A Close Encounter with the Family of Blood

I found myself in rather an unusual situation today - juding a prose-reading competition (run as part of a school book week), alongside an alien Aubertide, or at least the actor who portrayed him on television. Gerard Horan appeared in Doctor Who last year as Father of Mine, a member of the Time Lord-hunting Family, who took on the guise of a character called Mr Clark in the already legendary episodes 'Human Nature' and 'Family of Blood'. This two-parter by Paul Cornell will go down in television history as one of the best televised Doctor Who stories of all time, as well as being remembered as a fantastic piece of dramatic story-telling in its own right, in any genre.

Anyway, I survived the experience and found Mr Horan to be a thoroughly pleasant gentleman. What with him having appeared in Doctor Who and myself having contributed one of the most recent Doctor Who fiction spin-offs, it was something of a DW double-header for the school. And to top it all, the children had entered a competition to win signed copies of 'The Horror of Howling Hill'! I almost felt like a celebrity author for all of 45 minutes.

You can find out more about Gerard Horan at the Internet Movie Database, the Family of Blood here, and read up about Paul Cornell's latest projects on his own blog site. As to 'The Horror of Howling Hill'... I think I've possibly posted that link enough already.

Until next time...