Philip Newman

Philip (Phil) Newman is a designer and writer who contributed interviews and features to Doctor Who Magazine for a ten-year period spanning 1987-97, then returned with four archive interviews and a feature on Design in the 1970's in the DWM Production Design Special in 2020.

He had previously been News Editor for the DWAS' Celestial Toyroom newsletter under Editor Neil Hutchings, contributing additional features to their TARDIS magazine, as well as other fan publications such as Richard Bignell's Private Who, J.Jeremy Bentham's seminal Space & Time/In-Vision part-work and Howe/Stammers/Walker's The Frame. Douglas Camfield - A Tribute — a magazine Philip compiled and edited — was published as the first Special Edition of The Frame in 1990.

His first DWM article (on the then-proposed Green Light Dr Who Movie) was commissioned by outgoing editor Sheila Cranna in 1987; interviews and a series of annual reports from the Dr Who Exhibitions at Longleat, MoMI and others followed during her successor John Freeman's editorship.

Between 1994 and 1996, he contributed over a dozen features; his (often first-time) interview subjects included director Michael Hayes (The Androids of Tara, The Armageddon Factor and City of Death), assistant script editor and actor Trevor Ray, Radio Times art editor David Driver, K-9 voice actor John Leeson, a 3-part presentation of a hitherto unknown interview with former producer the late Graham Williams, and a number of designers including Michael Young (The Massacre), John Bloomfield (costume designer on The Face of Evil and The Talons of Weng-Chiang) and Roger Cheveley (The War Games) — thus uncovering an extensive selection of very rare and previously unseen colour slides from Patrick Troughton's final adventure.

In 1993, he appeared as Kiv in the BBC's Children-in-Need 30th Anniversary Doctor Who story, Dimensions in Time.

As part of the 21st birthday celebrations at Longleat's Doctor Who Exhibition in 1994, Philip designed a special logo and artwork which appeared on badges, T-shirts, pencils — and a special birthday cake cut by Doctors Pertwee, Davison, C. Baker and McCoy (with support from Brigadier Nick Courtney).

Michael Hayes asked him to appear as a supporting artist in The Mentors, a supernatural drama pilot he was co-directing for producer (and one-time fellow DWM contributor) Austen Atkinson, partly recorded at the Rollright Stones. In 1996, he took part in the BBC's popular Telly Addicts quiz, reaching the quarter-finals with his Double Deckers team-mates.

In 2009, Philip was invited to participate in the BBC DVD "fan commentary" on Doctor Who: The Monster of Peladon ep.4 alongside moderator Toby Hadoke, Kate du Rose and writers Robert Shearman and Mark Aldridge. A year later, he fronted a report for BBC News Online on a major auction of Doctor Who costumes, props and memorabilia at Bonham's (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8530881.stm ).

In 2012, he was approached by producer Ed Stradling to act as a consultant on, and conduct the interviews for, some special features for a forthcoming BBC Doctor Who DVD due for release in 2013.