As a celebration of Doctor Who's 58th anniversary, we're making another issue of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society fanzine, Celestial Toyroom, available for free online. Click here to go to where you can download it in portrait or landscape format!
Looking for a way to celebrate Doctor Who Day? Why not buy a copy of the new issue of Vworp Vworp! Among the brilliant Doctor Who content are no less than three articles by our own Alan Stevens, mostly about Daleks! Click the link for more.
In these days of uncertainty, we're told mindfulness is important. Therefore, this month we bring you 28 Cool Things About "The Mind of Evil" (and 22 Stupid Ones): A review of a story in which the Master has a more successful time as an Earth exile than the Doctor, and we all learn many interesting facts about Chinese languages!
Finally, here is Andy Lambert's excellent wrap-around cover, minus the Celestial Toyroom logo and issue number.
Here is Alan Stevens' Editor's blog entry for Celestial Toyroom issue 520/1.
Here's is artist JL Fletcher's latest especially commissioned Doctor Who postcard that's available for free with Celestial Toyroom issue 520/1.
This is Andy Lambert's smashing cover artwork for the next Celestial Toyroom edited by Alan Stevens. Overall, the issue runs to 44 pages and among its many features contains one article, in particular, The Making of Kaldor City, which will be of great interest to fans of Magic Bullet Productions. Check out the full contents here.
After the huge success of our making available Celestial Toyroom Issue 506, we bring you another complete edition of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society magazine, Celestial Toyroom Issue 508/9!
For readers of an academic persuasion, there's a book launch this Friday at 5 PM UK time, for Fiona Moore's book "Global Taiwanese," featuring experts on Taiwan and globalisation from around the world. Sign up by clicking the photo!
Here is JL Fletcher's smashing postcard that's given away free with Celestial Toyroom issue 516.
Celestial Toyroom issue 516 is currently being distributed and Alan Stevens' Guest Editor's Blog is now online:
Well, I’m back…
This edition is crammed with Silurians, Sea Devils, Sontarans, and War Machines. We take a detailed look at Ben and Polly, and then dissect showrunner Steven Moffat’s affair with The Time Traveler’s Wife. There’s a character study of Taren Capel, while, finally, we say our goodbyes to actor David Bailie.
All this is ably brought for your delectation by writers Paul Driscoll, Matthew Kilburn, Fiona Moore, Ian Scales, Jez Strickley, proofreader Ann Worrall and page designer Nicholas Hollands.
Further thanks should go to Andy Lambert for his awesome, wrap-around, full colour cover and to JL Fletcher for providing us with yet another in his series of collectible Doctor Who postcards.
When I prepare my editorial for Celestial Toyroom I look for a theme that ties everything together, and then later, for the Guest Editor’s blog, I search for a fresh angle on the issue’s contents.
This time I’m focusing on the notion of duality.
Monsters in Doctor Who frequently represent the hostile 'other', intent on invading or manipulating our planet for their own nefarious ends.
As the series was created and has existed for the most part during the Cold War, it’s not really surprising that foreign invasion should feature so heavily in its stories.
Then there is the fear of new technology, with the Post Office Tower, a centre of civilising communications, providing the headquarters for the murderous computer WOTAN, enslaving us through mind control.
When we come to the Silurians and Sea Devils, things become a little more complicated. Their advanced cultures inhabited the Earth when we were still apes, but it should be recognised that three out of four of their TV adventures end with that particular cell of Homo Reptilia being destroyed, while their last major appearance had them return to hibernation for the next thousand years. A voice-over tells us that “common ground” was finally achieved with the “race known as Humanity”, but we never actually find out how this was done.
The only Aliens to date we have seen successfully coexist on Earth with humans are the Zygons, and even then this was only accomplished by them concealing their true identities and shape-shifting into human form — with the fear of genocide hanging over them if their presence in society was ever detected.
Possibly the most sophisticated monster in the series was Taren Capel: a man whose mind was twisted out of shape from being raised as a child exclusively by robots.
Indeed, Dask, nee Taren Capel, with his dual identity, one calm and measured, the other a boiling cauldron of confused and conflicting emotions, may reveal the quintessential core of Doctor Who:
that trying to slay the “monsters from other worlds” is ultimately futile, as they are simply projections of our own fears made manifest.
From which we have to conclude that all the darkness in the universe stems from the darkness in the hearts of Ben and Polly.
You’re welcome!
Kindest regards,
Alan Stevens (with thanks to Marianne Williamson)
http://www.dwasonline.co.uk/node/1466
We've been doing a little housekeeping, and have provided updated versions of the Celestial Toyroom #506 pdfs on this website: improving resolution, making a few design changes, and adding a cleaner version of the postcard. This issue is a The Robots of Death/Kaldor City special (which has now been downloaded over four and a half thousand times!), so well worth checking out. Download the landscape version here, and the portrait version here.
Celestial Toyroom #516, edited by Alan Stevens, is now at the printers'. Preview the contents on the Doctor Who Appreciation Society website here!
Magic Bullet productions are very sad to report the death of the actor David Bailie, who brought Taren Capel so memorably to life, and was a huge supporter of the Kaldor City CD series.
Our thoughts are with his family.
The Doctor Who Appreciation Society has released a limited run hardback edition of ‘The Celestial Toyroom Annual 2021’, previously only available as a download. The annual runs to over 120 A5 pages with colour throughout. This year the book covers the Troughton era with articles on every second Doctor televised story from a wide range of writers, including Fiona Moore and Alan Stevens. Alister Pearson has provided the front cover with a special piece of artwork. Each copy purchased will benefit ‘Acting for Others’ an organisation supporting theatrical and creative arts professionals struggling during the CoVid crisis.
