As many Dr Who fans will already know and as I've mentioned in previous postings, November 23rd 2013 marks the series' 50th Anniversary. There are a variety of events and programs timed to coincide with such a significant moment in British television history and earlier today, I spent a few hours watching a couple of fascinating Dr Who documentaries broadcast on the Watch channel here in the UK.
Watch also showed all four episodes of Dr Who: The Aztecs, first aired between 23 May and 13 June 1964. I was then five years old and despite being generally terrified by much of Dr Who, I was nevertheless a great fan of the series. However, the idea that I would one day become an actor and have the privilege of working with people who appeared in The Aztecs and indeed with other actors from the classic series, would have seemed to me as incredible as a Dr Who story.I'm sure you can imagine then how thrilling it was for me to see The Aztecs, starring colleagues such as William Russell, Carole Ann Ford, Ian Cullen and the fantastic John Ringham, with whom I did a theatre production of All My Sons in Cheltenham, a somewhat scarifying 20 years ago!
So the 50th Anniversary celebrations are under way and I'm sure there's much more to come. In celebration of today's showing of The Aztecs, here are some images... enjoy!
William Hartnell as The Doctor
and William Russell as Ian Carole Ann Ford as Susan
John Ringham as Tlotoxl
Ian Cullen as Ixta
Sunday's Dr Who on Watch features Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor in Tomb of The Cybermen.
