Statistics


On This Day (USA) - 29 January



The Daleks' Master Plan: The Destruction of Time premiered on BBC One in 1966 at 5:50pm GMT, watched by 8.60 million viewers.

Mavic Chen proclaims himself leader of the Daleks' alliance. With the Time Destructor now complete and operational, the Doctor fears the Daleks will become unstoppable.


The Curse of Peladon: Episode One premiered on BBC One in 1972 at 5:51pm GMT, watched by 10.30 million viewers.

The planet Peladon is hoping to join the Galactic Federation. But King Peladon's Chancellor has been murdered and it seems that the legendary royal beast, Aggedor, is to blame.


The Robots of Death: Part One premiered on BBC One in 1977 at 6:20pm GMT, watched by 12.10 million viewers.

The TARDIS takes the Doctor and Leela to a huge sandminer on an alien world. One of the crew is killed and the murderer may not be human.


 Birthdays
Catrin Stewart was 36 - 13 credits, including Jenny Flint in The Crimson Horror

Catrin Stewart is a Welsh actress. She is best known for portraying Emma in the Sky1 comedy drama series Stella and Jenny Flint in Doctor Who. She also portrayed Lily in Misfits. Her theatrical performance as Juliet in Headlongs Romeo and Juliet.


Ann Holloway was 77 - credited as Mitchell in Earthshock

The daughter of an entertainer, Holloway was educated at Covents in Chelsea and Hertford and Mater Dei College in Welwyn Garden City. She started her career as a dancer before switching to acting. As an actress, she appeared on the London stage in plays such as "Spring Awakening" and "The Knack". Ann married the actor Michael MacKenzie. In her free time, she enjoys reading modern literature and poetry.


Patrick O'Connell (died 2017 aged 83) would have been 90 - credited as Ashton in The Dalek Invasion of Earth

Patrick O'Connell was a retired Irish actor known for numerous performances on UK television and in films.

He was brought up in BirminghamEngland and after working in the office of a department store he trained as an actor at RADA. He then appeared in repertory theatre, at the Royal Court Theatre and with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

His television appearances include Fraud Squad as (Detective Inspector Gamble), Dixon of Dock GreenThe Brothers (as Edward Hammond), Yes MinisterThe ProfessionalsWe'll Meet AgainThe BillInspector MorsePeak PracticeDangerfield and As Time Goes By.

His film roles include The Shooting PartyThe Human FactorThe McKenzie Break (as Sergeant Major Cox) and Cromwell.

He was also an artist known for his paintings and drawings.

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


Geoffrey Frederick was 91 - credited as Exorse in The Savages

Actor who appeared in the 1966 story The Savages


William Emms (died 1993 aged 63) would have been 94 - credited as Writer for Galaxy 4

William Emms was a school teacher who submitted occasional scripts for television.

He wrote the Doctor Who serial Galaxy 4 in 1965 and also adapted the script for a Target novelisation.


Stephanie Bidmead (died 1974 aged 45) would have been 95 - credited as Maaga in Galaxy 4

Stephanie Bidmead was an English actress from Birmingham.

She was active in the 60's and 70' appearing in roles in The Onedin Line, Public Eye , Little Women and Play of the Month.

She had an extensive Television and stage Career before dying at the early age of 45.


 Deaths
Bernard Horsfall (died 2013 aged 82) - 5 credits, including Taron in Planet of the Daleks

Bernard Horsfall is a British actor.

He had several roles in Doctor Who. His first part was as Lemuel Gulliver in The Mind Robber (1968). His other appearances were as a Time Lord inThe War Games (1969), Taron in Planet of the Daleks (1973) and Chancellor Goth in The Deadly Assassin (1976). All four of these serials were directed by David Maloney.

Horsfall was born in Bishop's StortfordHertfordshire. He has appeared in many television and film roles including: Guns at Batasi (1964), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Enemy at the Door (ITV, 1978-1980), Gandhi (1982), The Jewel in the Crown (ITV, 1984), The Hound of the Baskervilles (ITV, 1988) and Braveheart (1995). 

Horsfall also appeared, with a faked Swedish accent, as "Christianson" in an episode of "The Persuaders!" entitled "The Morning After" during 1972.

In 2003 he appeared in Davros - a Doctor Who audio drama produced by Big Finish Productions.

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


Adam Dawson (died 2010 aged 96) - credited as Film Editor for Spearhead From Space

Adam Dawson was film editor for the 1970 Doctor Who story Spearhead from Space.


A A Englander (died 2004 aged 88) - 2 credits, including Film Cameraman for The Ambassadors of Death

Adolf Arthur Englander was a British television cinematographer. He was one of the first film cameraman to work seriously in the field of television in the UK, which for much of its early period almost exclusively employed electronic cameras.

Englander was born in London during a First World War Zeppelin raid, and during the 1930s came to be referred to by his initials "AA" due to the unsavorary connections between his first name and that of Adolf Hitler, and his dislike for the middle name. He was also often referred to by the nickname "Tubby".

He began his career after leaving school at the age of fifteen in 1930, and initially worked in the film industry at the Stoll Film Studios in Cricklewood. Here he worked first as a clapper boy, then during the course of the decade worked his way up to become magazine loader and then an assistant cameraman. At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, he joined the Royal Fusiliers, but was quickly seconded to the army's film unit, making documentary and propaganda films.

After the end of the war in 1945 he continued working in documentaries until he joined BBC Television in 1952, becoming one of the Corporation's few film cameramen. At the time, film was mainly used by the BBC for shooting documentaries, news reports and short external scenes for dramas and other programmes, with the majority of programming being transmitted live from electronic video cameras.

It was the acquisition of staff of Englander's talent that increased the use of film at the BBC, and in 1956 the Corporation also acquired the Ealing Studios complex, which it turned into a dedicated studio for making inserts for television programmes, and eventually entire programmes themselves, on film.

Englander worked on film inserts for highly prestigious BBC dramas such as Rudolph Cartier's Quatermass and the Pit (1958–59) and Anna Karenina (1961), and later programmes such as Doctor WhoDad's ArmyColditz and Maigret. Even after the era of live television had passed in the early 1960s, the BBC still shot the majority of its fiction programmes on videotape, with film inserts used only for location material and difficult-to-shoot sequences, until the late 1980s. He also worked on highly prestigious all-film documentary series such as Civilisation (1969) and Alistair Cooke's America (1973).

BBC regulations stipulate that all employees must retire at sixty, and Englander was reluctantly forced to comply with this rule in 1975. Following his retirement from the Corporation he worked for some time as a freelance lighting cameraman.

He died at the age of eighty-nine of natural causes.

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


Stratford Johns (died 2002 aged 76) - credited as Monarch in Four To Doomsday

Stratford Johns, was a popular British stage, film and television actor who is best remembered for his starring role as Detective Inspector Charlie Barlow in the long-running BBC police series Z-Cars.

He played Monach in the 1982 story Four to Doomsday.

Johns was born in Pietermaritzburg and grew up in South Africa, where his parents had emigrated. After serving in the South African navy during World War II, Johns worked for a time in accountancy, but soon became involved in amateur theatre.

In 1948, he bought a one-way ticket to Britain and learned his craft working in repertory theatre at Southend-on-Sea for almost five years. He began to appear in British films from the mid-1950s, including a role in the classic Ealing comedy The Ladykillers (1955).

He ran a small hotel in London during the 1950s, and was a member of the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre during the Angry Young Men period when new playwrights, including John Osborne, introduced new themes to British theatre. His most famous character, Barlow, was noted for his hard edges, owing much to the changes in characterisation pioneered at the Royal Court.

In 1962 he won the part of Barlow in Z-Cars and soon became one of the most familiar and popular faces on British television. During the long run (1962–1965) of Z-Cars, he transferred his character to the spin-off series, Softly, Softly (1966–1969), and later Softly, Softly: Taskforce (1969–1972). He also played the voice of the mysterious "Guvner" in The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery (1966).

In the 1970s he starred in a third spin-off series, Barlow at Large (1971,1973), which saw the character transferred to British Intelligence: it was later retitled simply Barlow (1974–1975). Although the Barlow character remained popular (and appeared in another spin-off, in which he investigated the Jack The Ripper murders), ratings for these solo spin-offs declined, and the final series ended in 1975. Barlow was seen once more in 1976, in the series Second Verdict.

Johns appeared as President of the Council Bradshaw in the 1970 award-winning film "Cromwell" with Richard Harris in the role of Cromwell and Sir Alec Guinness as King Charles 1st.

In 1973 Johns was named BBC TV Personality of the Year by the Variety Club of Great Britain. He also landed a cameo role as the apartheid-supporting Namib mine superintendent Zimmerman in the mini-series Master of the Game, although he went uncredited for the role.

Johns later appeared in the much-maligned Ken Russell films Salome's Last Dance and The Lair of the White Worm (both 1988), followed by the title-character in the mid-1980s Channel 4 series Brond.

His many stage credits include Daddy Warbucks in the original West End run of Annie - he can be heard on the original London cast album - and the Ghost of Christmas Present in the original Birmingham cast of the stage adaptation of the film musical Scrooge (1970), on the recording of which he can also be heard. His guest appearances on TV include The Avengers, Department S, Neverwhere, the Doctor Who serial Four to Doomsday (1982) and the Blake's 7 episode "Games". He had a prominent role as Calpurnius Piso in the BBC's acclaimed adaptation of Robert Graves' I, Claudius (1976); he played Magwich in the BBC's 1981 adaptation of Dickens' Great Expectations, and the jailer in The Secret Life of Albie Sachs. In 1993, Johns appeared in the BBC period drama Scarlet and Black alongside a young Ewan McGregor and Rachel Weisz.

He was also the author of the children's book Gumphlumph; in the mid-1960s, at the height of his fame as Barlow, he read it on the children's television series Jackanory. Gumphlumph would be revived, again with Johns narrating, for the TV-am children's programme Rub-A-Dub-Tub in the 1980s.


Henry Gilbert (died 1973 aged 59) - credited as Torbis in The Curse of Peladon

Henry Gilbert was an English-born Australian actor who appeared in many popular 1960s and 1970s British TV programmes.

He played Tobis in the 1972 story The Curse of Peladon.