Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: Alan Moore, doctor who, kickstarter, sylvester mccoy, The Lost Doctor, Watchmen

Doctor Who: Kickstart An Alternate Universe Lost Doctor Annual 2023

Doctor Who has many fascinating unofficial corners, including this don't-miss Kickstart for The Lost Doctor Annual 2023 with Ken Campbell.

Imagine an alternate timeline where the late, great Ken Campbell, a major cult figure in the British theatrical and TV world, played the Seventh Doctor, a much weirder alternate timeline where "The Lost Doctor" dominated the Doctor Who world. Now imagine a wormhole opened up from that alternate timeline, and a 2023 Annual featuring the "Lost Doctor" came through to our world, showing us hints of what that timeline would have looked like. This is your chance to kickstart exactly that: The Lost Doctor 2023 Annual!

Ken Campbell really did audition for Doctor Who when Colin Baker was dropped from the show in the mid-1980s, but his take on The Doctor reportedly creeped the hell out of the producers, and the role instead went to his protégé Sylvester McCoy, who was a member of The Ken Campbell Road Show in the 1970s. McCoy, of course, became the Seventh Doctor in 1987. Campbell was best known for an epic 9-hour theatrical stage version of Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminati Trilogy, a legendary theatrical adaptation of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and an even more legendary theatrical production called The Warp, which ran for 22 hours, reputedly the longest theatrical production in history.

Campbell was a major figure in the theatrical world on top of a prolific career in British television, and put on a series of surreal, cult one-man shows in the 1990s that are the stuff of legend (this writer has seen one of them as a kid). He was a connoisseur of UFO conspiracy theories, Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminati books, and the Fortean writings of Charles Fort. To some, he was one of the Great British Eccentrics whose Art inescapably expressed their obsessions and who didn't consider Science Fiction embarrassing as many in the British Establishment still do. Campbell reportedly wanted to play Doctor Who badly.

As Dan Sumpton's Kickstarter statement says, The Lost Doctor Annual 2023 is a Christmas Special from the Universe Next Door. It's an artifact of a Doctor Who that never was.

"In 1987, the contenders for the role of the Seventh Doctor had been narrowed down to two people: Sylvester McCoy and his mentor Ken Campbell. Sylvester got the role when BBC decided that Campbell (whose audition channelled Doctor Manhattan from the recently-published Alan Moore comic Watchmen) was too scary for children. Yes, this really happened.

But what if Campbell had got the job? In the universe next door, he did. Join us for the adventures of… The Lost Doctor.

In this beautifully produced hardback book, in the style of old Christmas annuals of the 1960s and 70s, we bring you stories, games, facts, and fun, from The Universe Next Door.

Contents include:

• An exclusive interview with Ken Campbell about the show that never was
• An A-Z of the 'Lost Doctor' verse
• Articles on Demonology and Quantum Physics
• Short Stories about giant parrots and the Knights Templar
• A Joycean Wordsearch
• A collection of thought-provoking Jungian synchronicities presented by Charles Fort
• Original art by, among others, Jimmy Cauty, ex KLF
• Original Audio Scripts
• One-page comic nonsense
• …and a number of other heroic surprise inclusions."

You can Kickstart for a digital download of the Annual or a hardcopy and make it part of your 60th Anniversary celebration this year. And if you're really interested, fifteen episodes of The Lost Doctor Adventures were made into an audio series by Liverpool "creative activist" Tommy Calderbank that is free to stream now on Soundcloud with scripts by the likes of John Higgs. Ken Campbell starred in the first half using past recordings of his voice since he had already passed, then British hip hop artist Kermit Leveridge of the Ruthless Rap Assassins took over in the regeneration, and his performance feels like a precursor to Ncuti Gatwa, who has his own upcoming episode set in the Swinging Sixties! Consider this the alternate timeline episode. Bet you didn't think the 6oth Anniversary was going to be this nuts, did you?

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