Doctor Who Magazine celebrates its 500th issue with two exclusive interviews with Doctor Who star Peter Capaldi, as well as a specially commissioned front cover where Peter recreates the first ever cover of the magazine.

The 500th issue features Peter adopting the same pose alongside a Dalek that Fourth Doctor Tom Baker did for the very first edition on 11 October 1979. Doctor Who Magazine Issue 500 hits newsstands on Thursday 26 May.

Commenting on the magazine’s success, Peter Capaldi says, “The magazine was enormously helpful to me. When I started playing the Doctor I was able to get piles of them and dive in. I went out and bought lots of Doctor Who Magazines, because I deliberately wanted to steep myself in Doctor Who and connect – reconnect – to it in a very kind of visceral way, to the affection and the heartbeat of it.’

And in what he calls is his last ever interview with the magazine, Tom Baker adds, “500 is a big milestone, and I’m sure you’re right to want to mark it BIG. Your magazine has been extremely good to me, and has helped to create a warm and faithful fanbase for the programme. I am still signing first editions. After all these years”.

Other highlights include an interview with Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat and a special treat for fans also in the form of an exclusive letter to DWM readers from Pearl Mackie, who will play new companion Bill.

Also featured in the magazine is an interview with the First Doctor William Hartnell, dating from 1965 and written by an eleven-year-old fan.

The first issue of Doctor Who Magazine was published on 11 October 1979. It began life as a weekly publication with a cover price of just 12p, created as the perfect accompaniment for fans of the BBC One primetime show. Featuring exclusive interviews with Doctors, companions and even some monsters, the magazine included comic strips, features, news and interviews. Among the buyers of Issue 1 were an eight-year-old David Tennant, 16-year-old Russell T Davies and 17-year-old Steven Moffat. All of them have been reading the magazine ever since.

The highly collectable 500th issue comes packaged in a striking card envelope and is a bumper 116 pages long, priced £9.99, including a bonus 116-page supplement, a poster, stickers and art card.