finally there are two lovely personal pieces from Neil Kenny and Dana Lucas who each look back over their own histories as Doctor Who viewers and discover some poignant connections to their pasts.

This is all topped and tailed with two splendid pieces of colour artwork by Paul Cooke and Andrew Mark-Thompson.

Enjoy the issue everyone. Hoping I’ll be allowed back to do another one before too long.

Steve