This Year’s ‘Doctor Who’ Proms Will Be Hosted by Catherine Tate

The Big Picture

• The
  Doctor Who
  Proms will be hosted by Catherine Tate on August 26 with Murray Gold’s music performed.
• The event showcases Gold’s music with special guest appearances.
• The event will include video inserts featuring Ncuti Gatwa, visual elements, and various music suites.

For Doctor Who fans that listen to the scores of Murray Gold as often as they do artists like Chappell Roan and Taylor Swift, and also the ones that are still eagerly awaiting the series 10 soundtrack, the Doctor Who Proms is an event to attend. This year, it was announced by composer Murray Gold that Donna Noble herself, Catherine Tate, would be hosting the Doctor Who Proms.

This year’s proms is Monday, August 26 at the Royal Albert Hall with Tate hosting the event. “I’m really happy it’s [Catherine] because she’s an icon of the show.” Gold tells RadioTimes. “She actually dropped me a note after the [60th] specials aired, saying nice things about what I’d done. Oh God, she’s great!” The music “isn’t going to be a jukebox musical,” Gold explains, “because people aren’t necessarily going in already humming and knowing the pieces.”

The BBC explains the event as:

Doctor Who
makes its much-anticipated return to the Proms with a brand-new show celebrating the latest adventures of the Doctor. Showcasing Murray Gold’s epic music for the series performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Prom features sequences from the series on big screens, spectacular lighting and a host of special guest appearances – and, yes, there will be monsters! A concert like no other in all of space and time.

Tate was last seen reprising her role as Donna Noble in the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials, alongside David Tennant taking on a new role as the Fourteenth Doctor. The pair had previously starred together in Doctor Who, primarily in the fourth season of the show, with Tennant playing the Tenth Doctor.

Doctor Who Proms Will Feature Messages from Ncuti Gatwa

Gold also revealed to RadioTimes that the event is “about a two-hour window.” He says, “[w]e’ve also got little films, specially made inserts, video inserts with Ncuti [Gatwa].” Because the event isn’t like a musical jukebox as Gold explained, “[w]e’ve got a suite from the specials around David Tennant’s reappearance as the Doctor. We have a suite from some of the lighter episodes and another from some of my favourites like “73 Yards” and “Boom”, so slightly darker. And then we’ve got one from the finale, which will be the horror one, plus the melodrama of the ending.”

Gold says in addition to the video inserts from Gatwa, there will be other visual elements to the performance. “All of them have an eye towards the staging as well, so for each one there’s something interesting in the theatrics. It’s definitely a visual thing as well.” Some things didn’t make the cut though, Gold explained, like the music for the upcoming Christmas Special “Joy to the World.” He says that was the first thing that went. We have a hard ‘out’ for all sorts of legal, union and logistical reasons. We’ve got to be off the stage and have the lorries loaded up at a certain time. When we did all the calculations, something had to go.”

Tickets for the Doctor Who Proms can be purchased through the BBC website here.

Doctor Who is available to stream on Disney+ in the US.

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