Statistics


On This Day (USA) - 4 February



The Underwater Menace: Episode 4 premiered on BBC One in 1967 at 5:50pm GMT, watched by 7.00 million viewers.

As Zaroff's insane scheme to destroy the world nears completion, the Doctor plans to break down the sea wall and flood Atlantis.


The Invasion of Time: Part One premiered on BBC One in 1978 at 6:25pm GMT, watched by 11.20 million viewers.

Doctor Who Greatest Moments: Aliens premiered on BBC Three in 2010 at 3:55am GMT
The Doctor has met his fair share of alien enemies. From giant wasps to squat Sontarans, he has come up against the finest in the universe. David Tennant and other cast members discuss some of the most memorable monsters and talk about a selection great alien moments. Narrated by Jo Whiley.

 Birthdays
Stephen Wyatt was 76 - 2 credits, including Writer for Paradise Towers

Stephen Wyatt is a British writer.

He wrote the Doctor Who serials Paradise Towers and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, both of which he novelised for the Target Books range.

He began his career as a freelance playwright in 1975 as writer/researcher with the Belgrade Theatre Coventry in Education team.

His subsequent young people's theatre work includes The Magic Cabbage (Unicorn 1978), Monster (York Theatre Royal 1979) and The Witch of Wapping (Half Moon 1980).

His first work for television was Claws, filmed by the BBC in 1987. His other television credits include scripts for The House of Eliott and Casualty.


John Hearne (died 1994 aged 68) would have been 98 - credited as Costume Designer for The Trial of a Time Lord (Mindwarp)

John Hearne provided Costumes for the 1986 story Mindwarp.

Also worked on BreadMay to DecemberYes, Prime MinisterOpen All HoursMessiahTerry and JuneRentaghostGrange Hill


Peter Butterworth (died 1979 aged 59) would have been 105 - 2 credits, including The Meddling Monk in The Time Meddler

Peter Butterworth  was an English comedy actor and comedian, best known for his appearances in the Carry On series of films. He appeared in seven early episodes of Doctor Who in 1965 as the 'The Meddling Monk' who is noted as being the first recurring Doctor Who villain. He was married to the actress and impressionist Janet Brown.

Before his acting career started, Butterworth served as alieutenant commander in the Royal Navy during theSecond World War. He was captured in the Netherlands in 1940 and later escaped through a tunnel from Dulag luft, near Frankfurt, in June 1941, where he covered 27 miles (43 km) over three days before a member of the Hitler Youth captured him. Afterwards he joked that he could never work with children again. Two other attempts to escape were made during his time there but he never got beyond the campgrounds.

Whilst at Stalag Luft III  he met Talbot Rothwell, who later went on to write many of the Carry On films. Rothwell and Butterworth formed a duet and sang in the camp shows, where booing and catcalls covered the sounds of an escape tunnel being dug by other prisoners. Butterworth was one of the vaulters covering for the escapers during the escape portrayed by the book and film The Wooden Horse. Butterworth later auditioned for the film in 1949 but "didn't look convincingly heroic or athletic enough" according to the makers of the film. To compensate for this the director Jack Lee, named the character played by Leo Genn "Peter", after Butterworth.

Butterworth came to notice after appearing in pantomime around the UK and made his first film appearance in 1948. His first role was in the Val Guest film William comes to town. Guest and Butterworth would become close friends and the two would work on a further seven films together during their careers. His first major success was on Television in the Terry-Thomas sketch show How do you view? in which he played the chauffeur "Lockitt". Butterworth also presented successful programmes aimed at children in the 1950s including Whirligig and Butterworth Time. He continued to take minor parts in films and would go onto appear alongside actors including Sean ConneryDavid Niven andDouglas Fairbanks Jr during his career.

Butterworth's association with the Carry On series started in 1965 in Carry on Cowboy where he played the part of "Doc". He was put in touch with the creator of the series, Peter Rogers, by his friend Talbot Rothwell, the writer of Carry On Cowboy and who had written the previous four films. Out of the fourteen actors who were considered to be the "Carry On team", he was the sixth most prolific performer in the series, making sixteen film appearances, two Christmas specials, the television series in 1975 and the west end theatre productions which also toured the country, alongside Sidney JamesBarbara Windsor, and Kenneth Connor.

Butterworth appeared in two of the most famous films in the series Carry on Screaming in 1966 andCarry on up the Khyber in 1968. It was the latter which established Butterworth as an important member of the Carry on cast of actors. Playing the part of Brother Belcher, a missionary working on behalf of a campaign to save fallen women, he first appears in the film giving a sermon in the market place and becomes somewhat distracted by a pretty native woman who lures him into a back room of a nearby building. The encounter is then caught by Captain Keane and Sergeant Major McNutt (Roy Castle andTerry Scott). Brother Belcher is then blackmailed into helping them overthrow The Khasi of Kalabar (played by Kenneth Williams).

Butterworth returned to playing bigger parts within the Carry On films in 1972. In Carry On Abroad, he played 'Pepe' the manager of an unfinished hotel, who greets his unexpected guests in the guise of the builder, the porter, the receptionist and telephone operator. He spends the first half of the film furiously trying to placate and accommodate them and the last half desperately trying to save the building from a flood, and whilst all this is going on, put up with his nagging wife Hattie Jacques.

Butterworth remained with the series until the final film, Carry On Emmannuelle in 1978.

Having appeared in many of Val Guest's films during the beginning of his career, he also made three appearances in the films of Richard Lester. He appeared in Lester's film version of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in (1966). Ten years later he appeared consecutively in The Ritz[13]and Robin and Marian (1976) alongside Sean ConneryRichard Harris, and Audrey Hepburn.[14] He had an uncredited cameo part in the film version of the musical Oliver! as a shopkeeper in court, and made a special appearance in an episode of Dad's Army called The Face on the Poster. In 1975 he was the subject of an episode of This Is Your Life whereby Eamonn Andrews surprised him while he was shopping in SelfridgesLondon. Friends who took part in the show included Terry ScottTalbot Rothwell,Jimmy Jewell John Casson and Rupert Davies. Butterworth's wife and their two children, Tyler and Emma were also at the recording. When the Carry on films finished in 1978, Butterworth began to concentrate on straight roles, taking a small part in the feature film The First Great Train Robbery with Sean Connery,[15] and the Alan Bennett play "Afternoon Off" both from 1978. Both productions were released posthumously in 1979 on February 2 and 3 respectively.

He married the actress and impressionist Janet Brown in 1947 at St. Mary's Church, Bryanaston Square,Marylebone after being introduced to one another by Rothwell. Brown later became famous for her impersonations of Margaret Thatcher on TV during the 70s and 80s. Their son Tyler Butterworth is an actor and is married to the actress Janet Dibley. They also had a daughter, Emma (1962�1996), who died aged 34.

In 1979, whilst The First Great Train Robbery was on general release, Butterworth was starring as Widow Twankey in the pantomime Aladdin at the Coventry Theatre. When the show had finished, he went back to his hotel following the evening's performance. His failure to return for the following day's matinee show caused alarm, and he was found dead in his room from a heart attack. Out of respect, the remainder of the pantomime's run was cancelled. Butterworth was buried in Danehill Cemetery, in East Sussex. Following his death, the producer of the Carry On Films, Peter Rogers, called Butterworth "A thoroughly nice bloke and a dear friend".


 Deaths
David Whitaker (died 1980 aged 51) - 19 credits, including Story Editor for An Unearthly Child

David Whitaker was born in KnebworthHertfordshire.

He was the first Script Editor for Doctor Who, working on the first fifty one episodes in the series.  In that capacity he was responsible for some of the most iconic elements of the programme, still present in the current series.

He also wrote a number of Doctor Who serials himself. His scripts for the series include The Crusade (1965), The Power of the Daleks (1966) and The Evil of the Daleks (1967), The Enemy of the World (1967/8) and The Wheel in Space (1968, from a story by Kit Pedler). Other Dalek work included writing the Dalek comic strip in the children's magazine, TV Century 21, and the 1965 stage play The Curse of the Daleks.

In 1964, Whitaker became the first person to write a novelised adaptation of a Doctor Who serial (ultimately, more than 150 such books would be published over the next 30 years). His book, Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks, was based upon Terry Nation's teleplay for the first Dalek story. Later in 1973Target Books purchased the rights to the novelisation and issued it under the jacket title Doctor Who and the Daleks.

In 1965, Whitaker wrote his second Doctor Who novelisation, this time based upon his own script, The Crusade. Both books were originally published by Frederick Muller, with the Dalek story also having a paperback release by Armada; in 1973 Whitaker's books (along with a third novelisation by Bill Strutton based upon The Web Planet) were republished by Target Books, launching its prolific series of novelisations.

At the time of his death, Whitaker was undergoing treatment for cancer. He died leaving his novelisation of his 1968 serial The Enemy of the World only partly finished and his plans to adapt The Evil of the Daleks never coming to pass. The adaptation of The Enemy of the World was completed later by Ian Marter, andThe Evil of the Daleks was eventually adapted by John Peel and released in 1993.