Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman in the new Sherlock special. Credit:Robert Viglasky But in the case of Sydney's Doctor Who Festival and Melbourne's Sherlock: From Script to Screen, being staged this weekend, "you get to see the actual stuff, the people who actually do it, it's kind of exciting. "The Doctor Who Festival will be held at the Hordern Pavilion and Royal Hall of Industries on November 21 and 22 and will feature a writer's masterclass, cast Q&As, an effects and monster display, wardrobe and set displays and appearances by stars including Peter Capaldi, Billie Piper, Sylvester McCoy, producer Steven Moffat and writer Mark Gatiss. Sherlock: From Script to Screen will be staged on Monday, November 23, at Melbourne's Regent Theatre and will feature Sherlock's creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss and producer Sue Vertue in a writing and producing masterclass setting. Though he is the "showrunner" for both shows, Moffat insists he is not the curator of everything pertaining to both shows. "There are loads of us managing many little empires that I'm not even qualified to talk about, people better at it than me," he says.

Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman in Dr Who Credit:David Venni/Kaia Zak "I suppose you're a curator or something, to a degree, yes, but it sounds too dramatic, that's the trouble," Moffat adds. "It sounds like I'm some sort of Rasputin type. There's a whole lot of very expert people taking care of a whole lot of stuff that they do very brilliantly." Both events feature writing masterclasses of a fashion, and Moffat acknowledges that much like Star Trek's chief engineer Scotty inspired many to enroll in engineering courses, both shows are inspiring to some."I think it probably encourages people along the path that they were already going to take," he says. "I don't think someone who was destined to be a gardener will suddenly come out to be a writer, but it's true that when you talk to a lot of scientists they're huge fans of Doctor Who. It's remarkable and heartening. "It works, Moffat adds, because as fans we fall in love with the mythology before we face the reality. "You like the fairy tale version so much that you go into the nitty gritty," he says. "Even if the fairy tale was all wrong, it's too late now, you've already fallen in love. The first date doesn't necessarily represent the rest of the relationship.

"The Doctor Who Festival will also offer behind-the-scenes glimpses, with real sets, a special effects workshop and a "monster" exhibit which, to some extent, reveals the rubber and glue behind some of the show's iconic aliens. "I kind of think it is always healthy human inquiry to know how it is made," Moffat says. "There was never a time when we thought it was real, you know? We've always known it's make believe. And children know that, too. I think it's proper human inquiry, you're bound to want to know how that special effect was done, how they made that. "Moffat adds that he is still spellbound by the series. "I can watch episodes of Doctor Who that I made a couple of years ago and get carried away with it [so] if I can still suspend disbelief, I presume that they all can," he says. "I don't think that's a problem, I think it's exciting." The two events are connected, but staged separately. As a consequence, Moffat acknowledges the demographic breakdown of the audience at both may well be different. He's just not sure in what way. "For shows as big as those two, you have to be appealing to an awful lot of people, you can't make very narrow definitions of the audience," he says. "The fans ... that's a very small atypical group, [a] subset, of the audience; mind you we treasure them, but they're not a typical, nor a large enough sample to represent anything.

"One thing he has noticed, he says, is that since its return Doctor Who has grown its female audience to the point that it is roughly 50/50, male/female, he says. Sherlock, on the other hand, was always a hit with women. "At a Sherlock event, it's mostly women," he says. "So it's big with girls. Those facts aren't born out if you break the actual audience down at all. But to come to watch us film, it's a lot of women." It might, we suggest, have something to do with the appeal of Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Sherlock Holmes, and Martin Freeman, who plays John Watson. The suggestion elicits laughter from Moffat. "Well, I'll get in trouble if I say that," he says. "I don't know what the secret is, just that the fanbase happens to be very female. I don't know why." It is also, he adds, perhaps in part due to the prominent role women have played in shows like Doctor Who, since its creation in 1963. "One of the very interesting things about Doctor Who from the very beginning, from 1963 onwards, is that while though we've used that ghastly term companion for his various friends, they've always been very strongly the co-star," Moffat says. There are numerous examples, from teacher Barbara Wright, who travelled with William Hartnell's first Doctor, to Sarah Jane Smith, who accompanied the fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker. Since the series reboot, Billie Piper, Freema Agyeman, Catherine Tate and Jenna Coleman can be added to that list.

"It is a show where there's no question that the Doctor is the fetishised hero, as it were; he's a disruptive influence, he's the person that crashes into someone's life and changes it forever," Moffat says. "But it's only within the fiction that he's more important than his co-lead. "They're not constructed as roles models, [but] people still do think of them as role models, both the Doctor and, currently, Clara. There's a lot of seven year old girls that want to be Clara and you have to write that with that fact very firmly in mind."* The Doctor Who Festival is being held at Hordern Pavilion and Royal Hall of Industries, Sydney, on November 21 and 22. Sherlock: From Script to Screen is being held at the Regent Theatre, Melbourne, on November 23.