The fes­ti­val has today announced a pro­gramme of per­for­mances, pan­els and talks set to enthral Dr Who fans, apt­ly tak­ing place at Cheshire’s Jodrell Bank Observatory.

Jodrell Bank Obser­va­to­ry is renowned in Whov­ian lore hav­ing pro­vid­ed the back­drop to the fourth Doctor’s tran­si­tion to the fifth (when Tom Bak­er hand­ed the role over to Peter Davi­son in 1982) with the icon­ic Lovell Tele­scope becom­ing the Pharos Project Radio Tele­scope from which the fourth Doc­tor fell, trig­ger­ing his regeneration.

Almost as impor­tant as the TARDIS to the leg­end of the Doc­tor is the unfor­get­table theme tune, cre­at­ed by Delia Der­byshire in 1963 – and blue­dot is proud to present very spe­cial guests the Radio­phon­ic Work­shop with their brand new live show Dawn of the Doc­tors.

As self-con­fessed Who super­fans, the blue­dot team are excit­ed to present a series of talks and pan­els curat­ed by writer, actor and renowned Doc­tor Who expert Toby Hadoke whose notable works include the West End hit Moths Ate my Doc­tor Who Scarf and BBC Radio 4 Extra’s The Sev­enth Dimen­sion.

For Antici­point­ment, Toby will be in con­ver­sa­tion with Robin Ince, the co-host of Radio 4’s award-win­ning Infi­nite Mon­key Cage for a fas­ci­nat­ing and hilar­i­ous deep-dive into life as a Whovian.

Toby will also be host­ing Why Do We Love This Sil­ly Pro­gramme So Much with Dr Tom Attah, from Leeds Arts Uni­ver­si­ty, Jodrell Bank astro­physi­cist Dr Emma Alexan­der, and come­di­an and Doc­tor Who actor Bethany Black. Toby’s final pan­el is Doc­tor Who Made Me fea­tur­ing pro­lif­ic TV scriptwriter and pro­duc­er Stephen Gal­lagher, who wrote the Doc­tor Who sto­ries Warrior’s Gate and Ter­mi­nus, and actor and writer Dan Starkey who has played the fan-favourite Strax the Son­taran char­ac­ter in numer­ous episodes.

The elec­tron­ic music char­i­ty and archive Delia Der­byshire Day is also pre­sent­ing Con­ver­sa­tions in Space, Time, Sci­ence and Music: Doc­tor Who at 60, a fas­ci­nat­ing pro­gramme of pan­els lead­ing with The Mak­ing of the Orig­i­nal Doc­tor Who Theme fea­tur­ing Dick Mills who was Delia’s tape assis­tant dur­ing the pro­duc­tion of the orig­i­nal theme and Mark Myers of the Radio­phon­ic Work­shop Band. Fur­ther pan­els include Revers­ing the Polar­i­ty of the Timey Wimey Flow: The Chang­ing Por­tray­al of the Sci­en­tist in Doc­tor Who with David But­ler, Jen Gup­ta and Simon Guer­ri­er and Doc­tor Who and the Cur­rent Cri­sis; The Role of Dra­ma in Imag­in­ing Futures with Sash­wati Mira Sen­gup­ta.

Across the week­end blue­dot guests will be treat­ed to an out of this world feast of music, cul­ture, sci­ence and enter­tain­ment fea­tur­ing Pave­ment, Grace Jones, Roisin Mur­phy, Left­field, Max Richter and the BBC Con­cert Orches­tra, Young Fathers, Annie Mac, David Holmes, Adam Buxton’s Bug, Dot Talks, The Out­er Space, hands-on sci­ence work­shops and exhi­bi­tions and much, much more. 

Final day & week­end tick­ets for blue­dot 2023 at Cheshire’s Jodrell Bank Obser­va­to­ry on sale now