Philip Murphy talks 'The Doctor Who Experience'

What does The Doctor Who Experience offer that past exhibitions didn't?

"There's two answers to that! The first thing is something completely new. We have an immersive, interactive adventure, which lasts for basically about a third of the programmed time. It's estimated at 90 minutes and a third of that time is spent in an adventure. You're basically one of The Doctor's companions for a scripted walk-through adventure, with special effects and monsters. The most crucial thing is that you get to go inside the Tardis and you get to fly it!"

Does the interactive experience feature newly-written scenes with Matt Smith?
"That's exactly right. I obviously don't want to give the whole plot of the adventure away, but the basic premise of it is that thanks to the nefarious plans of the villains, The Doctor has been separated from his Tardis and he needs someone to help him get it back. Given that Amy's not around, the public get the chance to do it instead!"

And there's a full recreation of the Eleventh Doctor's Tardis interior?
"Absolutely, yeah. It's a faithful 100% reproduction of the current Matt Smith Tardis, with the addition of a couple of gadgets which The Doctor has sensibly planned ahead to include, to enable the public to fly it! Obviously there'll be more than one person in the room at a time. There will be batches of 50 people, so we've got some slight additions there that Steven Moffat has scripted in for us. But other than that, it's a 100% reproduction of the Tardis set as it currently stands down in Cardiff."

How far back into the show's history does the exhibition delve?

"We go all the way back to the really early episodes. For example, we've got the original Ice Warrior costume, worn by Bernard Bresslaw in 1967. It's got his name inside it and everything! Obviously it was a bit moth-eaten and we had to do some repair work to it, but it's still the original. We've also got other original costumes, such as the Zygons [from 1975's 'Terror of the Zygons']. There's so much stuff that got put in storage and there was just never any room for it in the smaller end-of-pier style exhibitions that have been run before now.

What are the long-term plans for the Doctor Who Experience?
"We have a long-term plan and we will be moving to Cardiff. I'm still working out the details of precisely when we move down there and how long we're there for, so I can't say very much about it. We want it to be down there long-term, so we'll be talking years, rather than months

The walk-through finishes with a 3-D finale. What can you reveal about that?
"There's a bunch of special effects throughout the whole walk-through, involving the Tardis and where you fly it to. It then culminates in a CGI sequence that involves 3-D animation. I should stress that it's the finale, but it's not a big part of it. It's a couple of minutes at the end of the sequence, but it ends things with a really impressive bang!

The Doctor Who Experience launches on February 20 at London’s Olympia Two venue. Tickets are available now at www.doctorwhoexperience.com.