IN ALL his adventures in time and space, the Doctor rarely needs anything as basic as money. However, fans visiting an exhibition about of the Time Lord may be hoping their wallets – like the Tardis – are bigger on the inside.

Admission to the show, opening today at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, costs up to £9. Accompanying merchandise includes £95 pewter Dalek salt and pepper shakers. Remote-controlled Daleks are available at £50, with Dalek helmets at £40.

Despite the prices, the organisers are confident of a record attendance for the museum since it reopened three years ago. They predict 170,000 people will visit the exhibition during its nine-month run – 10,000 more than saw the free display of Kylie Minogue’s costumes in 2007.

Advanced bookings total 15,000, with all tickets for this weekend and next weekend sold out.

It is hoped Paisley-born David Tennant, the current Doctor, will visit the exhibition before it ends on 4 January, and possibly other Doctors, such as Matt Smith, his successor.

Tennant visited the exhibition when it was in Cardiff, and former Doctor Tom Baker opened it at Earls Court in London. Kelvingrove will be its only Scottish venue.

Highlights are likely to include visitors being able to talk like a Dalek by speaking into a voice synthesiser.

The Cybermen – who terrified primary school children at an exhibition preview yesterday – are expected to be a major draw. They will normally be static, but will sometimes move round the exhibition.

The show includes monsters and other characters from the four seasons of the show since Doctor Who was revived in 2005.

Visitors are greeted by Autons – shop dummies which came alive in the first episode, when Christopher Eccleston was introduced as the ninth Doctor.

Other chilling exhibits include a stone angel from Blink – “blink and you’re dead” – the tentacle-faced Ood, and one of the gas masks from the Blitz-set two-parter, The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances.

Older fans can recall the original spine-tingling music by watching the title sequences of early series.

A new exhibit will be added after it has featured in the forthcoming Easter special, Planet of the Dead, but organisers have not given details.

Liz Cameron, chairwoman of Culture and Sport Glasgow, which runs Kelvingrove, said: “The Doctor Who exhibition is one of the most eagerly anticipated events of the year.

“Fans have been telling me how much they are looking forward to seeing all these wonderful characters and terrifying monsters.”

Martin Wilkie, of Experience Design & Management, which created the exhibition for the BBC, said the most popular exhibit was no surprise. “The Daleks have always been the number one draw – they are incredibly popular,” he said.

EMPRESS FAILS TO RULE IN GLASGOW

IT TOOK five weeks to install the 150 exhibits, but even Kelvingrove’s cathedral-like interior could not accommodate one Doctor Who monster.

The Empress of Racnoss, a giant spider-like creation, has had to be omitted from the exhibition because of its size. The basement where the show is housed is too cramped for the 13ft high and 23ft long creature.

However, there is no space upstairs in the museum’s main hall because it is regularly used for events and concerts, and an option to display the empress outside was rejected because of the Glasgow weather.

Admission is £7.50 for adults and £4.50 for children, but these come with additional charges of either £1.50 per booking for cash, or £1 per ticket if paid by card.

Daleks dominate the gift shop, with an entire wall devoted to everything from £2.50 coasters to cookie jars at £37.50.
From:Scotsman

Reporting on the conference Capital, Culture and Power in Liverpool, Leo Singer and Clara Paillard find a useful vehicle with which to crash the regeneration party and pose some difficult questions for its hosts

Rebecca Gordon Nesbit

“The referendum on Scottish devolution on September 11th 1997 was a historic moment for our country. But the ‘Yes Yes’ result was not a mandate for politicians, civil servants, local government officers or any other public sector officials to take on extra powers ‘on behalf of the people’.”
Bridget McConnell, 19971

http://www.citystrolls.com/z-temp/z-pages/bohemia.html

Mr. James Doherty         28/6/08
Media Manager
Culture and Sport Glasgow
20 Trongate
Glasgow
G1 5ES

Dear Mr. Doherty,

Further to your letter dated 23 June, we take the opportunity to reply herewith. To take your last point first – that “the author has referenced newspapers as reliable and accurate sources of facts, which is a major flaw in a so-called piece of academic writing

http://www.citystrolls.com/z-temp/text-pdf/VariantCSGReply-1.pdf