A Sarah Packed Read

The latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine has hit newsagents across the UK; featuring exclusive news on "The Sarah Jane Adventures", and other Sarah Jane Smith related items. First up is confirmation that filming on the SJA did indeed begin on Monday 16th April, with Alice Troughton at the helm.

SARAH JANE - OUR HERO TAKES CENTRE STAGE

The woman directs adventures one and two (both still untitled) which consists of four half hour episodes. The first adventure is written by Gareth Roberts (which we confirmed last month) with Phil Ford announced as the writer for the remaining two-part story. Ford's adventure guest stars Phyillda Law and Beth Goddard. Fans of "Gimme Gimme Gimme" might remember Goddard's face - as she played the role of Suze in the series.

Elsewhere, and Elisabeth Sladen visited BBC Audiobooks on Tuesday April 3rd to record the narration for an upcoming BBC Audio release - "Doctor Who: At the BBC - The Tenth Doctor". The CD collects together interview footage from the past two years, and is a celebration of the NuWho era. It goes on sale September 2007, so get those pre-orders in!

On top of that, there's a preview of the forthcoming "Robot" DVD - where commissioning editor Daniel Hall explains the choice of story: "...I am also aware that Sarah Jane is enjoying a well-deserved renaissance. With the character so much in the spotlight, what better story to release than her homage to Fay Wray?" Quite!

The news section also confirms that the Sarah Jane centric episode "School Reunion" is up for a HUGO Award. The awards are widely regarded as the most prestigious science-fiction honours in all of North America - but "School reunion" faces tough competition in its category. Two other Doctor Who stories ("The Girl in the Fireplace" and "Army of Ghosts / Doomsday") also stand a chance to win the award, as do episodes of Battlestar Galactica and Stargate SG1.

This month's "Time Team" reach the 600 episode milestone, and celebrate by watching the 20th anniversary tale "The Five Doctors" - which features a neat cameo by Elisabeth Sladen. "What is Sarah wearing?" One member of the team asks, "Her clothes sense was always a bit strange and little girlish, but now she's ten years older and she's got a pac-a-mac and mittens on strings!" How I do love the Teams little observations...

There's also a touching tribute to Dave Martin, who aside from co-creating K9 also wrote two of the classic Sarah Jane serials of the 1970's ("The Sontaran Experiment" and "The Hand of Fear"). The writer of the tribute, Marcus Hearn, travels through Martin's writing career in close detail, with quotes from the likes of Terrance Dicks and Anthony Read.

Finally there's a reminder that Elisabeth Sladen is set to appear at the 10th Planet Store in Barking, Essex on Saturday June 2nd (1:39pm - 3:30pm) to sign copies of the "Robot" DVD. Don't miss out of your chance to meet Sarah Jane herself!

Pick up issue 382 of DWM at newsagents now, priced £3.99.