Adventures in Time & Space in Peterborough!

If you know me, you know I’m a huge fan of Doctor Who exhibitions. So much so, I have travelled far and wide to see the amazing props and costumes from my favourite show. In recent years, I have been to Liverpool and Allendale, and now my travels bring me to Peterborough. I say my travels… my Missus bought the train and exhibition tickets as a birthday treat, so it was all down to her really. Let’s take a trip to the Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery, where an unofficial Who exhibition is running from May 3rd to November 2nd, 2025. The exhibition is called Adventures in Time & Space.

No, not Space & Time, but in reverse order. It’s unofficial and edgy. I like it.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No… It’s a Chimeron Baby!

After landing in Peterborough, we walked to the museum, which was only a few minutes away on foot. We knew we were in the right place because there was a great big banner on the outside boasting that the exhibition was in the building, featuring a Dalek, a Cyberman and an Ice Warrior. This was a nice way of welcoming Peterborough newcomers and letting us know that this was indeed the place.

There was a huge TARDIS-themed entrance to the museum’s exhibitions past the reception, and the entrance to the Who exhibition itself was marked by the presence of an actual TARDIS, from which a ginormous multicoloured scarf (yes, even bigger than usual) was wrapped, and extended up the spiralling staircase of the building. This scarf was specially commissioned to be knitted for this sole purpose, and when the exhibition closes, it will be turned into smaller scarves to be donated to a homelessness charity. Immediately, I knew this wasn’t just gonna be a lame exhibit with broken bits of Dalek and maybe a battered Zarbi costume as the main event. This was something put together by people who care about celebrating Doctor Who with warmth and good humour.

And it didn’t disappoint! Mild spoilers for the exhibits on display and the general layout of the exhibition, but I will try to keep it somewhat vague for those who haven’t yet checked it out…

The nice staff checked our tickets – you can enter during one of three two-hour slots every day between Tuesday and Sunday: 9 am – 11 am, 12 pm – 2 pm, and 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm. We were in the 12 pm – 2 pm slot; it was fairly busy for a Tuesday afternoon, but not too crowded, which is precisely why the slots have been divided in this way – there is plenty of freedom of movement to walk around and take it all in. Lots of happy Who fans were there when we went (and maybe even some non-Who fans, pretending not to enjoy it), which was cool.

And WOW. Like, really, wow! What an awesome experience this was!

The sheer variety of stuff on display made this Doctor Who fan very happy indeed. All eras of the show from William Hartnell to Jodie Whittaker were represented in some form, through props, costumes, models, and even physical CGI references (you will have to visit the exhibition to see what I mean). So there is something for everyone, whether you grew up on Tom Baker or your first Doctor was Peter Capaldi.

We were allowed to take lots of photos, so of course I took many shots and many selfies. And there was time enough to put my phone to one side and just admire all the display pieces – from a history of monsters, to Time Lord garb, and a police box in the middle of one of the rooms (gee, I wonder which episode that one is from?).

Personal highlights included, but were not limited to, the Sixth Doctor’s stunning original costume, a Chimeron baby head from Delta and the Bannermen which made me laugh as much as I did when I first saw it on screen, a Pyramids of Mars Sutekh costume for which you can press a button to make its eyes light up and… a room full of Daleks! I was wondering if we would see a Dalek, and I got loads of them, as well as maybe some other related characters, like their mad creator…

All in all, the exhibition felt like a comprehensive celebration of Doctor Who’s 60-year legacy. It left me feeling very blessed to be a Doctor Who fan.

Real, or Cake?

The items on display were a mix of original props from the TV series itself, recreations of various items and costumes (namely by Derek Handley, who curated the exhibition and made a huge contribution to the items on display), and randomly but very awesomely, a Dalek that was used in Doctor Who Live, a touring arena show in 2010 which I was lucky enough to see. I think the red paradigm Dalek that was sourced for Peterborough was the same Dalek that was lifted on a crane during the show, but I don’t fully remember. Let’s just say it was, and it was amazing to see it right in front of me.

I suppose part of me would ask, ‘Is it worth having an exhibition if half of it is original props, and half of it isn’t?’. But after my experience in Adventures in Time & Space, I think the answer is a resounding yes.

Sure, seeing screen-used or production-used items in person is nothing short of incredible. A particularly mind-bending moment was seeing Marco Polo’s tunic, which felt like a relic as it was a tangible piece of Doctor Who’s earliest missing story, and a brilliant story at that. And then I realise this was also used by Richard the Lionheart – Mr Julian Glover! – for the partly missing story, The Crusade; another cracking story.

I know that these are just clothes or bits of plastic, but knowing that they were used in some of your favourite episodes (especially episodes that were broadcast decades ago and have sadly been lost to archive clearing) makes you feel a deep appreciation and affinity with those items. Well, they’re more than items, really – they’re artefacts.

But equally, I LOVED the craft on display for all the recreated props and costumes. It’s the inclusion of recreated costumes that meant I got to physically see the history of the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Sea Devils and the Silurians. I stood face to face with a Mondasian Cyberman, and the artistic license of the recreated costume meant that some human eyes were added behind the cloth mask. It felt like it was staring deep into my soul, and it was terrifying, and I loved it.

There was also a recreated TARDIS console, which felt amazing to walk around, and a recreated Emperor Dalek from The Evil of the Daleks. An original prop for that is most likely destroyed, so I will take a recreation if it means I can see a semblance of the iconic Dalek Emperor in person, to get an idea of its scale and majesty.

So yeah, seeing lovingly recreated artefacts from the show is a different kind of thrill, but it is thrilling nonetheless. It only serves to make this exhibition more fun and more bang for your buck.

Hmm… something is Ood

Being a bit of a sad Who fanatic who thinks about this show way more than a 20-something should, I did have a little nitpick. A couple of items are incorrectly labelled; namely, the Ood costume is based on Ood Sigma, who appears in Planet of the Ood and subsequent stories. Like all the recreations, it is brilliantly made, but the label said it was an Ood from The Impossible Planet!

‘Oh, come off it, Harry! An Ood is an Ood. Most people visiting the exhibition won’t be concerned about this.’

You’re not wrong. But with any subject you’re particularly interested in, it can be amusingly frustrating when the displays aren’t factually right (the Missus always gets annoyed about Roman coins being incorrectly labelled – now I understand).

Plus, a few labels for items were missing, and if you are expecting to see anything from the David Tennant 2.0 / Ncuti Gatwa runs of Doctor Who, I sadly wouldn’t get your hopes up. This is perhaps down to time and space (haha) more than anything else, which I can’t fault the museum for, because they make excellent use of the rooms and the resources they had. They packed A LOT of amazing stuff in, and I now have some special memories of my time there.

So yeah, nothing detracted from the experience – I’d still give it five stars and recommend it to all Who fans. For a fiver, and all the effort and attention put into the displays, and the friendly staff all around Peterborough Museum, who made us feel very welcome, it is a total no-brainer.

Just double-check the Ood next time. Ood Sigma deserves better!

Doctor Who and the Invasion of Peterborough

I can’t not talk about how lovely it was to both explore Peterborough and see that Doctor Who has totally been taken into the heart of the city.

Within the museum itself, there is a great deal of Who merchandise available if you’re that way inclined. Some books, figurines, prints – all that good stuff. I bought a poster of the exhibition and an exhibition T-shirt; now, treasured items of this very nice day out. Not to mention, the cafe has Doctor Who toys displayed on the side tables, a fez and braces displayed on the wall, and refreshments are served in TARDIS-themed crockery, and coffees come with Jammy Dodgers! I admire this level of commitment; Who fans can expect a truly great time all around.

To top it all off, Peterborough Museum has various exhibitions throughout the building – all of which are worth checking out. But particularly relevant to Who fans is Right Between the Eyes! A temporary exhibition celebrating the work of Jeff Cummins, who you may know as a cover artist for various book covers for Target novelisations and Virgin New Adventures. This exhibit contains bits of Jeff’s work around Doctor Who and much more beyond, and it’s free, so well worth taking a look at the great artwork on display. It will run until 21st September 2025.

But the Who-related fun could not be contained within the museum. It seemed like I could not turn a corner without seeing something to do with the exhibition – highlights included spray-painted Daleks on the underpass and a cardboard cutout of monsters in Peterborough Cathedral. I mean, visit the cathedral because it is a beautiful building and – randomly – is selling Star Wars figures for £5 each in their gift shop. But you should mainly go to take a look at that cardboard cutout, it’s pretty neat.

To top it all off, I visited a charity shop during our Peterborough trip to acquire any Doctor Who books on sale, as I am known to do. There were various magazines and reference books in this particular one… as well as two out-of-print books, which I snapped up! These were The Shadow in the Glass, a BBC Books range entry featuring the Sixth Doctor, and rather serendipitously, the Virgin New Adventure All-Consuming Fire, which has the Seventh Doctor meet Sherlock Holmes, with a cover illustrated by Jeff Cummins! So yes, some cool pick-ups and cherries on top of the Peterborough Doctor Who cake.

So there you have it. Peterborough 2025. A great city with friendly people, with or without Doctor Who. And I am sure we will be talking about Adventures in Time & Space for years to come.

But it hasn’t gone yet! Book your tickets to the exhibition (and if you’re lucky, other Doctor Who-related events) on the Peterborough Museum website before 2nd November 2025.