Statistics


On This Day (USA) - 4 August



Escape to L.A. premiered on BBC One in 2011 at 9:01pm BST, watched by 5.19 million viewers.
Sci-fi drama. The fight against PhiCorp takes the Torchwood team to California, where a trap is waiting. Meanwhile, Oswald and Jilly find themselves with an enemy of their own.

Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor premiered on BBC One in 2013 at 7:00pm BST
In a special one-off live television event on BBC One this Sunday 4th August at 7pm, the next Doctor will be exclusively revealed to the nation.

 Birthdays
Lucinda Dryzek will be 33 - credited as Melissa in School Reunion

Lucinda Dryzek is an English actress. Probably best known for playing Katy Riley in the BBC sitcom Life of Riley.

She started acting at the age of eight, and has since appeared in several film, television and theatre productions. Dryzek has played Katy in the BBC family sitcom Life of Riley, now in its third series, since 2009. She is also known for her role as Young Elizabeth Swann in 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

Her credits appearances in The Sound of Music, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and several pantomimes, and roles in feature and made-for-television movies. She has also acted in TV series Help! I'm a Teenage Outlaw as Lady Devereux/DeeDee. She had supporting roles in the TV show Five Days and in the film City of Ember.


Ruth Madeley will be 37 - 2 credits, including Shirley Bingham in The Star Beast

Ruth Madeley is a British actress known for her roles in Years and Years and The Rook.

She was born with spina bifida and has worked with the charity Whizz-Kidz for much of her life.

She was nominated for a television BAFTA in 2016 for her work in Don't Take My Baby.


Fenella Woolgar will be 55 - 9 credits, including Captain Eslo in In the Night

Fenella Woolgar is an English actress.

Woolgar is the youngest daughter of Maureen (née McCann) and Michael Woolgar. Her brother Dermot is a barrister and her sister Claudia works in the arts in Ireland. Her early years were spent in New Canaan, Connecticut, before the family returned to the United Kingdom in 1976. Her father worked as an economist for many years and the family travelled to Kuwait and Sharjah. Her mother is of Irish heritage. She was educated at Mayfield Convent, Durham University, and then Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). At university she directed Murder in the Cathedral in Durham Cathedral, acted and was a member of the Durham Revue.

She graduated from RADA in 1999 and on leaving did mostly theatre, particularly at the Royal Exchange, Manchester until she got her break in 2002 playing Agatha in Stephen Fry’s film Bright Young Things. She has subsequently gone on to work with Mike Leigh, Conor McPherson and Woody Allen. She played Agatha Christie in Doctor Who in 2008. She has recently worked in theatre at the National Theatre and The Old Vic. She won the Clarence Derwent Award for Best Supporting Actress in the West End in 2013 and the Sunday Times Culture Award for Stage Performance of the Year 2014. She is regularly heard on the radio and was nominated for Best Actress on the radio in 2013 for An American Rose in which she played Rosemary Kennedy. She played the title role in Mrs Dalloway for BBC Radio 4 and Edith Wharton in both The Jinx Element and Ethan Frome. She has narrated several audiobooks and was nominated for Audio Book of the Year 2013.

She married Dr Robert Harland in 2006. The couple have three children: Kit, born 2007, and Tristan and Gabriel, born 2009. She paints and speaks Italian.

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


Dani Biernat will be 55 - 36 credits, including Stunt coordinator for Into the Dalek

Stunt performer.

Has worked on many films and TV drams including Thor: The Dark World,  Skyfall , The Sweeney, Big Fat Gypsy Gangster,  Dead Cert, Holby City


Russ Karel (died 1995 aged 46) would be 75 - 3 credits, including Assistant Floor Manager for The Sontaran Experiment

Russ Karel was Assistant Floor Manager for the Season 12 Doctor Who television stories The Ark in Space, The Sontaran Experiment and Revenge of the Cybermen.


Ian Liston (died 2016 aged 68) would be 76 - credited as 'Hero' in The Armageddon Factor

Ian Liston played Wes Janson and an unnamed AT-AT gunner in The Empire Strikes Back.

He appeared in Doctor Who in the story The Armageddon Factor (1979).


Georgina Hale (died 2024 aged 80) would be 81 - credited as Daisy K. in The Happiness Patrol

Georgina Hale is an award-winning English actress notable for many stage, film and television appearances. She is perhaps best known for her BAFTA-winning performance as Alma Mahler in the 1974 film, Mahler.

Hale appeared in rep at Canterbury, Windsor and Ipswich; then at the Liverpool Playhouse in 1967, where her parts included the title role in Gigi, and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. At the Thorndike Theatre in Leatherhead in October 1975 she played Liza Doolittle in Pygmalion, followed by an acclaimed portrayal of Nina in Chekhov's The Seagull at the Derby Playhouse in July 1976, making her West End debut in the production when it transferred to the Duke of York's Theatre in August 1976.

Other roles included: Marie Caroline David in The Tribades (Hampstead, May 1978); Melanie in Boo Hoo (Open Space, July 1978); and Bobbi Michele in The Last of the Red Hot Lovers (Royal Exchange, Manchester, April 1979 - transferring to the Criterion Theatre in November 1979).

In 1981, Hale played the role of Josie in Nell Dunn�s play, Steaming, at the Comedy Theatre in London. Hale received a 1981 Best Comedy Performance Olivier Award nomination for her performance.

A year later in April 1982 she starred opposite Glenda Jackson in Summit Conference at the Lyric Theatre, playing Benito Mussolini's mistress Clara Petacci in a revival of Robert David MacDonald's play for the Glasgow Citizens Theatre.

Hale�s most notable film role is arguably that of Alma Mahler in Ken Russell�s Mahler (1974), a biopic of the Austrian composer and conductor, Gustav Mahler. Hale received the 1974 Most Promising Newcomer BAFTA Film Award for her performance.[7] Hale also made appearances in a number of Russell�s other films, with supporting roles in The Devils (1971), and The Boyfriend (1971), and cameo roles in Lisztomania (1975), Valentino (1977), and Treasure Island (1995).

Subsequent film appearances include supporting roles in Butley (1974), McVicar (1980), Castaway (1986), Preaching to the Perverted (1997), Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (2005), and Cockneys VS Zombies (2011).

Hale's television career spans five decades. Her first major television appearances were opposite Adam Faith in the ITV series, Budgie (1971�1972) and as Lili Dietrich in the miniseries The Strauss Family (1972). In 1975, Hale featured in two television plays written by Simon Gray. These were Plaintiffs and Defendants and Two Sundays, broadcast as part of the ITV series, Play for Today (1975).

In 1990, Hale succeeded Elizabeth Estensen in the eponymous role of T-Bag, the villainous, tea drinking sorceress in a succession of children�s adventure series produced by Thames Television. Hale played the role in four series and two Christmas specials broadcast between 1990-1992.

Other notable television appearances include guest starring roles in Upstairs, Downstairs (1975), Minder (1980), Hammer House of Horror (1980), One Foot in the Grave (1990), Murder Most Horrid (1994), The Bill (2002), Emmerdale (2006), and The Commander (2007).


Martin Jarvis will be 83 - 5 credits, including Butler in Invasion of the Dinosaurs

Martin Jarvis is an English actor.

Jarvis has had three main roles in Doctor Who. He played Hilo, one of the Menoptera in the 1965 story The Web Planet, Butler in the 1974 story  Invasion of the Dinosaurs, and The Governor in the 1985 story Vengeance on Varos.

Jarvis was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

Jarvis has had a long association with the BBC, particularly BBC Radio 4. He performs regularly in radio dramas and readings, both comic and serious.  In America, Jarvis and his wife Rosalind Ayres perform frequently in audio drama with the L.A. Theater Works and Hollywood Theater of the Ear.

Jarvis became a familiar face on television when he played Jon in the BBC's landmark 1967 adaptation of The Forsyte Saga, the lead in a BBC serialisation of Nicholas Nickleby (1968), Uriah Heep in the 1974 BBC version of David Copperfield and the male lead in the sitcom Rings On Their Fingers (1978-80) with Diane Keen. 

In 1993 he starred with Ewan McGregor and Rachel Weisz in the BBC adaptation of Scarlet and Black. He also appeared in the 2002 BBC children's miniseries Bootleg.


John Atterbury will be 83 - 2 credits, including Robot in The Mind Robber

John Atterbury  is an actor whose first role was in the 1968 story The Mind Robber.


 Deaths
Janet Hargreaves (died 2018 aged 81) - credited as Mum in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy

Janet Hargreaves played Mum in the 1988 story The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.

She was best known for playing Rosemary Hunter in the long running soap opera Crossroads.

Also worked on StrandedDucksWhat Goes AroundDoctorsStories of Lost SoulsNew Year's EveBaby BluesTrial & RetributionAgatha Christie: PoirotHetty Wainthropp InvestigatesForever GreenMaking NewsBottle BoysFrankenstein and the Monster from HellFollyfootThe DoctorsThe Deadly AffairDanger ManCompactThe Avengers


John Alderson (died 2006 aged 90) - credited as Wyatt Earp in The Gunfighters

John "Basher" Alderson led a colorful life considering his origins in a mining village in the north of England. After spending all of two weeks as a miner, he lied about his age, joined the British Army and attained the rank of Major. Leaving for the US, he married a General's secretary and got into the movies, often playing villains. He played (uncredited) the Gum Chewer in Blazing Saddles.


Maurice Colbourne (died 1989 aged 49) - 2 credits, including Lytton in Resurrection of the Daleks

Maurice Colbourne was a British stage and television actor best know in Doctor Who for playing Lytton in two stories in the 1980's, Resurrection of the Daleks (1984) and Attack of the Cybermen (1985)

He is probably best remembered as Tom Howard, in the BBC Television serial, Howards' Way, which he played from 1985�89 

Colbourne was born in Sheffield at the outbreak of World War II, and studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama. He took his stage name from that of an earlier film actor called Maurice Colbourne, who shared the same birthday. 

He first became well known when he played the lead in a BBC drama series, Gangsters, from 1975�78, and afterwards appeared regularly on screen.

He also appeared in the television miniseries adaptation of John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids (1981), as the character Jack Coker. He also played Charles Marston, the love interest of Lady Fogarty in Series 7th series of the "Onedin Line" screened between 22 July - 23 September 1979.

In 1972 he co-founded, together with Mike Irving and Guy Sprung, the Half Moon Theatre near Aldgate, east London. This was a successful, radical theatre company, performing initially in an 80-seat disused synagogue in Half Moon Passage, E1. In 1985 the company moved to a converted chapel in Mile End Road, near Stepney Green.

He died suddenly aged 49 of a heart attack while renovating a holiday home in Dinan, Brittany, France.