Saturday 31 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Saturday 31st August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is another of The Big Questions he did with Catherine Tate based on Doctor Who Series Four episodes.

This question is about the episode The Doctor's Daughter.





Friday 30 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Friday 30th August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is the second part of the Doomsday in-vision commentary.

This appeared on the Series Two DVD. All episodes of Doctor Who have a commentary on the DVD but on the Series Two DVD there were a couple where you could actually see the commentators watching the episode.

In this video David Tennant and Billie Piper are watching Doomsday.






Thursday 29 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Thursday 29th August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is an interview with David Tennant from Doctor Who Magazine about Comic Relief.

Click each page for a larger, readable version.











Wednesday 28 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Wednesday 28th August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today are a few photos taken from when David was filming the movie Glorious 39.

This was when he was filming during the day and playing Hamlet in the evening!










Tuesday 27 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Tuesday 27th August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is the first part of the Doomsday in-vision commentary.

This appeared on the Series Two DVD. All episodes of Doctor Who have a commentary on the DVD but on the Series Two DVD there were a couple where you could actually see the commentators watching the episode.

In this video David Tennant and Billie Piper are watching Doomsday.






Monday 26 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Monday 26th August 2013

As rehearsals start tomorrow for Richard II, the David Tennant Treat 4 Today is an extract from David Tennant's account of playing Touchstone in As You Like It for The RSC in 1996.

A couple of days ago we posted about how David auditioned and got the part and this extract starts at his preparation for the role and the first day of rehearsals.


To start with I re-read the play. It struck me how episodic it all is, how many different stories are going on at the same time and yet how little actually happens. It seemed different to any other Shakespeare play I had read with a pace and charm and quirkiness which I imagined would be hard to get the measure of.

The next morning I bought myself a copy of the Arden study notes on As You Like It (I liked the appropriateness of the publisher) as well as two more editions of the play and I began the slow process of finding a way into this character. It's not a huge part, just seven scenes of which three or four are little more than sketches which Shakespeare seems to use to puncture the action now and again with a breath of silliness. Unlike Feste in Twelfth Night or even the fool in King Lear, he does have his own bit of plot line in his relationship with Audrey, but quite what the nature of that is is far from clear. Does he love and want to marry her or does he just want to get his leg over? He seems uncertain himself and changes his mind from scene to scene, even from line to line -but more of that later.

All too soon it was our first day of rehearsal and . . . the read-through. Always a terrifying experience when you speak your lines out loud in front of people for the first time, a read-through at the Royal Shakespeare Company is particularly scary, not only because you are at the home of 'world class classical theatre' (as all the brochures tell you) with all the history and influence of hundreds of great, definitive productions hanging in the air, but also because it's one of the few theatre companies in the country that can afford to employ the numbers of actors required to stage a full scale Shakespearian production, so the room is full of people! I sat in my place in the huge circle of chairs with palms sweating and heart racing. Everybody else in the room seemed to attack their parts with intelligence and ability. Niamh Cusack playing Rosalind was graceful and calm and the verse seemed to pour off her tongue; Rachel Joyce as Celia spoke the words like they were her own, not four hundred years old at all; Liam Cunningham gave Orlando a vigour and a believability (and I instantly understood why it shouldn't be my part). As my first cue approached I took a deep breath and hoped for the best. Feeling very small and hopeless I just gabbled Touchstone out as quickly as possible, fully expecting to be sacked at any moment and of course . . . nobody found any of it the least bit funny.




Sunday 25 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Sunday 25th August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today was first seen on Sunday 15th November 2009 when PBS screened the fourth of David Tennant's season of Masterpiece Contemporary which was him introducing the first part of Collision.







Saturday 24 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Saturday 24th August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is another of The Big Questions he did with Catherine Tate based on Doctor Who Series Four episodes.

This question is about the episode The Poison Sky.



Friday 23 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Friday 23rd August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is a fascinating explanation by David about how he started acting for The Royal Shakespeare Company.

David played the character Touchstone in Steven Pimlott's production of As You Like It in 1996 in Stratford-Upon-Avon and then it transferred to The Barbican (as Richard II will do) later that year and into 1997. It was his first season with The RSC and he was playing roles in two other plays at the time - The General From America and The Herbal Bed.

In David's self-depreciating style, he explains about his audition and why he didn't think he would get the role:

I actually auditioned for Orlando.

I knew As You Like It from seeing it at school (but I didn't remember much about that) and, of course, I had read it at drama school but it wasn't one of the plays that I was particularly familiar with. I knew it was broadly about some woman dressing up as a bloke with some 'hey-nonny-no' type songs and a famous speech in the middle.

I was in the thick of rehearsals for The Glass Menagerie up in Dundee when the call came to get to London for an RSC audition, giving me woefully little time to prepare. I picked the brains of the people twas working with to get a bit more of an idea what I was going up for. 'Basically', the collective conclusion was, 'it's a play about a woman who dresses up as a bloke with some "hey-nonny-no" type songs and a famous speech in the middle . . . oh, and there's a clown called Touchstone in it, the usual confusing Shakespearian jokes - thankless part.' I remembered Touchstone from reading the play. It struck me as the sort of part I'd be useless at, stuffed with endless 'routines' and thick with references which had lost any contemporaneousness about three hundred years ago. However, I didn't need to worry about that, they'd find some brilliant comic to play that part and he'd fill it with plenty of hilarious business that would bring it bang up to date.

I had to concern myself with Orlando - not an easy part in itself but at least I could approach it fairly conventionally. I could look at who the character was, what he wanted, what his through-line was and so on. I flew down to London the next day, cribbing furiously. I'd skim-read the play the night before and now I was concentrating on each of Orlando's scenes in turn. It was a very tricky part, at once full of bullish machismo, then suddenly prancing through the trees in the depths of romantic gooey-ness, but by the time I arrived at The Barbican I had it all figured out (I thought) and I strolled in ready to thrill Steven Pimlott (the director) with my brilliant, intelligent and - dare I say - revelatory take on one of Shakespeare's trickiest lovers.

'I'd like you to have a read of a bit of Touchstone' was Mr Pimlott's opening statement. I was sure I'd misheard.

'Sorry?'

'Touchstone . . . I'd like you to read a bit of Touchstone.'

Steven flashed me a large, open smile. If this was some audition tactic to disarm me, I was indeed duly disarmed.

'But . . . em . . .' - stay calm I told myself - 'I was to audition for Orlando.'

'Well, yes, but I'd like to hear a bit of Touchstone.'

'OK' I replied, trying (and failing) with all my Scottish Presbyterian stoicism to sound like I thought it was a great idea. 'Fine. What would you like to look at?' We read a couple of scenes through. It was all I could do to pronounce some of it let alone fill it with charm or vivacity. I didn't understand most of it and as for being funny....

I was back on the plane that evening feeling very sorry for myself, nursing a bruised ego and smarting as the dream of an RSC season slipped away. So to say I was surprised two days later when my agent rang to say I'd been offered the part of Touchstone is the understatement of all time. Of course I accepted without thinking. It was a main part in a Shakespeare play at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon- Avon, not something I could consider turning down; but over the next two weeks before we started work on it I began seriously to doubt my own sanity.




Thursday 22 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Thursday 22nd August 2013


The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is a collection of gifs which were posted recently to Tumblr of funny / cute moments during interviews.

Click here to view them and I think you should be able to see them even if you are not registered on Tumblr.





Wednesday 21 August 2013

Tuesday 20 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Tuesday 20th August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is a sweet interview with Bernard Cribbins on the set of Doctor Who.

The first part of the interview is where he speaks about David.



Monday 19 August 2013

Sunday 18 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Sunday 18th August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is a funny phone call when David played a practical joke on Freema Agyeman a few years ago!

It's an audio file although it's on YouTube as a video and has had over 500,000 views!

The David Tennant part starts at 3 minutes 10 seconds.





Saturday 17 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Saturday 17th August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is an interview from 2002 when David (and other actors) were asked about their theatre debut.

This is David Tennant's part of the article:

"I made my professional debut with the 7:84 Scottish Theatre Company in a touring production of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.

The 7:84 was formed by John McGrath in the 1970s and is still going strong. It takes two or three shows a year on one-night-stand tours around the Highlands and Islands, stopping longer in the larger towns.

Anyway, I went for the audition just after graduating from the Royal Scottish Academy aged about 20 - a single-minded youngster. I had started there at the tender age of 17 - and landed the part of Giri the hitman which was my first professional part.

I think there can have been only about six of us in the production. I suspect for monetary reasons rather than artistic ones!

Arturo Ui was one of those Brecht plays with thousands of characters; inevitably, we shared them all out, with the help of a few wigs and fake noses. It was great fun; we were all young and up for it. Three of us had been at drama school together, and I was terrifically excited. I was fresh out of college and really rather green, but I was earning a proper wage and having enormous fun touring Scotland in a small van.

Our first stop was Motherwell Civic Hall and the first performance was a disaster. We hadn't had time to finish the technical rehearsal, let alone attempt a dress rehearsal. We might have managed had the production not been so complicated. But we were a group of travelling players who unpacked and made themselves up on stage so, of course, everyone was changing, swapping props, losing props and mislaying wigs.

It was utter chaos on stage as we struggled past the point at which we had ended the technical run. I remember thinking at one point: "This is my professional debut, and it is all falling apart."

But we got through it. It may have been rusty and received terrible reviews, but the whole thing had a vibrancy and energy that I adored. And, of course, I thought we were excellent."


Friday 16 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Friday 16th August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today are a couple of photos I found on my computer from when David Tennant and Catherine Tate filmed the scene on the beach in Journey's End.

In fact they are photos from a rehearsal as David and Catherine are still wearing their coats.

I'm not sure who took the photos but they are interesting as they show the number of crew surrounding them!





Thursday 15 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Thursday 15th August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is an interview (mainly about Doctor Who) that was published in December 2009 on NJ.com in the US.

Click here to read it.

As well as talking about finishing Doctor Who, David is also asked about how he chose his costume etc.



Wednesday 14 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Wednesday 14th August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is another of The Big Questions he did with Catherine Tate based on Doctor Who Series Four episodes.

This question is about the episode The Sontaran Stratagem.



Tuesday 13 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Tuesday 13th August 2013 #DoctorWho

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is an interview David gave to Hello magazine in 2009 about leaving Doctor Who. However a lot of it is a re-vamp of other interviews.

Click here to view the article in a readable version.





Monday 12 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Monday 12th August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is a MP3 from when David was on the Christian O'Connell Show on BBC Radio Five Live on Saturday 29th January 2011.

In this 13 minute clip it is all about David as a MC!

Click here to listen to the MP3.




Sunday 11 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Sunday 11th August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is a look at an article which appeared in the Daily Mail in December 2009 about how much David Tennant was on UK television over Christmas and the New Year!

The article 'complained' that he was on 75 TV shows (although we counted that, including repeats, it was actually 137)!

The article concludes with a quote from the BBC: 'These appearances were spread over several weeks and channels. We would not expect any one audience to see more than a handful.'

I think some of our followers watched far more than a handful!

Click here to read the article.








Saturday 10 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Saturday 10th August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today was first seen on Sunday 8th November 2009 when PBS screened the third of David Tennant's season of Masterpiece Contemporary which was him introducing part two of Place Of Execution.




Friday 9 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Friday 9th August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is a video of The Big Questions but not this time with David Tennant and Catherine Tate but instead it is Jim Simm who is being asked the questions. (He mentions David a few times.)


Thursday 8 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Thursday 8th August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is another of The Big Questions he did with Catherine Tate based on Doctor Who Series Four episodes.

This question is about the episode Planet Of The Ood.




Wednesday 7 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Wednesday 7th August 2013


The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is a blog post written about David Tennant in hamlet in 2008 by Julie who, as well as being very knowledgeable about Shakespeare, Hamlet and The RSC, is also a fan of David Tennant and Doctor Who.

Click here to read it.




Tuesday 6 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Tuesday 6th August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is another of The Big Questions he did with Catherine Tate based on Doctor Who Series Four episodes.

This question is about the episode The Fires Of Pompeii.




Monday 5 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Monday 5th August 2013 #DoctorWho

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is a long interview David Tennant gave to The Guardian just before The Christmas Invasion was broadcast.

This was before David was as famous as he is now so it's interesting to read the interviewer's comments about how he answers the questions.

Click here to read the article.






Sunday 4 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Sunday 4th August 2013 #DoctorWho

As the Twelfth Doctor will be announced today, the David Tennant Treat 4 Today is the news report from the BBC website about David Tennant being cast as the Tenth Doctor in April 2005.

Click here to read it.


Saturday 3 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Saturday 3rd August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today is a video of the David Tennant's clips from Discovering Hamlet.

The video was posted to YouTube by Helen Anne who explains that it was filmed by her on a camcorder:

'Therefore some of it will not make sense and some parts may be a bit fuzzy due to joining up all the individual segments.

But hey it's David Tennant - what more do you want?!!!'






Friday 2 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Friday 2nd August 2013

The David Tennant Treat 4 Today are three radio clips which were broadcast in January 2010.

All three clips are from when David attended the Gala Opening of Legally Blonde in London.

In the first clip David speaks about the British paparazzi photographing him filming Rex Is Not Your Lawyer in America, in the second clip he tells us how great he thought Sheridan Smith was on stage and the third clip is Sheridan's amusing reaction to David's comments!

Click here to listen to a MP3 of all 3 clips.


Thursday 1 August 2013

David Tennant Treat 4 Today for Thursday 1st August 2013

With the leak today about the Twelfth Doctor, I thought this video was appropriate for the David Tennant Treat 4 Today.