Statistics


On This Day (USA) - 10 May



The War Games: Episode Four premiered on BBC One in 1969 at 5:15pm BST, watched by 5.70 million viewers.

The Doctor and Zoe penetrate the Aliens' HQ from where the war games are controlled. Carstairs is reconditioned and exposes the Doctor and Zoe as German spies.


Revenge of the Cybermen: Part Four premiered on BBC One in 1975 at 6:30pm BST, watched by 9.40 million viewers.

Their plan to blow up Voga thwarted, the Cybermen intend to crash Nerva into it. Vorus is almost ready to launch his rocket at Nerva, but Sarah is still trapped on board.


The Doctor's Daughter premiered on BBC One in 2008 at 6:44pm BST, watched by 7.33 million viewers.

Sins of the Fathers premiered on BBC Three in 2008 at 7:30pm BST

Time Travelling Scots premiered on BBC Radio Scotland in 2010 at 11:30am BST
A Tale of Two Jamies: Diana Gabaldon is a romance writer with a legion of admiring fans. Her hero, Jamie Fraser, is a swashbuckling Scot who has captured her readers' hearts. Actor Frazer Hines is a former Doctor Who assistant. His character, Jamie McCrimmon, played an unlikely part in inspiring Gabaldon to write her bestselling Outlander novels. Frazer meets Diana and her fans to learn more about the phenomenon he unwittinginly helped create, exploring Scottish history, time travel and the meaning of true love along the way.

 Birthdays
Anna Maxwell-Martin will be 47 - credited as Suki in The Long Game

Anna Maxwell Martin is a twice BAFTA award-winning English actress who has won acclaim for her performances as Lyra inHis Dark Materials at the Royal National Theatre, as Esther Summerson in the BBC's 2005 adaptation of Bleak House, and as N in Channel 4's 2008 adaptation of Poppy Shakespeare.

She played Suki in the 2005 Doctor Who story The Long Game.

Martin first came to prominence on the London stage playing the leading role of Lyra in the National Theatre's production of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. She was then cast in the part of Bessie Higgins in the BBC television adaptation of the Elizabeth Gaskell novel, North and South, in 2004. She played Esther Summerson, the central character in the 2005 BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens'Bleak House, for which she won the Best Actress BAFTA Television Award in 2006.

In January 2006 she took part in a reading of The Entertainer at the Royal Court Theatre, and in February and March she appeared in Laura Wade's Other Hands, directed by Bijan Sheibani at the Soho Theatre. She is the narrator of the CD version of The Foreshadowing, a children's book about the First World War by Marcus Sedgwick, which was published in May 2006.

In the same year she worked on I Really Hate My Job, directed by Oliver Parker and, from October 2006 to April 2007, played Sally Bowles in Bill Kenwright and Rufus Norris's West End production of Cabaret at the Lyric Theatre.

She played Cassandra Austen in Becoming Jane, a 2007 film about the early life of the novelist Jane Austen starring American actress Anne Hathaway in the title role. At the end of the year she played the gaoler's daughter in Lee Hall'sadaptation of The Wind in the Willows, a multi-million pound production by Box TV for BBC One, and was the joint narrator (with Anton Lesser) of the CD version of Tamar, a children's book about the Second World War by Mal Peet, which was published in December 2007.

In 2008 she starred in the BBC Two drama White Girl and with Naomie Harris in Channel 4's adaptation of Poppy Shakespeare, for which she won her second Best Actress BAFTA Television Award in 2009. From July to October of that year, she appeared with Dame Eileen Atkins in The Female of the Species at the Vaudeville Theatre in London. She also appeared in a BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel Crooked House.

In July 2009 she appeared in the BBC Two drama, Freefall, and played Neil Armstrong's wife, Janet, in Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11, an ITV1 drama documentary to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

In February 2010 she played freedom of information campaigner Heather Brooke in On Expenses, a BBC Four satirical drama and also played Isabella in Shakespeare's Measure For Measure at the Almeida Theatre.

In February 2011, she played Sarah Burton in a three-part BBC adaptation of Winifred Holtby's novel, South Riding. Also on 12 July 2011, she played Kay Langrish in a BBC Two dramatisation of The Night Watch.

From September 2012, she starred in the drama mini-series The Bletchley Circle. On 4 September 2012, she appeared in Jimmy McGovern's Accused, as prison officer Tina.


Jason Brooks will be 58 - credited as Press Secretary in The Middle Men(TW)

Jason Brooks played the Press Secretary in the Torchwood story The Middle Men.

He began his career with his memorable portrayal of the dark, but likeable villain, "Peter Blake", on NBC's long-running drama, "Days of Our Lives" (1965), for which he garnered Soap Opera Digest's coveted Best Villain award.

After leaving "Days" to pursue other projects, Brooks continued to work consistently in leading roles in television and film, including Alibi (1997) (TV), opposite Tori Spelling for ABC, Three Secrets (1999) (TV), with Jaclyn Smith for CBS, and The Darwin Conspiracy (1999) (TV) (Pilot/MOW) for UPN. He then landed a recurring role warming up the ice cold "Miss Parker" on ABC's hit drama series, "The Pretender" (1996), opposite Andrea Parker.

Soon after, "Baywatch" (1989) producers approached Brooks to replace David Hasselhoff in the series' new incarnation, "Baywatch" (1989) Hawaii, shooting on location in the island paradise. After two seasons, the series wrapped up its syndicated run and Jason returned to Los Angeles, where he became the father to his second son with wife, Corinne Olivo Levin, a literary talent manager. Jason was then cast in numerous indie film roles such as Deranged (2002), with JoBeth Williams, Flying Virus (2001) (aka "Buzzed"), with Gabrielle Anwar and Rutger Hauer, Purgatory Flats (2003) and Submission (2006) (V), opposite Aussie star, Simmone Mackinnon. More recently, he appeared in the films: Star Trek (2009), directed by J.J. Abrams, Burning Palms (2010), Accused at 17 (2009), Christmas Spirit (2011) (TV), Home Invasion (2012/II), and this summer's upcoming Super 8 (2011), again for director J.J. Abrams.

Throughout his career, Brooks continued to guest star and repeat on numerous network television hits offering his unique presence in drama, comedy, sci-fi and action. Some of his more notable guest star credits include: "Friends" (1994) (memorably as Phoebe's hot massage client), "Charmed" (1998), "The Practice" (1997), "CSI: Miami" (2002), "NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service" (2003), "JAG" (1995), "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody" (2005) (as the dashing "Indiana Jones"-esque "Dakota Smith"), "Boston Legal" (2004) (as a recurring guest star), "CSI: NY" (2004), "The Closer" (2005), "Las Vegas" (2003), "Without a Trace" (2002), "Castle" (2009), "Ghost Whisperer" (2005), "Big Love" (2006), "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" (2000), "Criminal Minds" (2005), "No Ordinary Family" (2010) and "Torchwood" (2006) (Starz). He is currently recurring on "Switched at Birth" (2011) for ABC Family.

Some of his other pilot appearances include: "Pepper Dennis" (2006) (for which he was a recurring guest star), War Stories (2003) (TV) (NBC), "Day One" (2010) (NBC), "Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior (CBS) and the new "Madison High" (2012) for the Disney Channel.

Brooks has also starred in many award-winning theater productions. Some of his favorite leading theater roles were in the productions: "Death of a Salesman (winning the Robby Award for Best Actor), "Myron" (a touching AIDS drama) and the L.A Times' acclaimed "Johnnie on the Spot".


Charles Beeson (died 2021 aged 63) would be 67 - 2 credits, including Floor Assistant for Kinda
A director and producer, known for Revolution (2012), The Whispers (2015) and Timeless (2016).

Peter Walshe will be 76 - 2 credits, including Erak in The Sontaran Experiment

Peter Walshe appeared in two Doctor Who stories: as Erak in The Sontaran Experiment and a pikeman in The Masque of Mandragora.

Also worked on WinterspeltZ CarsThe Wilde AllianceThe Naked Civil ServantNew Scotland Yard 


Maureen Lipman CBE will be 78 - 2 credits, including The Wire in The Idiot's Lantern

Maureen Diane Lipman, CBE, is a British film, theatre and television actress, columnist and comedienne.

Early life

Lipman was born in Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, the daughter of Maurice Julius Lipman and Zelma Pearlman. Her father was a tailor; he used to have a shop between the Ferens Art Gallery and Monument Bridge. She attended Newland School for Girls in Hull, and became interested in performing as a youth; Lipman performed in school shows, attended an early Beatles concert, and watched Elizabeth Taylor's Butterfield 8 15 times. Her first performances at home included impersonations of Alma Cogan – ' a nice Jewish girl, she was big in our house'. Lipman trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Career

Lipman worked extensively in the theatre following her début in a stage production of The Knack at the Palace Theatre, Watford. In order to get the post she pretended that a documentary producer wanted to follow her finding her first job – this was a lie but it seemed to work. She was a member of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre Company at the Old Vic from 1971–73 and of the Royal Shakespeare Company for its 1973 Stratford season. She made an early film appearance in Up the Junction (1968).

After early appearances in the sitcoms The Lovers, and Doctor at Large, and a role in The Evacuees (1975), Lipman first gained prominence on television in the 1979 situation comedy Agony, in which she played an agony aunt with a troubled private life. She played the lead role in the television series All at No 20 and took on a range of diverse characters when starring in the series About Face. She is well known for playing Joyce Grenfell in the biographical show Re: Joyce!, which she co-wrote with James Roose-Evans, and another memorable character Beatrice Bellman (Beatie/BT), a Jewish grandmother in a series of television commercials for British Telecom. She has continued to work in the theatre for over thirty years, playing, amongst other roles, Aunt Eller in the National Theatre's Oklahoma! with Hugh Jackman.

In 2006 Lipman played Maggie Wych in the children's television show 'The Fugitives.' In 2002, she played snooty landlady Lillian Spencer in Coronation Street, and the titular character's mother in Roman Polanski's award-winning film The Pianist. More recently, she has narrated two television series on the subject of design, one for UKTV about Art Deco and one about 20th century design for ITV/Sky Travel. In 2003 she appeared in Jonathan Creek in the episode "The Tailor's Dummy".

She also wrote a monthly column for Good Housekeeping magazine for over ten years, which spawned several biographical books, including "How Was It For You?", "Something To Fall Back On", "Thank You For Having Me", "You Can Read Me Like A Book" and "Lip Reading". More recently, Lipman penned a weekly column in The Guardian in the newspaper's G2 section. She performed as a villain in the 2006 series of Doctor Who in the episode entitled "The Idiot's Lantern" as The Wire. From November 2005 to April 2006 she played Florence Foster Jenkins in the Olivier Award nominated show Glorious! at the Duchess Theatre in London's West End.

After her playwright husband's death in May 2004 she completed his autobiography By Jack Rosenthal, and played herself in her daughter's four-part adaptation of the book, Jack Rosenthal's Last Act on BBC Radio Four in July 2006. She has created several volumes of autobiography from her Good Housekeeping columns and recently published The Gibbon's In Decline But The Horse Is Stable, a book of animal poems which is illustrated by established cartoonists including Posy Simmonds and Gerald Scarfe, to raise money for Myeloma UK, to combat the cancer to which she lost her husband.

She has also appeared a few times on Just a Minute, The News Quiz, That Reminds Me, This Week and Have I Got News for You. In 2007, Lipman appeared as a celebrity contestant on Comic Relief Does The Apprentice to raise money for Comic Relief. The show saw her helping to run a funfair. Later in 2007, she made a guest appearance in Casualty; this was followed by an appearance in a December 2011 episode of the Casualty-spin off Holby City, playing a different character. In May 2008 she appeared in the BBC documentary series Comedy Map of Britain. She currently writes for The Oldie. On Sunday 11 January 2009 BBC Four was devoted to a "Maureen Lipman Night". On 5 February 2009, she appeared in the third series of teen drama Skins, in the episode entitled "Thomas" as Pandora Moon's Aunt Elizabeth.

She appeared twice on The Paul O'Grady Show during its run, once alongside Julie Walters to promote her most-recent book Past-It Notes, the other to speak about her appearance as the wheelchair-bound Madame Armfeldt in the Sondheim musical A Little Night Music, showing at the Menier Chocolate Factory. In both of these appearances, she also spoke briefly about her role as Irene Spencer in the ITV3 comedy Ladies of Letters, in which she leads alongside Anne Reid. The show's first series started in 2009, and returned for a second series in 2010, shown divided into two five-week stints.

Lipman's appearance as Madame Armfeldt was criticised by Telegraph critic Charles Spencer, at the same time that he criticised Judi Dench's roles in Madame de Sade alongside Deborah Findlay and Jenny Galloway, and as "M" in the James Bond films. Madame Armfeldt is a woman who has supposedly slept her way through the European royal families; a role which Spencer described Lipman to be "too angular" to play. His analysis of Lipman was a "wildly unlikely grande horizontale". Both Lipman and Dench were annoyed by these reviews; and Lipman was quoted in a gossip column to want to pour a glass of wine over Spencer's head.

From October 2010 to February 2011 Lipman starred in a production of J B Priestley's When We Are Married at the Garrick Theatre. In 2012 she directed and appeared in a production of Barefoot in the Park on tour and starred in Old Money at the Hampstead Theatre. In 2013 she starred in Daytona at The Park Theatre followed by a tour, and in 2014 a season at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. In 2015 she starred with James Dreyfus in Mary Chase's play Harvey at Birmingham Rep, on tour and at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.

Personal life and politics

Lipman is Jewish. She was married to dramatist Jack Rosenthal from 1974 until his death in 2004, and has had a number of roles in his works. She has two children, writers Amy and Adam Rosenthal. Lipman was a Labour Party supporter (until October 2014), but in October 2014 declared that she will no longer be voting Labour due to the party's support for recognition of Palestine. She is on the editorial advisory board of Jewish Renaissance magazine.

Lipman supports the work of the Burma Campaign UK, Europe's largest NGO regarding Burma. Lipman supports the process of democratisation in the country. Lipman also supports the work of Prospect Burma, a non-political charity that offers Burmese students the opportunity to study at universities outside of Burma. Lipman spoke on behalf of Prospect Burma in the BBC Radio 4 Charity Appeal, which was broadcast on 6 September 2009.

Lipman supported Israel during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict. On 13 July 2006, in a debate on the BBC's This Week, she argued that "human life is not cheap to the Israelis, and human life on the other side is quite cheap actually, because they strap bombs to people and send them to blow themselves up." These comments were condemned by Muslim political columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown who said "Brutally straight, she sees no equivalence between the lives of the two tribes" and journalist John Pilger, who in the New Statesman criticised the BBC for allowing Lipman – whom he described as "a Jew and promoter of selective good causes" – to present her allegedly insensitive remarks without, in his view, any "serious challenge". Lipman responded to Alibhai-Brown's accusation of racism by arguing that the columnist had deliberately misrepresented Lipman's comments as generalisations about Muslims rather than specific comments about terrorists.In The Jewish Chronicle, Lipman argued that media reporting of the conflict was "heavily distorted":

There is rarely any film of rockets being fired into Israel, nor any mention of the damage, nor of the 250,000 refugees who have fled to the centre of Israel, nor of rockets targeting Israel every day since it withdrew from Gaza, nor the damage done by 100 Hizbollah rockets a day...

More people are being killed in São Paulo, Somalia and Darfur than in this conflict. Where is the coverage? It is as if the Iraq War has completely stopped while this blanket coverage in Lebanon goes on and on and on... I sometimes think Israel should ban the press as Zimbabwe has. They are a democracy, though, and behave accordingly...

I respect freedom of speech, but I’m contemptuous of the 300 signatories [to the anti-Invasion Times advert and the Independent letter]". To English, assimilated, sometimes self-despising Jews such as Gerald Kaufman and Harold Pinter, I say: where are you going to go when the shit hits the fan? It doesn’t matter if you stand in Parliament or marry into the aristocracy, there will be no Israel to receive you, as they have received so many before. Why didn’t they put their ad in an Israeli newspaper? Because it is more important to impress their fellow Englishmen than to effect change in the situation. Where are their signatures against Burma, Nepal, Tibet and Zimbabwe?...

In a January 2015 interview on LBC radio Lipman said she was considering immigrating to the United States or to Israel in response to increased anti-semitism in the UK

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


Steve Machrin will be 95 - credited as Cameraman in The Daleks' Master Plan

Steve Machin played the Cameraman in the Doctor Who story The Daleks' Master Plan.

Also worked on The Edison TwinsMustangITV Television Playhouse


 Deaths
Geoffrey Bayldon (died 2017 aged 93) - 3 credits, including Organon in The Creature from the Pit

Geoffrey Bayldon (born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire) is a British actor. 

After playing roles in many dramas including Shakespeare, he became known for portraying the title role of the children's series Catweazle (1970-72), after turning down the opportunity to play both the First and Second Doctors in Doctor Who. Bayldon's other long-running parts include the Crowman in Worzel Gummidge (1979-81) and Magic Grandad in the BBC television series Watch (1995).

Bayldon made several film appearances in the 1960s and 1970s, including King Rat (1965), To Sir, with Love (1967), Casino Royale (1967), the Envy segment of The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins (1971), the Marc Bolan/T. Rex film Born To Boogie and the film version (Porridge) of the television series Porridge (1979) as the Governor.

Among his more recent television appearances was the Five game show Fort Boyard (1998).

He also had a guest appearance in Doctor Who as Organon in The Creature from the Pit (1979). More recently, he has played an alternative First Doctor in two audio plays based on theDoctor Who television series by Big Finish Productions in the Doctor Who Unbound series: Auld Mortality and A Storm of Angels.

Other television roles include parts in the dramatisation of Blott on the Landscape (1985) and in two episodes of The Avengers (1961, 1967) and of Star Cops (1987). He was in the Tales of the Unexpected episode "Down Among the Sheltering Palms" (1983). He has also appeared in a number of BBC Schools programmes,[1] where he has displayed a number of otherwise unexploited talents (such as singing). In 1993 he played Simplicio in the Open University video Newton's Revolution. In 2007 he made a guest appearance in New Tricks as Leonard Casey.

In 1986 Bayldon provided the vocals on Paul Hardcastle's "The Wizard" which was also used (without the vocal) as the theme for BBC TV's Top of the Pops.

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


Maurice Good (died 2013 aged 80) - credited as Phineas Clanton in The Gunfighters

Maurice Good was born in Dublin in 1932.

As well as his role in Doctor Who, he also appeared in No Hiding Place, Dixon of Dock Green, The Avengers and The New Avengers, The Saint, and towards the end of his career in the tv movies Much Ado About Nothing and The Taming of the Shrew in the 1980s. 

He retired to Corner Brook, Newfoundland, Canada, where he lived with his wife Susan. He also had a son named Stephen.


Robert Jewell (died 1998 aged 78) - 13 credits, including Dalek Operator in The Dalek Invasion of Earth

Robert Jewell was a Dalek operator in several episodes of the original Doctor Who television series and in the 1960s Dalek movies. 

Unlike most Dalek operators, however, he did get a chance to guest star in a speaking role outside the Dalek casing. He played a clown in "The Feast of Steven", thus giving him two roles in The Daleks' Master Plan.

He also notably took some still photography of the transmission of "The Feast of Steven" which, due to the fact that John Cura was not then employed to take telesnaps of Doctor Who, became the only surviving images of that episode. Technically, however, they weren't telesnaps, as they didn't use Cura's professional process. They were simply the amateur efforts of Jewell pointing a camera at his television screen and clicking, resulting in mostly very low quality, blurry images.

Biography from the Tardis Wiki article, licensed under CC-BY-SA


Paddy Ryan (died 1990 aged 79) - 2 credits, including Scientist (Kalid) in Genesis of the Daleks

Paddy Ryan was born in Greenwich in 1911 (sometimes cited as 1904), his parents being William McCree and Jane Margaret Martha (nee Lazell). He was known for his work on films such as An American Werewolf in London (1981), The Meaning of Life (1983) and The Crimson Permanent Assurance (1983). He lived in Watford, where he died in 1990.