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Doctor Who goes to the Proms again (and again) | reviews, news & interviews

Doctor Who goes to the Proms again (and again)

Doctor Who goes to the Proms again (and again)

This year's Prom for children is an encore

In their recommendations of the best of this year's BBC Proms, theartsdesk's music writers have been thunderously silent on the only event that will excite a certain section of the audience demographic. I refer, of course, to what will no doubt become the traditional Doctor Who Prom.

Or Proms.

matt_smith_doctor__1215943cIn 2008 the inaugural Prom featuring music from the flagship BBC One drama was so successful, drawing a sizeable audience on television as well as many junior first-timers to a classical concert, that this time round the ever-inclusive Proms boss Roger Wright has scheduled two of them. So Prom 10 on Saturday, 24 July will include suitably suggestive and phantasmagorical music plucked from The Planets, Carmina Burana and The Ride of the Valkyries, as well as a 40-minute suite from the show by Murray Gold. Then at 11 o'clock the next morning at Prom 11,  they'll play the whole lot again.

The BBC National Orchestra of Wales will as usual be thumping out the ghoulish theme tune and much else besides while Daleks, Cybermen and what have you prowl the auditorium of the Royal Albert Hall. They will be joined by the London Philharmonic Choir, conductors Ben Foster and Grant Llewellyn, and of course by the Time Lord himself, plus his able assistant Amy Pond (also known as Matt Smith, pictured above right, and Karen Gillan).

Comments

Fair enough, Jasper, one thing we highbrows didn't mention was the blend of means the Proms and the BBCSO have been engaging to try and draw in the young 'uns. Education-for-fun has been a growing brief over the past couple of years, and whatever it takes, they're right to engage with it. In the main season, the BBCSO has featured a number of bargain-ticketed 'family concerts' with pre-performance events - quite ambitious programmes (not sure kids should have been asked to sit through the Adagio of Mahler's Tenth) which seem to be well attended.

I was only silent because I thought somebody else would definitely pick it! There is plenty of good music being written for TV now.

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