Gallifrey One 2027

Gallifrey One has begun announcing our first wave of guest confirmations for our upcoming February 2027 convention, The Magnificent 37 of Gallifrey One.  These announcements, which include a mix of returning and new guests, will continue periodically all the way until the convention itself.  As always, all guest appearances are subject to professional commitments.

Announcements are in reverse order, most recent appearing on top.

Katy Manning (announced August 21)

Katy Manning, acting and directing for sixty years in television and theatre spanning three countries from London to New York to the Sydney Opera House, is best known to fans as Josephine “Jo” Grant, the beloved companion to Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor in Doctor Who during the early 1970s for three seasons. She later returned to the role (as the married Jo Jones) in the Sarah Jane Adventures episode “Death of the Doctor” and has appeared with four Doctors, and made a cameo appearance in Jodie Whittaker’s final story, “The Power of the Doctor”. She brought the role of Jo to new life on many audio adventures from Big Finish Productions, with the audio play The Return of Jo Jones set in her later years released in 2023; has appeared as Iris Wildthyme with multiple Doctors and Sir Derek Jacobi’s Master; and has featured as various characters in the Dorian Grey, Dracula, Torchwood lines (as Jo and Mother Nothing) and as an Ice Warrior queen in their Second Doctor adventures. Katy appeared in Not A Well Woman which she wrote and performed, plus Baker’s End with Tom Baker. Her first short story was published by Penguin Origin Stories.

Jason Haigh-Ellery (announced August 19)

Long-time Gallifrey One guest and friend Jason Haigh-Ellery is the Managing Director of Big Finish Productions, which won a Guinness Book record for “longest running science fiction audio play series.” Jason founded Big Finish in 1998, producing over 3,500 hours of award-winning audio drama, including winning two prestigious BBC Audio Drama Awards for Best Drama for Doctor Who. In theatre, Jaosn has produced 16 West End shows and 26 touring shows including Footloose, Fame, An Officer and a Gentleman and the massively successful revival of Bonnie and Clyde. He is also a recipient of an Olivier Award for Best Comedy for Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense. He is a director of fashion brand Marfa Stance and actors agency Intertalent. He has produced two reality shows, seven serials of animated Doctor Who, Prisoner Zero for ABC, teen drama series More Than This for Paramount+ and films Mrs. Lowry and Son and The Time of Their Lives with Universal Pictures.

Geoffrey Beevers  (announced August 11)

Geoffrey Beevers is known to Doctor Who fans for his long-running association with the character of The Master, first having played the villain in the Tom Baker serial “The Keeper of Traken” (as well as a cameo appearance as a UNIT soldier in the much earlier “The Ambassadors of Death”) and later reprising the role in many installments of the Doctor Who audio range from Big Finish Productions. He’s also appeared on stage, in film and on television since the 1960s in Doctors, The Tudors, Holby City, EastEnders, Bad Education, Casualty, The Bill, Poirot, The Jensen Code, Coronation Street, The Jewel in the Crown, Clash of the Titans, Curse of the Pink Panther, Victor/Victoria, Yes Prime Minister, War and Remembrance, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy among many others. Mr. Beevers first joined us at our 2007 convention alongside his wife, the dearly missed Caroline John (who played companion Liz Shaw), and we welcome him back along with their daughter, actress Daisy Ashford.

Daisy Ashford  (announced August 11)

Daisy Ashford currently appears as Liz Shaw, the first companion to Doctor Who’s Third Doctor (now played by Tim Treloar) and a role originated on television by her late mother Caroline John, in audio adventures from Big Finish Productions, including the acclaimed Primord, The Unzal Incursion, Intelligence for War, The Annihilators, and the anthology The Diary of River Song: New Recruit, among many others. Ashford has also featured in other roles for Big Finish for multiple ranges including the Fourth Doctor, Early Adventures, Graceless and Paternoster Gang ranges. She has appeared on television in EastEnders, Mammals, The Midwich Cuckoos, Emmerdale Farm, Trigonometry, and in the film Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. She returns to Gallifrey One this year with her father, actor Geoffrey Beevers.

Toby Hadoke  (announced August 9)

Actor and comedian Toby Hadoke became well known to Doctor Who fans (and long-time Gallifrey One attendees) for his stand-up comedy shows Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf and My Stepson Stole My Sonic Screwdriver. Since 2009, Toby has been a major contributor to the classic Doctor Who DVD and Blu-ray releases from BBC Video, as both a primary moderator of episode commentaries as well as presenter on many of the documentaries and special features. He penned the Running Through Corridors reference books with Rob Shearman, and has been a featured performer in several audio stories from Big Finish, as well as a cameo appearance in the 2013 docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time and acting credits including Coronation Street, Phoennix Nights, Shameless and The Forsyte Saga.  This is his first visit to Gallifrey One since 2014!

Waris Hussein  (announced August 8)

As the youngest director that the BBC had yet employed, Indian-born Waris Hussein began a long career in directing film and television when he took on directing Doctor Who’s first-ever story, An Unearthly Child, for which he was involved in the series casting and production; he later directed its first historical drama, Marco Polo. He made his feature film debut directing A Touch of Love, following with Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx, Melody, The Possession of Joe Delaney, and Henry VIII and His Six Wives, along with directing episodes of Intimate Contact, Sixth Happiness, Little Gloria… Happy at Last, Edward & Mrs. Simpson, Compact, The Newcomers, The Wednesday Play, Armchair Thriller, BBC Play of the Month, Supply & Demand and many other series. While considering himself a British filmmaker, Hussein has worked both sides of the Atlantic, as well as India. We are thrilled to welcome him back to Gallifrey One after 15 years (his last visit was back in 2012!)

Mat Irvine  (announced August 5)

Mat Irvine worked for the BBC as a Visual Effects Designer and Director for approaching three decades, and his best known for his work on Doctor Who. He was part of the FX team on the very first story that introduced K-9, The Invisible Enemy and later modified the prop for Warriors Gate, K-9 and Company, and more recently, School Reunion and The Sarah-Jane Adventures. Other credits include dramas, Blake’s 7, Edge of Darkness and The Singing Detective; comedy series such as Are You being Served, Rentaghost, and the kids SF series Space Vets, and science series, Tomorrow’s World, Horizon/Nova and The Sky at Night. He co-devised television’s Robot Wars, directed an episode of Future Fantastic and won an RTS Award for the educational series Techno. He even operated K-9 for the original British version of Queer as Folk. Ten years after his last visit, he makes his second appearance at Gallifrey One in 2027 courtesy Showmasters Events.

Graeme Harper  (announced July 31)

Graeme Harper is a BAFTA Cymru and Hugo Award winning director, best known for his work on Doctor Who, and is the only person who directed episodes of both its original run as well as the 2005 series revival. Among his work are the classic series episodes “The Caves of Androzani” and “Revelation of the Daleks” as well as modern stories including “Rise of the Cybermen & The Age of Steel,” “Army of Ghosts & Doomsday,” “Utopia,” “Planet of the Ood,” “The Unicorn and the Wasp,” “The Stolen Earth & Journey’s End” and “The Waters of Mars”.  Harper’s directorial credits also include episodes of Hollyoaks, Robin Hood, Holby City, Casualty, Coronation Street, Dani’s House, Byker’s Grove, EastEnders and The Bill, amongst many others, as well as multiple episodes of the Doctor Who spinoff The Sarah Jane Adventures.  Harper visited Gallifrey One once before, in 2010, and we’re delighted to welcome him back this year.

Anita Dobson  (announced July 22)

Anita Dobson is a celebrated British actress and singer, best known to Doctor Who audiences as the character Mrs. Flood, the mysterious character who first appeared in “The Church on Ruby Road” and who has appeared in both of the first two seasons starring Ncuti Gatwa (with her real identity revealed in the Series 15 finale).  UK audiences know her primarily for the role of Angie Watts in the long-running BBC soap EastEnders, and she has also appeared in Split Ends, Red Dwarf, Casualty, Gigglebiz, Call the Midwife, Generation Z, Curfew, The Worst Witch, Doctors, Play Away, Darkness Falls and London Road, among many others.  She has also appeared on stage in Chicago, Gertrude in Hamlet and The Merry Wives of Windsor, and was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actress in the stage play Frozen.  Also known as Lady May, she is married to musician and physicist Sir Brian May.  Dobson will be appearing at Gallifrey One 2027 on our stage on Saturday and Sunday, in an appearance courtesy Showmasters Events.

Carole Ann Ford  (announced July 18)

Carole Ann Ford had just appeared on the long running British series Z Cars and had appeared in Day of the Triffids when she was called in to screen test the role of Susan, granddaughter to the mysterious title character of the new series Doctor Who… a role that she’s been known for ever since. Appearing as Susan Foreman from the 1963 pilot episode through the end of the second season’s “The Dalek Invasion of Earth,” Carole Ann Ford later appeared as a special guest in the 1983 twentieth anniversary special “The Five Doctors” as well as the charity event Dimensions in Time in 1993, and also featured in the spinoff film Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans.  She later again reprised the role of Susan in numerous audios for Big Finish Productions, and made cameo appearances in the fiftieth anniversary docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time, the television special “The Five(ish) Doctors: Reboot” and more recently, she was glimpsed in the last season of Doctor Who… an appearance we hope will be continued when the series returns to air. This will be Carole Ann Ford’s fourth visit to Gallifrey One, sponsored by Showmasters Events.

Hotel reservations at the Marriott Los Angeles Airport Hotel for our 2027 convention, The Magnificent 37 of Gallifrey One, will open up on Friday, May 8, 2026 at 10:00am Pacific Time.

We’re happy to announce two major photo-related developments from Gallifrey One 2026, the photo studio picture collection and kaffeeklatsch photos, with the latter also including the 2022 & 2025 kaffeeklatsch sessions.  See details below.

Gallifrey One 2026 Photo Studio Pics

High-resolution images from the Gallifrey One 2026 Photo Studio are now available at the Digital Downloads page of the Convention Photo Shoots website.

Click here to visit the site, then click on the 2026 convention logo to access the gallery of photos.  Be sure to enter the password, Legendary36 (make sure that first letter is capitalized, and no space in the middle!) Locate each of your images based on the guest and day you took your pic, then drill down to where you see the large watermarked version… you’ll want to click “Download Image” in the box to the right of the thumbnail, then select the resolution to download.

Important: If you cannot find your image in the collection you know you participated in (and are certain of the day), look at the bottom of the picture thumbnail page to see if there is a NEXT button… many of these continue onto a second page!

Additionally, if you ever missed out on downloading your high-resolution photos from our 2022-2025 conventions, that download page also has links to those archives; note that there is a different password for each, below the convention logo from that event.  (Please note that photo download pages from 2020 and before are no longer functional and we are not going to pursue getting them back online, as they were available long enough.)  As always, our special thanks to everyone involved in the photo studio for another successful year!

Kaffeeklatsch Photos

We have good news and bad news… Let’s start with the good news first.  Our Kaffeeklatsch Photos from the sessions in 2022, 2025 and 2026 are now online… for the latter two, finally!  You can find them on the Kaffeeklatsches page of our website; click on that link, scroll down to the photo section you’re interested in (note that they are listed in reverse order, with 2026 appearing first!) and clicking on a particular image.  You can save an image there manually very easily… just click on the thumbnail to open the larger version, then right-click on the large image and select “Save Image”.

And now, the bad news.  After trying multiple ways to locate our 2023 & 2024 kaffeeklatsch photos, we have been unsuccessful.  Unfortunately, the staff member who very graciously took these pics both years has since passed away. What we ended up with being sent in our archive was only tiny thumbnail images, not the actual photos themselves, and repeated checks in email and data storage have come up empty.  We apologize profusely to the people who participated in these sessions and hope that the kaffeeklatsch itself that you participated in was a memorable one for you.

Ticket Sales Beginning Soon!

Stay tuned over the next few weeks, as we’ll be putting tickets for our 2027 convention on sale.  We soft-launch our sales (i.e. we don’t provide an exact date or time).  Pricing is still being worked out at this time, but we expect it to be very similar to 2026’s prices.  Although there is no danger of us selling out (we haven’t since we came back from the COVID pandemic), we do ask you to purchase tickets sooner rather than later, if only because it allows us to budget and plan for more guests down the road.

More news soon!

That’s a wrap… The 36 Legends of Gallifrey One: Stories Untold is now behind us. We hope all of you who attended had as much fun as we did bringing it to you. As so many people commented throughout the weekend, there was a palpable energy this year, a particular kind of joy that was felt by so many, likely due to the uncertainty in the world over the past year; many of you noted it was great to get away from reality for a few days to celebrate Doctor Who and, more importantly, enjoy reuniting with old friends.  And of course, for all of you who were with us for the first time, we hope you made some brand new friends to take with you into the future!

All in all, it was a great weekend all around, despite one or two minor hiccups along the way (such as the fire alarm on Saturday afternoon, which to be fair only put us off our schedule by about ten minutes!)  We think this one was pretty special!

Wrapping Up 2026

Attendance: This year’s convention brought together a total of 2,569 people.  It’s a decline from 2025 that we anticipated, due to many factors (including economic and political issues here in the US, plus the fact that Doctor Who isn’t on again for nearly a year), but not as steep as we had first imagined; conventions all over are dealing with this, and we had a big decline in non-US attendance.  We did sell up to the door and throughout the weekend, which really helped us.

We would like to take this opportunity to mention, as we did at Closing Ceremonies in 2026, that early registration helps us. The days of our immediate sell-outs are behind us (we haven’t sold out the convention since before the COVID shutdown), so we don’t know what our full budget will look like until much closer to the convention… meaning a slower trickle of guests throughout the year.  The more people purchase tickets early on, the more likely it is that we can confirm additional guests.

Charity Auction: We are thrilled that we were able to raise $18,014 during the 2026 Bob May Memorial Charity Auction for this year’s chosen charity: the National Alliance on Mental Illness Greater Los Angeles Chapter (NAMI-GLAC).  This year’s auction included a ton of wonderful items donated by all of you, as well as many of our guests, and sets the record as our third-highest charity auction total ever. Our thanks to Traute Williams at NAMI-GLAC, and to our wonderful dedicated charity auction staff for doing such a great job.

Special thanks to our guests this year… Peter Davison, Millie Gibson, Freema Agyeman, Jo Martin, Sarah Sutton, Mark Strickson, Matthew Waterhouse, Frazer Hines, Daphne Ashbrook, Yee Jee Tso, Alexander Devrient, Philip Segal, Miranda Raison, Lisa Greenwood, Ian McNeice, Pete McTighe, Eric Roberts, Kai Owen, Steph De Whalley, Charlie Condou, Michael Troughton, Paul Kasey, Conrad Westmaas, Ricco Ross, Samir Arrian, Rob Valentine, Matt Fitton, Jody Houser, Matthew Jacobs, Sam Jones, David Gerrold, Barbara Hambly, Eliza Roberts, Rebecca Nation, Cherry Cheva, Julie & Shawna Benson, Vernon Wells, Craig Miller, Trina Ray, Kim Steadman, Sarah Milkovich, Anita Sengupta, Krys Blackwood, Jessie Christiansen, Dan Peck, Christopher Jones, Gareth Kavanagh, Ian Winterton, Blair Shedd, Keith Barnfather, Rossa McPhillips, Robert Napton, Larry Nemecek, James Kerwin, Hayden Black, Bob Miller, Heidi & Alissa Kramer, Adele Yoshioka, Travis Richey, Amy Benedict, Karole Selmon, Scott Trost, Jodi Johnston, Lars Pearson, Marlene Forte, Cari Shayne, plus our special guest Brian Sloman, and Jason Haigh-Ellery.

We would also like to thank our entire staff, whose names can still be found on the Our Team page here on our website. Every single person on that list is a volunteer (we do not employ anyone, there are no paid staffers), volunteers who give their time and energy to bring you this wonderful event each and every year. If you’re interested in becoming part of the team, reach out to us via email ahead of time!

We would also like to thank our guest sponsors and representatives, our interviewers, special event organizers and program contributors including Jason Joiner, Paul Jones, Laurence Wreford, Matthew Campbell-Dell, Alex Bond, Howard Hayes, Amy Rodger, Ken Deep, Gene Smith, Athena Stamos, Bob Mitsch, Paul Booth, Joy Piedmont, Steven Warren Hill, Steven Schapansky, Pat Harper, Kim Rogers, Sage Young, Dan Murphy, Riley Silverman, Amanda-Rae Prescott, Ben Oquendo-Paddon, Tim Davis, Taylor Deatherage, Heather Berberet, Nick Seidler, Willow Polson, Roxana Troughton, Matt Fitton, Debbie Sloman, Shawna Hafen, Ave Maria  Hackett, Susie Searight, Jessamine Humphrey, Gill Selwyn, Gareth Kavanagh, Robert Saunders, Ian Winterton, Cynthia Franke, and Keith Barnfather, as well as our friends at Showmasters Events and their staff. Additionally, thanks to our participating vendors and artists in our Dealers Room and Art Show.

Our grateful thanks to the cast and crew of The Idiot’s Lantern for producing their wonderful Friday night show this year.  Speaking of The Idiot’s Lantern, our Friday night stage show… they announced at the end that this would not be their final Gallifrey One performance, and we couldn’t be happier!

A huge thanks to Brian Uiga, who brought his wonderful TARDIS to us for our stage this year, and Bob Mitsch of The Idiot’s Lantern for helping us arrange it.  Also, a big thanks as always to Pat Harper and the AZTARDIS crew for once again bringing their TARDIS and console to our Dealers Room so everyone could have a photo op with them.  And of course, to Erik Engman for producing that wonderful Year in Review video shown on Sunday.

Special thanks to Matt at Addicted Apparel for our T-shirt and tote bag production, and Jeff at ColorImages for printing our program books.

A Few Congratulations… This year, not one but two couples got engaged at Gallifrey One!  Congratulations to Anthony Williams and Christina O’Brien, as well as Katie Aiani and Russell Holly.  Also, we learned that a couple that met at last year’s convention, Madeline El-Baroudi and Stephen Haydon, got married in the interim.  We love that this convention brings so many people together!

We would also like to acknowledge our friends at Optimystical Studios, especially Adrian Keith.  Optimystical has been one of our vendors in the Dealers Room for many years, and let us know that they’d be leaving us after this year’s convention due to an impending move overseas.  We wish them all the best for the future and thank them for their many years of friendship and support!

Most of all, thank YOU – all of our attendees, our panelists, our cosplayers, our dealers, our exhibitors, our tireless enthusiasts, our volunteers, and our friends – for making this an AMAZING year! We could NOT do this without all of you.

If you’d like to let us know what you think, we welcome your feedback via email. We welcome both positive and negative feedback; constructive criticism is very important and we definitely love hearing from you about anything you think we could do better.

Have Convention Photos to Share?

The primarily online space for sharing convention photos and memories is the unofficial, but wonderful, Gallifrey One Fans, Friends & Attendees group on Facebook (as we no longer take individual posts on our own Facebook pages).  While this group is run by attendees, and fully supported by us, it’s really become the online space for pre- and post-convention chat and photo sharing… however, we do ask that questions about the convention itself be directed toward us via email (as it’s easy to get wrong information from others.)

We will be collecting photos for our online photo album, too; let us know via email if you have some to share (our website photo gallery has been offline for some time, though we fully intend to dedicate much of 2026 to building it up again and re-releasing it!) We are always interested in good, high-quality photos of our guests, our discussion panels, and amazing cosplay (though not really personal pictures with you and a guest, sorry!)

Also, here’s a fun video about this year’s convention from attendee Ezekiel Huerta… we love this sort of thing!

2026 Photo Studio Pics Coming Soon

Digital copies of all of the photos taken in this year’s Photo Studio will be online within the next few weeks.  We will announce it here, as well as on our social media accounts, so please check back soon; we’ll add links here onto this page as well.

Kaffeeklatsch Photos

We promise, we’re working on photos from our kaffeeklatsches and should have news to share on those really soon.  Although we have been able to collect the pics from 2022 and 2025, as well as our 2026 sessions, the real issue is that we’re missing 2023 and 2024 (which were taken by someone who has since passed away; we don’t have any 2023 images currently, and 2024’s appear to be only thumbnails.)  We’re still looking, though… but you can expect the other three years online very soon.

And now for something completely different…

Gallifrey One Conventions is delighted to announce The Magnificent 37 of Gallifrey One, our 37th and penultimate convention event, taking place February 5-7, 2027 at the Marriott Los Angeles Airport Hotel.  As in 2026, this event will be earlier than usual, i.e. not on President’s Day Weekend, this time due to Super Bowl LXI which will take place down the street at SoFi Stadium on our regular weekend (meaning, hotels are not available that weekend).

We’ve begun working on some terrific guests with both our regular sponsor partners as well as independently, and expect much of the same type of events and programming as we had in 2026: a fully-stocked Dealers Room, our recently-expanded Art Show (which did its best sales ever in 2026), four tracks of programming, gaming and children’s programming, meetups & social events, and lots more.  We’ll be sharing details about our next convention later in the year:

• Tickets for Gallifrey One 2026 will go on sale in March.  Please note that this is different than what’s in the ad in our 2026 program book, as we decided we didn’t want to wait too long to begin sales again.  As we haven’t sold out in years, we soft-launch our ticket sales and do not pre-announce it before it begins… we’ll just make sure it’s here on our website and all of our social media will reflect the ticket launch.  There is absolutely NO reason to worry about getting your ticket as soon as it comes out, but as we mentioned above, we do encourage you to register early as it helps us build our guest lineup.
• Dealers who were in our 2026 room can expect to hear from us about space reservations for next year in March as well.
• Our hotel reservations day for the Marriott LAX day will be in early May, at a date and time to be announced.  We know this is a major stress on people (and it’s our least favorite day of the year, too) but we’ve had tremendous luck getting most people into the Marriott… and of course, there are plenty of rooms at nearby hotels.
• We take our usual summer break (when those of us who work actively on the convention for most of the year take a break from it to recharge) which usually lasts from hotel reservations day in May until some time in the fall, usually around September… and this year’s summer break is especially needed, because a large number of people who staff Gallifrey One (including our entire Board of Directors) are working on LAcon V this year, the 84th World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), taking place in late August in Anaheim (details at lacon.org).  However… we expect to still have a few announcements throughout the spring and summer, including guest confirmations.  We will also open Art Show reservations sometime this summer/fall.
• You can start expecting regular convention updates in the fall.

We look forward to having all of you back for The Magnificent 37 of Gallifrey One in 2027… Thank you all for joining us this year, and see you then!

Our special thanks to Christopher Jones for creating the Magnificent 37 logo for us!