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On This Day (USA) - 19 September



The Magician's Apprentice premiered on BBC One in 2015 at 7:43pm BST, watched by 6.54 million viewers.

The Doctor returns - except Clara is having trouble finding him after the skies above the Earth are frozen by shadowy forces from another world. It seems he's in hiding as old enemies resurface and past actions wreak new havoc across the cosmos.


The Magician's Apprentice premiered on BBC America in 2015 at 9:00pm EDT, watched by 1.97 million viewers.

"Where is the Doctor?" When the skies of Earth are frozen by a mysterious alien force, Clara needs her friend. But where is the Doctor, and what is he hiding from? As past deeds come back to haunt him, old enemies will come face-to-face.


 Birthdays
David Bamber will be 70 - 3 credits, including Captain Quell in Mummy On The Orient Express

David Bamber is a stage and screen actor who hails from Walkden, near Manchester. He studied drama at Bristol University and then at RADA, winning the Gold Medal in 1979. 

Early drama appearances include Brass, Juliet Bravo, A Very Peculiar Practice, and Poirot, and as Fred Hurley in Call Me Mister. Later roles included Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice, Eric Slatt in Chalk (by StevenMoffat), and Sidney Norris in Collision, Joe in What Remains, and as Marcus Tullius Cicero in Rome. Film-wise, he played the theatre director in The King's Speech, Fruing Warne in Miss Potter, and Adolf Hitler in Valkyrie.

As well as on-screen, Bamber is also a stage actor - winning the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance as Guy in My Night With Reg - and a voice artist, including playing Emperor Constantine in the Big Finish Doctor Who story The Council of Nicaea.

He is married to actress Julia Swift, and they have two sons, Theo and Ethan.


Caroline John (died 2012 aged 71) would be 84 - 13 credits, including Liz Shaw in Spearhead From Space

Caroline John was a British actress who played Liz Shaw, the UNIT scientist employed to aid the Third Doctor in his first season.

After training at the Central School of Speech and Drama, she worked in theatre, touring with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre in King Lear, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, The Merchant of Venice and as Hero in Franco Zeffirelli's production of Much Ado About Nothing.

In 1970 she was cast as Liz Shaw by Derrick Sherwin. However, incoming producer Barry Letts considered her character was unsuitable as she was too much an equal of the Doctor and decided against renewing her contract. 

John reprised the role of Shaw. though, in the anniversary story The Five Doctors (albeit as a fake Shaw) and also appeared as Liz Shaw in the special episode Dimensions In Time (1993), part of the BBC's annual Children in Need appeal. In the 1990s she appeared in a series of straight-to-video releases including The Stranger: Breach of the Peace, and as Liz Shaw in the P.R.O.B.E. stories written by Mark Gatiss and featuring numerous actors from the Doctor Who world.

John was married to Geoffrey Beevers, who played the renegade Time Lord known as The Master in The Keeper of Traken. Beevers appeared with her in the Big Finish audio drama Dust Breeding. They also both had roles in the political thriller A Very British Coup, although they weren't on screen at the same time. Her brother, Nick John, was also an AFM/Location Manager during her time on the show.

Her most recent screen appearances were in the 2003 rom-com film Love Actually (written and directed by Richard Curtis and featuring Bill Nighy as well as Steven Moffat's Doctor Who and The Curse Of Fatal Death Doctors Rowan Atkinson and Hugh Grant) and on TV in the ITV drama series Vital Signs (with Gugu Mbatha-Raw) in 2006 and the BBC daytime drama Doctors (with Malcolm Tierney and Matthew Chambers) in 2008.


Charles Pemberton (died 2007 aged 67) would be 85 - 8 credits, including Cyberman in The Tomb of the Cybermen

Actor who appeared in a large number of British television Dramas, including early episodes of Doctor Who.


Dallas Cavell (died 1993 aged 67) would be 99 - 5 credits, including Quinlan in The Ambassadors of Death

Actor well know for his many appearances in Doctor Who, appearing with four of the first five Doctors.

Other roles include parts in Pickwick Papers, The Boy With Two Heads, Dixon of Dock Green and Z Cars



 Deaths
Morris Perry (died 2021 aged 96) - credited as Dent in Colony In Space

Morris Perry is an English actor.

Perry was born in BromleyKentEngland. Credits include: The AvengersZ-CarsChampion HouseThe ChampionsThe Persuaders!Doctor Who (in the serial Colony in Space), Special BranchThe SweeneySurvivorsThe ProfessionalsSecret ArmyReilly, Ace of SpiesThe Bi


Jack May (died 1997 aged 75) - credited as General Hermack in The Space Pirates

Jack May was an English actor. Born in Henley-on-Thames, he was educated at Forest School, Walthamstow and after war service with the Royal Indian Navy in India was offered a place at RADA, but he instead went to Merton College, Oxford. Here with the OUDS he played parts, which included John of Gaunt in Richard II and Polonius inHamlet.

On television he became familiar as the butler William E. Simms in two series of the BBC1 fantasy/adventure television series Adam Adamant Lives! from 1966–67.

A noted voice actor, he provided the voice for Igor, long-suffering butler to Count Duckula in the cartoon series of the same name. He also appeared as the waiter Garkbit in the television version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyThéoden in the 1981 BBC Radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, as General Hermack in the 1969 Doctor Who serial The Space Pirates, and in Bachelor Father. The long-running BBC Radio 4 series, The Archers also featured the voice of May as Nelson Gabriel, son of Walter Gabriel.

His other credits in film and television included Dr. Denny in the 1960 serial The Citadel, and the District Commissioner in The Man Who Would Be King (1975).

On stage he played many leading and supporting roles, spending five years with Birmingham Repertory Theatre during which time he attracted considerable notice in the title part of Shakespeare's Henry VI. This trilogy of plays came to the Old Vic in London, and from then on began to be far more regularly revived. For Birmingham Rep, he also played parts as diverse as Richard II, Alec in Coward's Still Life (the story better known as Brief Encounter) and the Elephant in Obey's Noah. He returned to the Old Vic for the 1958-59 season, as Julius Caesar among other parts. Later stage roles included The Headmaster in A Voyage Round My Father, and Colonel Pickering in Pygmalion with Alec McCowenand Diana Rigg.

In 1957, he married the actress Petra Davies who survives him together with his daughter Henrietta and his son, David.

He played the voice of Muzzy in Muzzy in Gondoland.

Biography from the Wikipedia article, licensed under CC-BY-SA