Hello!

I’m sorry I’m a bit late with my post this week, I have been away with my school and it has been my birthday so I have been tracking a bit off schedule. I shall start by telling you about the lecture I went to this week at Bournemouth University called ‘Life and Death in Doctor Who’.  This was part of the University’s Festival of Learning which is a programme of exciting events for local people, now in its second year. 

I joined the audience which was full of fellow Whovians, all different kinds of people -young, old, men and women, boys and girls. I was the youngest but some people there remembered watching the very first episode when it was broadcast 50 years ago. The lecture was given by Professor Iain MacRury who is Head of Research and Knowledge Exchange at Bournemouth University. He is an expert on the Doctor and, along with Michael Rustin,  wrote the book The Inner World of Doctor Who: Psychoanalytic Reflections in Time and Space. Phew, that was a bit of a mouthful!

The Professor compared the TARDIS to a magic box, and the stories to children’s books such as Alice In Wonderland.  He talked about how Doctor Who is about growing up and becoming an adult and showed us clips of the companions to make us understand. One clip showed the Ninth Doctor holding on to Rose’s hand saying he could feel the world spinning. He said the latest Doctors are more caring towards their companions than the old Doctors, and he compared the Fifth Doctor after Adric died to the Tenth Doctor saying goodbye to Rose in Darlig Ulv Stranden. The Fifth Doctor just wanted to cheer his companions up by taking them to the Great Exhibition but the Tenth Doctor visited Rose in a parallel universe and burned up a sun to say goodbye!

Afterwards the Professor answered lots of questions from my fellow Whovians, but I was speechless. I met him at the end and he was very kind. Ace called the Seventh Doctor the Professor, maybe that inspired him to become one.

Just a quick news flash – I saw yet another blue box! The Professor told me to go to Weymouth House, part of the university and there was a TARDIS in reception. Not mine, I wonder which Doctor had stopped by for the Festival of Learning? I wonder if a future Doctor was in the audience but we didn’t recognise him?

It was so cool to be at Bournemouth University in the Media School because Richard Senior, the director of Let’s Kill Hitler, graduated from Bournemouth University in 2002. Maybe one day I’ll direct a Doctor Who episode myself, you never know!

See you next week, goodbye.