Latest news with #JunoDawson
The Independent
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
At a glance: The Independent Pride List 2025
The Independent Pride List celebrates LGBT+ pioneers, highlighting achievements in sports, music, politics, and fashion, amidst growing global challenges to LGBT+ rights. Dr Victoria McCloud, Britain's first trans judge, is challenging the UK government at the European Court of Human Rights over the Supreme Court's ruling on the definition of 'woman'. The list of 50 includes figures like Juno Dawson, Bella Ramsey, and Cynthia Erivo, recognised for their activism, acting roles, and advocacy for LGBT+ visibility and rights. Wes Streeting, the UK's Health Secretary, is recognised as the most prominent gay man in Westminster politics. The list also honours individuals like David Hockney, The Vivienne (posthumously), and Yasmin Benoit, celebrating contributions to art, drag performance, and asexuality awareness, respectively.
The Guardian
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Doctor Who: The Interstellar Song Contest – season two episode six recap
For an episode that started out like a joyfully camp romp into the world of Eurovision, Juno Dawson turned in a script that truly had ice in its heart, in just the way the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) told Kid (Freddie Fox) that the Time Lord now had ice in his hearts. Doctor Who stories often feature alien invasions, conquest, destruction and the desire for revenge, but they have seldom so bleakly painted the determination to carry out a mass casualty terrorism event. That in turn provoked one of the most extreme reactions we have ever seen from the lead character. It was all quite an abrupt turn tonally, in an episode that felt fun but thin for the opening act. It had a larger ensemble cast to play with than some other stories this season, although it was fortunate that, separated, both the Doctor and Belinda (Varada Sethu) found themselves trapped with somebody who turned out to have technical expertise working bits of the space station. The episode tackled several big themes at once – the rapacious capitalist exploitation of a planet to harvest a product, widely held dismissive and racist attitudes to an entire species, the pain of Miriam-Teak Lee's character having to endure mutilation in order to fit in and participate in society, and the Doctor's judgment that none of these things in turn could justify the actions of someone with a 'cold filthy heart' that just likes to kill. Before all that was the colour rush of watching the contest unfold. Your mileage may have varied here depending on how big a fan of Eurovision you are. Who could have guessed that Rylan would have more than a brief cameo? His self-deprecating persona was perfect for the part Dawson wrote for him, allowing him to roll with the jokes about his teeth and his career. But perhaps the hardest thing to make believable was that any of the alien interstellar contestants and their songs from the future were as outlandish as some of the creations we have seen over the years on Earth at the real event. What if Doctor Who did Eurovision in space, but in the middle of a terrorist attack? Last season's interactions between Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) and the Doctor relied on the audience taking at face value that they had become best buddies off-screen. The relationship between Belinda and the Doctor has been much more convincing. She looked genuinely taken aback when she witnessed the Doctor going into rage mode for the first time, and he was only ultimately held back when he saw his actions reflected in her expression. And then there was Carole Ann Ford, who played William Hartnell's first Doctor's granddaughter in 1963 in the show's very first episode, seemingly on board the 15th Doctor's Tardis. Last season had teased a return for her, only to bait-and-switch the viewer that it was SUtekh not SUsan all the clues had been pointing to. But there Susan was. What can it all mean? The faceless robot guards were a classic Doctor Who background trope, extras deployed to deliver a bit of firepower but no real thrill. It was the Doctor who was by far the most frightening thing here. Gatwa has clearly had swagger, style and charisma to carry off the lighter side of his character, but here for the first time he was really able to flex being the oncoming storm, the Time Lord Victorious, the one thing you never put in a trap. In both his conversation with Kid over the video link, and the subsequent extended torture scene, Gatwa passed this Doctorly character test with flying colours. Is it reading too much into the fact that last week out of the blue we saw Poppy, the captain from Space Babies, and this week the product driving the narrative was Poppy Honey? Probably. And there was dear old Mrs Flood, actively surveilling our heroes and clearly readying to put her dastardly bigeneration plan into action. Ford's appearance won't have taken William Russell's world record for longest gap between appearances as the same character in the same show. She reprised her role as Susan in 1983's The Five Doctors. Russell set the record when he appeared in The Power of the Doctor in 2022, 57 years after his character, Ian Chesterton's initial departure. The Rani, originally played by Kate O'Mara, first appeared as a renegade Time Lord in 1985's The Mark of the Rani. When Archie Panjabi said she was the definite article, she was echoing Tom Baker's words in his 1974 debut story, Robot, where, newly-regenerated, he told Harry Sullivan 'You may be a doctor, but I'm the Doctor. The definite article, you might say.' In 2002, Sylvester McCoy's Doctor and Bonnie Langford's Mel visited the Intergalactic Song Contest in an expanded media audio adventure called Bang-Bang-a-Boom! Graham Norton got to deliver the news of Earth's destruction in hologram format. He has previously made not one but two unscheduled Doctor Who appearances. First, a BBC One sound error added a cheering crowd and his hot mic voice to the tense opening of Rose in 2005. Second, an overlaid cartoon promo of him generated 5,000 complaints for ruining the cliffhanger of The Time of Angels in 2010. He got exterminated for it. Wish World is already upon us, part one of the season finale. See you then! Season 2 Episode 1: The Robot Revolution Episode 2: Lux Episode 3: The Well Episode 4: Lucky Day Episode 5: The Story and the Engine Episode 6: The Interstellar Song Contest Episode 7: Wish World Episode 8: The Reality War Season 1 Episodes 1 & 2: Space Babies / The Devil's Chord Episode 3: Boom Episode 4: 73 Yards Episode 5: Dot and Bubble Episode 6: Rogue Episode 7: The Legend of Ruby Sunday Episode 8: Empire of Death Christmas special: Joy to the World 60th anniversary specials Special 1: The Star BeastSpecial 2: Wild Blue YonderSpecial 3: The GiggleChristmas special: The Church on Ruby Road Flux / Series 13 Chapter one: The Halloween ApocalypseChapter two: War of the SontaransChapter three: Once, Upon TimeChapter four: Village of the AngelsChapter five: Survivors of the FluxChapter six: The VanquishersNew Year's Special: Eve of the DaleksSpring special: Legend of the Sea DevilsBBC centenary special: The Power of the Doctor Series 12 Episode 1: Spyfall part oneEpisode 2: Spyfall part twoEpisode 3: Orphan 55Episode 4: Nikola Tesla's Night of TerrorEpisode 5: Fugitive of the JudoonEpisode 6: PraxeusEpisode 7: Can You Hear Me?Episode 8: The Haunting of Villa DiodatiEpisode 9: Ascension of the CybermenEpisode 10: The Timeless ChildrenNew Year's special: Revolution of the Daleks Series 11 Episode 1: The Woman Who Fell to EarthEpisode 2: The Ghost MonumentEpisode 3: RosaEpisode 4: Arachnids in the UKEpisode 5: The Tsuangra CondundrumEpisode 6: Demons of the PunjabEpisode 7: Kerblam!Episode 8: The WitchfindersEpisode 9: It Takes You AwayEpisode 10: The Battle of Ranskoor Av KolosNew Year's special: Resolution Series 10 Episode 1: The PilotEpisode 2: SmileEpisode 3: Thin IceEpisode 4: Knock KnockEpisode 5: OxygenEpisode 6: ExtremisEpisode 7: The Pyramid at the End of the WorldEpisode 8: The Lie of the LandEpisode 9: Empress of MarsEpisode 10: The Eaters of LightEpisode 11: World Enough and TimeEpisode 12: The Doctor Falls2017 Christmas special: Twice Upon A Time Series 9 Episode 1: The Magician's ApprenticeEpisode 2: The Witch's FamiliarEpisode 3: Under The LakeEpisode 4: Before The FloodEpisode 5: The Girl Who DiedEpisode 6: The Woman Who LivedEpisode 7: The Zygon InvasionEpisode 8: The Zygon InversionEpisode 9: Sleep No MoreEpisode 10: Face The RavenEpisode 11: Heaven SentEpisode 12: Hell Bent2015 Christmas special: The Husbands of River Song2016 Christmas special: The Return of Doctor Mysterio Series 8 Episode 1: Deep BreathEpisode 2: Into The DalekEpisode 3: Robot of SherwoodEpisode 4: ListenEpisode 5: Time HeistEpisode 6: The CaretakerEpisode 7: Kill The MoonEpisode 8: Mummy on the Orient ExpressEpisode 9: FlatlineEpisode 10: In the Forest of the NightEpisode 11: Dark WaterEpisode 12: Death In Heaven2014 Christmas special: Last Christmas Series 7 Episode 1: Asylum of the DaleksEpisode 2: Dinosaurs on a SpaceshipEpisode 3: A Town Called MercyEpisode 4: The Power of ThreeEpisode 5: The Angels Take Manhatten2012 Christmas special: The SnowmenEpisode 6: The Bells of Saint JohnEpisode 7: The Rings of AkhatenEpisode 8: Cold WarEpisode 9: HideEpisode 10: Journey to the Centre of the TardisEpisode 11: The Crimson HorrorEpisode 12: Nightmare in SilverEpisode 13: The Name of the Doctor50th Anniversary special: The Day of the Doctor2013 Christmas special: The Time of the Doctor Series 6 Episode 1: The Impossible AstronautEpisode 2: Day of the MoonEpisode 3: The Curse of the Black SpotEpisode 4: The Doctor's WifeEpisode 5: The Rebel FleshEpisode 6: The Almost PeopleEpisode 7: A Good Man Goes To WarEpisode 8: Let's Kill HitlerEpisode 9: Night TerrorsEpisode 10: The Girl Who WaitedEpisode 11: The God ComplexEpisode 12: Closing TimeEpisode 13: The Wedding of River Song2011 Christmas special: The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe Series 5 Episode 1: The Eleventh HourEpisode 2: The Beast BelowEpisode 3: Victory of the DaleksEpisode 4: The Time of AngelsEpisode 5: Flesh and StoneEpisode 6: The Vampires of VeniceEpisode 7: Amy's ChoiceEpisode 8: The Hungry EarthEpisode 9: Cold BloodEpisode 10: Vincent and the DoctorEpisode 11: The LodgerEpisode 12: The Pandorica OpensEpisode 13: The Big Bang2010 Christmas special: A Christmas Carol
Telegraph
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Doctor Who promotes queer tolerance, says show's trans writer
Doctor Who promotes queer tolerance, the show's first transgender writer has said. Juno Dawson, a bestselling author known for young adult novels, joined Russell T Davies earlier this year to help script the regenerated series starring Ncuti Gatwa. The 43-year-old, who is the first openly transgender writer for the popular BBC show, said that a childhood love of Doctor Who and Eurovision 'was my way of saying I was queer before I knew what it was to be queer'. Writing in this week's Radio Times, Dawson said that it was unsurprising that both the European song contest and the science fiction TV series are 'so beloved by LGBTQ+ people'. 'Both shows occasionally address queer themes – last year's Eurovision winner, Nemo, was the first non-binary performer,' Dawson said. 'But more generally, the DNA of Doctor Who and Eurovision is fairness, tolerance, peace and the triumph of joy over hatred. 'It's not hard to see why queer people feel so seen and so safe in both worlds.' Gatwa's starring role marked the first time the Doctor has been played by an openly queer actor, as well as a black actor, in the show's 61-year history. The Sex Education star, 32, came out as queer in Aug 2023 in an interview with Elle magazine when discussing the importance of representation in the media. He described his role in the hit Netflix series as Eric Effiong, who is one of the few gay students at school, as 'healing' for him. 'Shout out to [the screenwriter] Laurie Nunn for giving nuance to this gay, black character and gifting him to the world,' Gatwa said. 'He's so fierce and unashamed. It was healing for me, and great for people to see themselves represented. 'It taught me the importance of representation: it's so powerful and necessary.' He has been playing The Doctor since the 2023 Christmas special and since last month, the two lead parts have been portrayed by minority ethnic actors for the first time. Previously, Davies – the head writer for Doctor Who – has criticised 'toxic' people who claim the show is too woke. The Welsh screenwriter and television producer, 62, said he had no time for complaints about the show's 'diversity and wokeness'. In May last year, Gatwa said he felt 'sad' for critics of the show's diversity. 'For me, personally, I find it fascinating that it matters so much to these people,' he said. In recent episodes a transgender character referred to the Doctor as 'male-presenting' and a drag queen made the point of using 'them' as a personal pronoun. Dawson, who also co-hosted The Official Doctor Who Podcast and penned the series' spin-off podcast, said that Eurovision had inspired the show's content in the form of an 'Interstellar Song Contest'. The author explained: 'There might not be an obvious link between the Eurovision Song Contest and Doctor Who, but I think they're cousins – if not sisters… But more than that, fans of Doctor Who and Eurovision can sometimes feel like outsiders, and that becomes part of someone's identity. 'When I was asked to write this episode, I was determined that my Interstellar Song Contest wouldn't make fun of Eurovision by having aliens dance around in tin foil dresses,' Dawson added. 'Why would the show devolve in the far future? If anything, I thought it would continue to become even grander.' Explaining that the episode is not 'all camp and glitter', Dawson added: 'I wanted to tell a human story… because that's how you win Eurovision.' The season two finale is set to premiere simultaneously on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on May 31.
