Strike disrupts filming on Doctor Who

A strike at BBC Wales has disrupted filming for the Doctor Who Christmas Special as well as on Casualty and the Welsh language soap Pobol y Cwm.

The Doctor Who Newspage reports that filming on this year’s Christmas Special of Doctor Who has been disrupted because of a strike at BBC Wales. The 24-hour strike is over compulsory redundancies; 4 editor positions are to be cut and the BBC has not offered to redeploy the four individuals elsewhere.

Doctor Who has moved to its new home of Roath Lock in Cardiff, the BBC’s new studios in the city. It was recently announced this year’s Christmas Special will feature Claire Skinner, Bill Bailey, Arabella Weir and Alexander Armstrong and will feature an “Ice Villain”.

Also disrupted by the 24-hour strike is the Welsh language soap Pobol y Cwm, which has also moved into the Roath Lock studios, and medical drama Casualty. The long-running series moved to Cardiff from Bristol where it had been filmed for 25 years. The move was a controversial one with a campaign launched to keep Casualty in Bristol but the BBC pushed ahead with the move.

The second series of period drama Upstairs Downstairs will also be filmed at the Roath Lock studios but production isn’t due to begin for a few weeks. It was revealed this week that Doctor Who actress Alex Kingston will join the cast of the 1930s based series.