I have a long history with Mr Numan! Way back in the mists of ancient time, my brother Alan and I happened to catch him and Tubeway Army performing 'Are "Friends" Electric?' on Top of the Pops ... some research suggests this might have been 24 May 1979 ... and there's even a video of the performance on YouTube! The next day Alan went out and bought the single, and then, when we realised that the album, Replicas, was available, this became the first Album that I ever bought ... and I loved it to pieces. I went on to devour the next album, The Pleasure Principal (released 7 September 1979), n ..read more

Every so often a Doctor Who book comes along which breaks the mould ... it's something so 'out there' that you perhaps felt that there might never be a book all about it, or that maybe there wasn't much to say about the subject. Along comes Graham Kibble-White, Jack Kibble-White and Stuart Manning asking me to hold their pint. Adventures in Type and Space is just that book. It's a celebration of the early days of the Doctor Who title sequences, covering all the Classic series from Hartnell to McCoy. It includes interviews with the main talents behind the sequences: Bernard Lodge, Sid Sutton O ..read more

The Monster Man is the latest release from Keith Barnfather and Reeltime Pictures, and as usual it's a slick and professional production. Superbly edited by Roger Stevens, the production focusses on Neil Cole, the creator and proprietor of the Museum of Classic SciFi based in Allendale, England, and his work restoring old screen-used props and costumes for display. The love and work that goes into these projects become evident as Cole, an engaging and interesting character, introduces us to his top ten restorations ... and the amazing work that goes into them becomes apparent.  He receiv ..read more

At the end of 2023 we had the enjoyment of seeing four new Doctor Who adventures on telly ... three with the Doctor in the form of David Tennant (again) and one with the brand new Doctor in the form of Ncuti Gatwa ... and sure as salt, the novelisations of the adventures appeared. First on Kindle, and then in paperback and hardback (for the Gatwa one only). I have a long association with the Target Doctor Who novelisation line. First as a reader, then as a collector, then as a chronicler (researching and writing The Target Book (www.telos.co.uk or Amazon where you live), and now pen ..read more

From the outset you know that this play, Laurel & Chaplin: The Feud, is going to be something slightly different. In London's West End, it's showing at the Cambridge Theatre, but only on Monday nights ... the rest of the week the theatre is home to the stage production of Matilda ... and the theatre is done out with elements relating to that show: school desks, books on the walls and so on ... But here, Jordan Conway, playing Chaplin, starts messing about in the seats before the show starts ... goofing with the people in the gallery ... before it all kicks into gear as the lights dim, and ..read more

Wait a moment ... why is David J Howe of this parish, reviewing a film which seems to have nothing to do with his usual fare of zombies, horrors, vampires, ghosts or Doctor Who ... or TV SciFi/Horror? The answer is simple ... like some of the other non-genre films that I adore (say hello The Holiday and Airplane! - and of course The Stranger in Our Bed :)) it's a brilliant film, and very underrated and overlooked ... so I thought I'd try and share some love and get people seeking it out. Released in 2013, and written and directed by Ritesh Batra, The Lunchbox contains a simple idea. In M ..read more

Freaky, is, probably because filmmakers have no imagination, a riff on the Freaky Friday film - ie it's a bodyswap.  But this is a little more imaginative in that here, the teenaged victim swaps with the serial killer! It all kicks off in a very familiar style, no real surprise as it's a Blumhouse film, and they tend to know their horror. So there's a killer, the Butcher, who targets teens at a prom, who comes back every so often to kill again ... and we're stalking a girl, killing her boyfriend ... it even has the Halloween style masked killer who cocks his head to the side to inspect a ..read more

This Vin Diesel film is new on Prime and new to me ... it's a science fiction tale, but starts as though it's a straight thriller. Diesel plays a soldier, Ray Garrison, out in combat, and he ends up kidnapped by the bad guy, who then kills his wife in order to try and make him talk ... but Diesel knows nothing so gets shot in the head for his trouble ... But then, we discover that Diesel's body has been taken for scientific research and he's been given a hefty dose of nanobots which have repaired his body, and which make him superstrong and almost unstoppable ... So what does he do? He heads ..read more

A Christmas Special! A new Doctor! A new Companion! And a new era for Doctor Who! It can always be quite daunting when a new Doctor arrives, and in this case, it's probably more than usual as here we have a Doctor without any 'baggage', a new bi-generated Doctor, newly created, and having left all his angst, past, tiredness and issues with his previous self - allowing the Doctor as a whole to heal on Earth with a new 'family'. And here we have Ncuti Gatwa as the 15th Doctor ... in his first proper adventure since he split from his previous self.  It's a great way to reboot the show for ..read more

Whoah!  There's a lot to unpack here. The third and final of the David Tennant/14th Doctor Specials for this year, 'The Giggle' promised a rematch with the Toymaker, who first appeared way back in 1966 in the story 'The Celestial Toymaker'. He was played by Michael Gough then, as a suave, controlled presence ... a supremely powerful entity, bored, and existing to play games ... he existed in his own realm, and if you beat the Toymaker, then the realm was destroyed, but the Toymaker existed on ... creating another realm.  If you played his games and lost, then you became one of his t ..read more