Statistics


On This Day (USA) - 14 July



The New World premiered on BBC One in 2011 at 9:03pm BST, watched by 6.59 million viewers.
When death itself comes to a halt, the whole world faces its greatest danger yet. CIA agent Rex Matheson has only one clue: the word 'Torchwood'.

 Birthdays
David Mitchell will be 50 - credited as Robot 1 Voice in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

David Mitchell is a British actor, comedian and writer. 

He is half of the comedy duo Mitchell and Webb, alongside Robert Webb

He is a frequent participant on British panel shows, including QI, Mock the Week and Have I Got News for You, as well as Best of the Worst and Would I Lie to You?


Jane Espenson will be 60 - 5 credits, including Writer for Dead of Night(TW)

Jane Espenson is an American script writer and television producer who has worked on both situation comedies and serial dramas. 

She had a five-year stint as a writer and producer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and shared a Hugo Award for her writing on the episode "Conversations with Dead People". Between 2009-2010 she served on Caprica, as co-executive and executive producer for the television series. 

In 2010 she wrote an episode of HBO's Game of Thrones, and joined the writing staff for season four of  Torchwood, which aired during the Summer of 2011.


Adam Blackwood will be 65 - credited as Balazar in The Trial of a Time Lord (The Mysterious Planet)

Adam Blackwood is an actor who has appeared in several films and television programmes, mostly in the United Kingdom.

Born in ChichesterSussex in 1959, Blackwood is the only son of Rona (née Archer) and John Blackwood. Blackwood has an older sister Nicola, and a younger sister Catriona. He played Balazar in the first four episodes of 1986 Doctor Who story 'The Trial of a Time Lord' and also appears on the commentary for the DVD release. In 1989, Blackwood married Nicola King inHaywards Heath, and has two children, Thomas & Ruby Blackwood.

He has also provided the voice of James Bond in four video games, The World Is Not Enough007 Racing007: Agent Under Fire and Tomorrow Never Dies.


Lionel Sansby (died 1983 aged 44) would be 86 - 5 credits, including Krarg 4 in Shada

Lionel Sansby played a passenger in Nightmare of Eden and a Krarg in Shada.

Also appeared in The Home FrontFunny ManArmchair ThrillerBlakes 7VillainsDoomwatch


Fred Haggerty (died 2002 aged 83) would be 106 - 4 credits, including Guard in The Romans

Fred Haggerty was an actor/stuntman born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary.

Work included roles in British films and TV from 1960-1990.


 Deaths
Olaf Pooley (died 2015 aged 101) - credited as Professor Stahlman in Inferno

Olaf Pooley was a British actor and writer born in Parkstone, Poole, Dorset, England.

Pooley wrote and appeared in the film The Corpse (released in the United States as Crucible of Horror), starring Michael Gough, and wrote, directed and appeared in The Johnstown Monster. He also wrote the screenplay for a film version of Bernard Taylor's The Godsend, which was directed by his future wife Gabrielle Beaumont. Pooley's other writing credits include the 1982 TV film Falcon's Gold and being an uncredited writer on the 1985 sci-fi horror movie Lifeforce.

Pooley's TV guest appearances since the 1950s include Dixon of Dock Green, Paul Temple, Jason King, MacGyver and Star Trek: Voyager

He played Professor Stahlman and his parallel Earth counterpart Director Stahlmann in the Doctor Who serial Inferno (1970). 

He played Lars Torvik in the first episode of The Sandbaggers, entitled First Principles (1978).

His other appearances include the 1958 BBC radio play Ambrose In Paris and Sebastian in a 1956 film production of The Tempest. Pooley had a major career in West End theatre appearing in such notable productions such as Noél Coward's Peace In Our Time and Shakespeare's The Tempest and Othello.

He is also notable as being one of a handful of actors to appear in both the Star Trek and Doctor Who franchises. 

Pooley lived in Southern California where he was become a respected artist both in the US and overseas.


Robert Cartland (died 2011 aged 89) - 2 credits, including Rill Voice in Galaxy 4

Actor who appeared in early episodes of Doctor Who


Hugh Lloyd MBE (died 2008 aged 85) - credited as Goronwy in Delta and the Bannermen

Hugh Lloyd  was an English actor who made his name in television and film comedy from the 1960s to the 1980s. He was best known for appearances in Hugh and I and other sitcoms of the 1960s.

He played Goronwy Jones in the Doctor Who story Delta and the Bannermen 

His first professional acting appearance was with ENSA and he worked in repertory theatre until 1957, when he made the first of 25 appearances on the television series Hancock's Half Hour. Many years after its first transmission, he would still be remembered as the character in the episode entitled The Blood Donor in which he forgets to return Tony Hancock's wine gums.

He appeared with Terry Scott in the series Hugh and I and The Gnomes of Dulwich; with Peggy Mount in Lollipop Loves Mr. Mole; in Jury and You Rang M'Lord?. He created the series Lord Tramp (1977), written by Michael Pertwee, in which he also starred. The Comedy Playhouse special, Hughie, in which he starred as a recently-released prisoner following the ending of Hugh and I, was unsuccessful.

Television plays in which he appeared include She's Been Away (starring Peggy Ashcroft); The Dunroamin Rising; A Matter Of Will (with Brenda Bruce); and a number of Alan Bennett plays, notably A Visit From Miss Protheroe (withPatricia Routledge), Say Something Happened (with Julie Walters and Thora Hird), and Me, I'm Afraid Of Virginia Woolf. 

Lloyd was awarded an MBE in the 2005 New Year Honours List for his services to drama and charity.


Margot van der Burgh (died 2008 aged 73) - 2 credits, including Cameca in The Aztecs

Margot Van der Burgh was a British actress.

She played one of the first love interests for the Doctor, becoming engaged to the first Doctor in the Aztecs when they prepared a potion of Coaco together.

She also appeared in Anna Karenina  playing Lydia and Great Expectations as Mrs Gargery. 


Jack Woolgar (died 1978 aged 64) - credited as Staff Sgt. Arnold in The Web of Fear

Jack Woolgar  was a British character actor working in television and film in the 1960s and 1970s.

He played Sergeant Arnold the Doctor Who serial The Web of Fear.

Woolgar was often cast as a dirty old tramp. Due to lifelong chest problems, he was able to produce a bubbling hacking cough at will, and appeared as the coal miner father in Stand Up, Nigel Barton, an autobiographical play by Dennis Potter. In addition he had parts in an episode of The Avengers ("The Living Dead"), The Lion the Witch & the Wardrobe, The Sweeney ("Jigsaw"). He also appeared as Sam Carne in the soap opera Crossroads.