The box set for Season 25 of Doctor Who has been announced and as the trailer shows, I am on it! The documentary Looking For Dursley goes in seacrh of the legacy of Dursley McLinden, the young actor from Remembrance of the Daleks who was part of that generation so blighted by the terrible HIV virus. Among those I speak to about him are Sophie Aldred and Russell T Davies.

With Sophie in a certain classroom of Remembrance

With Russell T Davies at the Bad Wolf Studios in Cardiff (I’m clearly standing in a hole!()

Killer, adapted from Ionesco by Dan Rebellato and featuring Toby Jones, Liz Carr, Christine Bottomley and me as… well as the Killer was recently repeated on BBC Radio 3. You can hear it again now if you are quick. Go here.

I have three TV appearances in the can – one I know will not be on until January 2025 but the other two will be sooner. I wish I could tell you more. I have done ADR on the January show and it looks great (and he’s a fabuliu character), whilst one of the others involved working (albeit briefly) with one of my comedy heroes.

I am currently working on two other Doctor Who themed documentaries, another that has nothing to do with Doctor Who, and my film for the next, as-yet-unannounced Doctor Who Blu-ray set is already in the can and has been through an initial edit. We also have a film ready for an as-yet-unscheduled box set because we are future proofing the range. 

Oh, and there are some more Thomas & Friends in the can, so Toby the Tram Engine will ride once more.

My monthly comedy night – Testing, Testing – at the fabulous 53Two venue in Manchester City Centre, has been going great guns and celebrated its first birthday in June. We never announce who is going to turn up but so far we have had Sarah Millican, Justin Moorhouse, Colin Hoult, Gary Delaney, Nick Doody, Amy Gledhill, Rob Rouse, Daliso Chaponda and many more pop in. There are some great line-ups coming up too: TV names aplenty.  It will showcase the very best circuit acts trying out their new material in a friendly environment on the last Sunday of the month. As ever with the stuff I do it is accessible, low cost and friendly. So, you know, don’t plan your stag do around it. Tickets and details for July’s Testing, Testing here.

With Jonny Pelham, Sarah Millican and Gary Delaney at Testing, Testing. It’s a new material night in Manchester which I will compere on the last Sunday of every month.

I have nearly finished the first of my Quatermass books which will be published by Ten Acre Films: it should be in the shops early this year. These were going to be released in two volumes but now each of the 1950s serials is getting its own book. The Quatermass Experiment will be out first, of course. It’s official, it must be, as I even talk about it on Newsnight (this is the episode, have a look about ten minutes from the end for a sizeable and really nice segment that I think turned out very well).

With Kirsty Wark on Newsnight!

XS Malarkey – my award-winning, Manchester-based comedy club – continues to provide great value laughter for a very small entry fee.  It is now based full time, and every Tuesday at 53Two. Find out more about the club here. 

With Colin Hoult, Hayley Ellis and Joe Lycett at XS Malarkey (on the road!)

My podcasts are going strong – and I did some special eiditions to tie in with the broadcast episodes of the latest series. They were written in a very small time window but have had some excellent feedback. They have clocked up over 500, 000 downloads across 350 episodes which I am told is very good! They are all about Doctor Who : there’s Too Much Information (a fact-filled, episode-by-episode breakdown), Indefinable Magic (whimsical vocal essays inspired by some random aspect of the the show), and Happy Times and Places (commentaries with the aim of positivity). They are released under the blanket title of Toby Hadoke’s Time Travels. The podcast version is now also on You Tube and all the usual podcast places. My You Tube channel is here. My Podbean podcast page is here. My Patreon Page is here.

 

And here’s the general stuff about me if you’re interested (which I’m guessing you might be as you are here, so thanks!):

My one-man show Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf sold out at the Edinburgh Fringe before embarking on a national tour, international dates and a West End run. The radio version was released on CD by the BBC and was nominated for a Sony Award. The follow-up – My Stepson Stole My Sonic Screwdriver –  joined its predecessor for a double bill at the Garrick Theatre in 2013. My radio work includes afternoon plays, a Fright Night presentation and topical comedy and has been nominated for a BBC Audio Drama Award. For TV I have written for children’s series Biff and Chip.

I am a regular performer at the Comedy Store, Manchester and was the Wednesday night MC at the 99 Club Leicester Square for a decade, and have been resident compere at the award-winning XS Malarkey comedy club for 27 years.

I also like old TV and can spot a character actor in a crowd from space. I have written about such passions for national newspapers and magazines, and spoken about them on documentaries and TV news programmes. My podcast, Toby Hadoke’s Who’s Round, has run to over 250 episodes, and my latest effort, Toby Hadoke’s Time Travels, has hit 300, 000 downloads.

But I’m an actor really. I have appeared in Holby City, An Adventure in Space and Time, Phoenix Nights, The Forsyte Saga, Emmerdale, Coronation Street and Casualty 1907, the 2020 feature film Six Minutes to Midnight and dozens of radio plays.