Counting down to Whooverville 7!

For the second successive year we are proud to be bringing a Doctor to Whooverville – and it’s an old friend of our group and our convention. We are absolutely delighted to be able to announce that COLIN BAKER has agreed to return to Whooverville.
Colin, the Sixth Doctor of course, needs no introduction. If you have yet to see him at a convention you are in for a treat. He is a fabulous guest and a genuinely nice guy.
He was the main guest at the very first Whooverville, back in 2009 and we are really looking forward to showing him what we have done with our little convention, as well as to asking him about Big Finish, his part in the 50th Anniversary Celebrations, I’m A Celebrity… and so much more. Many thanks to Colin for agreeing to come back and see us again

Jenny published her first novel in 2000 and is one of the UK’s most popular romantic novelists, winning the award for Romantic Novel of the Year in 2013 for Welcome to Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop of Dreams. A life-long Who fan, who once won a competition to meet Peter Davison, Jenny’s first Doctor Who novel, Dark Horizons was published in 2012. She is also a contributor to the recently published collection of Who novellas, originally published as e-books, Time Trips. Many thanks to our friends at BBC Books for helping to arrange Jenny’s appearance at Whooverville.

Richard is the author of two acclaimed biographies of Doctor Who producers. JNT: The Life and Scandalous Times of John Nathan Turner, published in 2013, confounded many people’s expectations by being a serious, scholarly and above all sympathetic account of the life of the last producer of classic Doctor Who. He has followed this up his year, with his biography of the series’ first producer, Drama and Delight: The Life of Verity Lambert, which is garnering rave reviews. Both books are published by Miwk Publishing, to whom our thanks go for facilitating Richard’s appearance at Whooverville. Richard was for many years a contributor to Doctor Who Magazine and was editor of Blue Peter between 1998 and 2007. He also produced the fabulous 2012 documentary, Tales of Television Centre. We very much look forward to meeting him.

Since winning a Magpie art competition with a portrait of George Best in 1969, Jeff has had a successful career as a graphic designer and artist. In the 1970s he worked with the legendary Hipgnosis, designers of album covers, working with artists such as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Moody Blues and Peter Gabriel. His painting for the Paul and Linda McCartney
album ‘Wings Over America’ propelled him into the international arena. of course he is well-known to Who fans as the designer of the covers of a number of Target books. More information on Jeff and his work can be found at http://www.jeffcummins.com/ Many thanks to Jeff for contacting us, we look forward to meeting him.

Karen is an old friend and a member of our group, who is known for her two books relating her convention experiences Un-Conventional and The Other Side of The Table. She is the author of the forthcoming Anthony Ainley biography, The Man Behind The Master, to be published by Fantom Films.

Michael is the current Production Manager on Doctor Who, the man ultimately responsible for all art and design matters on the series. The son of War Machines actor William Mervyn, he has never done a convention before. Many thanks to our friend Tristan Peatfield for making the introductions.

Dan has become the go-to-guy for Sontarans both for televised Doctor Who and for Big Finish audios, since appearing in the 10th Doctor Story The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky. He is probably best known as Commander Strax, a role which he first played in the Eleventh Doctor story A Good Man Goes To War and which he has reprised on several occasions since as part of the Paternoster Gang.

After 3 seasons in prosthetics as Randal Moon in Wizards vs. Aliens, Dan finally got his face on-screen as Ian the elf in the Doctor Who Christmas Special Last Christmas, before covering himself in glory as part of the winning team in the Christmas 2014 series of University Challenge.

Dan is a long-standing Doctor Who fan, which will make it particularly pleasing to welcome him to Whooverville.

Terrance Dicks is a very old friend of our group, having twice previously visited us for Friday evening meetings, as well as for one of the 625 Lines events at QUAD that we co-organised.

Terrance needs no introduction, he is simply the most important writer ever to contribute to Doctor Who and the biggest influence on the show of the last 40 years. Terrance is a great convention guest, a font of fascinating stories and memories, and a genuinely nice, approachable person. If you haven’t met him yet, you are in for a treat.

David Benson is perhaps best know to us as the voice of Panda in the Big Finish Iris Wildthyme audio range, for playing Orson Welles in ‘Invaders from Mars’, also for Big Finish and (among others) Aleister Crowley in ‘The Scarifyers’.

He is also known for his hit one-man show ‘Think No Evil Of Us’, based on the life of Kenneth Williams as well as for his similar show based on Frankie Howerd and for playing Noel Cowerd in the BBC comedy show ‘Goodnight Sweetheart’.

David made his television Doctor Who debut this year as the Master of Ceremonies of the Archery Contest in ‘Robot of Sherwood’.

The son of a solicitor, Matthew was a great fan of Doctor Who in his younger days and went on to play Adric alongside the 4th and 5th Doctors.

Matthew has recently returned to Doctor Who as Adric for Big Finish alongside Peter Davison as the 5th Doctor.