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On This Day (USA) - 27 June



The Sensorites: The Unwilling Warriors premiered on BBC One in 1964 at 5:40pm BST, watched by 6.90 million viewers.

The Doctor and his companions are on board an Earth ship trapped in orbit around the Sense-Sphere when it is boarded by the Sensorites who steal the lock mechanism from the TARDIS.


Forest of the Dead premiered on SyFy (East Coast Feed) in 2008 at 9:00pm EDT

 Birthdays
Ian Boldsworth was 51 - credited as Banto in Blink

Ian Boldsworth played Banto in the 2007 story Blink. 

He is a well known British stand-up comedian, performing under the name Ray Peacock. He has also appeared in Skins, and is possibly best known for the Peacock and Gamble Podcast, performed with his friend Ed Gamble and hosted by Chortle.co.uk.

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


Meera Syal was 63 - credited as Nasreen Chaudhry in The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood

Meera Syal MBE is a British comedian, writer, playwright, singer, journalist, producer and actress. She rose to prominence as one of the team that created Goodness Gracious Me and became one of the UK's best-known Indian personalities portraying Sanjeev's grandmother, Ummi, in The Kumars at No. 42.

She was awarded the MBE in the 1997 New Year Honours and in 2003 was listed in The Observer as one of the fifty funniest acts in British comedy.

Her Punjab-born parents came to England from New Delhi. She was born in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, and grew up in Essington, a mining village a few miles to the north. When she was a young girl the family moved to Bloxwich. She attended Queen Mary's High School in nearby Walsall, and then studied English and drama at Manchester University.

Syal wrote the screenplay for the 1993 film Bhaji on the Beach, directed by Gurinder Chadha, of Bend It Like Beckham fame. She was one of the team who wrote and performed in the BBC comedy sketch show Goodness Gracious Me(1996-2001), originally on radio and then on television.

She achieved a number one record with Gareth Gates and her co-stars from The Kumars at No. 42 with Spirit in the Sky, the Comic Relief single. She also sang Then He Kissed Me (composed by Biddu) with the Pakistani pop star Nazia Hassan. Syal, Hassan and Bidddu also came up with the girl band named "Saffron" in 1988

In October 2008 she starred in the BBC2 sitcom Beautiful People. This role, as Aunty Hayley, continued in 2009. Syal starred in the eleventh series of Holby City as Consultant Tara Sodi. In 2009, she guest starred in Minder and starred in the film Mad, Sad & Bad. In 2010, she played Shirley Valentine in a one-woman show at the Trafalgar Studios. In the same year she played Nasreen Chroudhry in two episodes of Doctor Who alongside Matt Smith. Her Goodness Gracious Me co-star, Nina Wadia, also appeared earlier in the same series episode The Eleventh Hour.

Syal won the National Student Drama Award for performing in One of Us which was written by Jacqueline Shapiro while at university. She won the Betty Trask Award for her first book Anita and Me and the Media Personality of the Year award at the Commission for Racial Equality's annual Race in the Media awards in 2000.

She was given the Nazia Hassan Foundation award in 2003.

In June 2003 she appeared as a guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs programme with a selection of music by Nitin Sawhney, Madan Bala Sindhu, Joni Mitchell, Pizzicato Five, Sukhwinder Singh, Louis Armstrong and others. The luxury she chose to ease her life as a castaway was a piano. As a journalist she writes occasionally for The Guardian.

In 2004 she took part in one episode of the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are?, which investigated her family history. One of her parents is Hindu and the other a Sikh and since both share the same cultural heritage the families had no problem at all. Syal was apparently surprised to discover both her grandfathers had campaigned against British rule and presence in India: one was a communist journalist; the other was a Punjab protestor, who was imprisoned and tortured in the Golden Temple.

In January 2005, Syal married her frequent collaborator, Sanjeev Bhaskar, who plays her grandson in The Kumars At No. 42; the marriage ceremony took place in Lichfield, Staffordshire. Their baby, a boy named Shaan, was born at the Portland Hospital on 2 December 2005. Syal has a daughter called Chameli from her former marriage to journalist Shekhar Bhatia. Her brother is investigative journalist Rajeev Syal.

In February 2009, Syal was one of a number of British entertainers who signed an open letter printed in The Times protesting about the persecution of Bahá'ís in Iran.

In January 2011, Syal took part in the BBC Radio 4 programme My Teenage Diary, discussing growing up as the only British Asian girl in a small English town, feeling overweight and unattractive.

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


Marcello Magni (died 2022 aged 63) would have been 65 - credited as Barney Collins in The Eleventh Hour

Marcello Magni played Barney Collins in the Doctor Who story The Eleventh Hour.

He is also responsible for the voice of the CBeebies character Pingu.

He is one of the co founders of the British theatre company Complicite.


 Deaths
Joan Sims (died 2001 aged 71) - credited as Katryca in The Trial of a Time Lord (The Mysterious Planet)

Joan Sims was an English actress, best remembered for her roles in the Carry On films, and latterly for playing both Madge Hardcastle in As Time Goes By, and Mrs Wembley the cook with a liking for sherry in the TV comedy series On the Up.

Sims was born in 1930, the daughter of the station master of Laindon railway station in LaindonEssex. Sims' early interest in being an actress came from living at the railway station. She would often put on performances for waiting passengers. She decided that she was certainly interested in pursuing show business, and soon became a familiar face in a growing number of amateur productions locally, during her teens.

In 1946, Sims first applied to RADA, but her audition was unsuccessful. Her first audition included a rendition of Winnie the Pooh. She did succeed in being admitted to PARADA, the academy's preparatory school, and finally, on her fourth attempt, she graduated and was trained at RADA. She graduated from RADA in 1950 at the age of 19. One of her first stage performances was in the 1951 pantomimeThe Happy Ha'penny, opposite Stanley Baxter at Glasgow's Citizens Theatre.

Sims appeared in a number of Brian Rix's Aldwych Theatre farces, but revue was Sims' greatest medium, especially in the works of Peter Myers. In 1958 she got a part in Peter Coke's play Breath of Spring, which opened at theCambridge Theatre in March, transferring to the Duke of York's Theatre in August 1958, and running until April 1959. Sims preferred film to stage work. "It was, of course, lovely to be in a successful play, to have the excitement of performing a hit to packed houses (and, not least, the assurance of a regular income for the foreseeable future). But, on the other hand, I found it extremely difficult to keep a performance fresh, and I'd soon get bored."

Sims made her first film appearance in Will Any Gentleman? with George Cole in 1953, closely followed by Trouble in Store with Norman Wisdom. In 1954 she made a cameo appearance in Doctor in the House, opposite Dirk Bogardeas the sexually repressed Nurse Rigor Mortis. Sims became a regular in the Doctors series, which was produced by Betty E. Box, and was hence spotted by Box's husband Peter Rogers.

In 1958, Sims received a script from Peter Rogers: it was for Carry On Nurse. The film Carry On Sergeant had been a huge success at the box office and in the autumn of that year and Rogers and director Gerald Thomas began planning a follow-up.

She first starred in Carry On Nurse, then Carry On Teacher, followed by Carry On Constable and Carry On Regardless, and this sealed her future as a regular Carry On performer. Following a bout of ill health, Dilys Laye had to be brought in to take her place in Carry On Cruising at very short notice; however, Sims rejoined the team with Carry On Cleo.

After the Carry On series ended in 1978, Sims continued to work on television. She appeared opposite Katharine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier in the award-winning 1975 television film Love Among the Ruins and had a recurring role as Gran in the BBC comedy series Till Death Us Do Part. From 1979 until 1981 she played the recurring character Mrs Bloomsbury-Barton in Worzel Gummidge for Southern Television. During 1986 and 1987, Sims starred as Annie Begley alongside Angela Thorne in the Yorkshire Television sitcom Farrington of the F.O.. Also in 1986, Sims appeared in Doctor Who in the four episodes of The Trial of a Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet as Katryca. She also played Miss Murgatroyd in the Miss Marple adaptation, A Murder is Announced, Betsy Prig in a star-studded adaptation of Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit and Lady Fox-Custard in Simon and the Witch.

In 1989, she appeared as a medium in the video for Morrisey's "Ouija Board, Ouija Board".

She played Mrs Wembley in the BBC comedy series On the Up, which starred Dennis Waterman and ran from 1990 to 1992. From 1994, she played Madge Hardcastle, stepmother of Geoffrey Palmer's character Lionel in As Time Goes By. Sims also appeared in episodes of the hit television comedy series Only Fools and Horses and The Goodies, in One Foot in the Grave special One Foot in the Algarve, and made a guest appearance in a sketch show with Victoria Wood.

In her later years, Sims fought a long battle against depression. This was worsened by the deaths of her agent Peter Eade, her best friend Hattie Jacques and her mother, all within a two year period, which resulted in her falling intoalcoholism. Sims suffered from Bell's palsy in 1999 and fractured her hip in 2000 but recovered well. However, her alcoholism was beginning to dominate life in her rented Kensington flat, and she described herself as "the queen of puddings."[2][10] After assessment by a doctor, she was offered a place in a rehabilitation centre, but she decided to take control of her life. Offered the opportunity to write her autobiography, she took a role in the BBC television film The Last of the Blonde Bombshells, alongside Dame Judi Dench and Olympia Dukakis.

During 1963 Sims made several recordings. "Hurry Up Gran" / "Oh Not Again Ken" was issued as a single followed by "Spring Song" / "Men". Neither single made an impact on the UK Singles Chart. This did not deter her from releasing a third and final single during 1967 "Sweet Lovely Whatsisname" / "The Lass With the Delicate Hair". Although again it failed to chart and as a result the singles are now quite rare. As of 2009, both "Spring Song" and "Men" are available for the first time through iTunes and other download services, as well as on CD as part of re-issues of the comedy compilation albums Oh! What a Carry On! and Laugh A Minute. Sims also featured on an original cast recording of The Lord Chamberlain Regrets in 1961, as well as The Water Gypsies.


David Neal (died 2000 aged 68) - credited as President in The Caves of Androzani

David Neal was a popular British television actor, active in the 1960s, '70s, '80s and '90s. He is chiefly remembered for a prolific range of supporting roles in major productions.

Although very rarely cast in a lead role, David Neal had significant supporting roles in episodes of a great range of highly popular British television series, including Softly, SoftlyZ-CarsDoctor WhoInspector MorsePoirotThe Bill, and Wycliffe

David Neal worked in a broad range of roles during his career. In 1970 he took a major supporting role (Cinna) in the all-star feature film of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (which starred Charlton Heston,Christopher LeeRichard ChamberlainDiana Rigg, and Sir John Gielgud). A few years later (in 1979) he secured another significant supporting role as Richard le ScropeArchbishop of York in both Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2 in the BBC's major 'complete works of Shakespeare' series of television films.

Although not remembered for lead roles, an exception is the 1970s' children's television production The Flockton Flyer, written by Peter Whitbread, in which David Neal starred as the principal character, Bob Carter. The programme ran to two series, with an associated paperback novel.

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