Statistics


On This Day (USA) - 5 August



Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. premiered on UK Venues in 1966 at 6:00pm BST

 Birthdays
Brian Minchin will be 46 - 115 credits, including Script Editor for Time Crash (Children in Need)

Brian Minchin has been a script editor for Doctor Who and Torchwood. He was also a producer for The Sarah Jane Adventures, producer of the UK side of Torchwood: Miracle Day, and assistant producer on Torchwood: Children Of Earth.

In addition, he has worked on Dirk GentlyTonight's the NightBelongingDead Long EnoughSacrificeThe Boy with Blue EyesThe Glossy MagBang Bang I Love YouThe Divine Eugene HicksWork in ProgressThe Shoe CollectorThe Hairy FairyThe Measure of My Days, and Down.

On 30th April 2013, it was announced that Minchin had been appointed co-executive producer on Doctor Who with immediate effect, replacing Caroline Skinner.


Paul Kasey will be 51 - 66 credits, including Ood Sigma in Planet of the Ood

Paul Kasey  is an English actor who has played many monsters on Doctor Who and Torchwood since the series revival in 2005. 

Roles include the Cybercontroller, the Cyber Leader, Cybermen, a clockwork android, the Hoix, an Auton, a Slitheen, an Ood, the Anne-Droid and a member of the Forest of Cheem in Doctor Who, and Janet the Weevil, Alien Blowfish and a Hoix in Torchwood.

He has also made four appearances in The Sarah Jane Adventures and frequent appearances as himself on Totally Doctor Who, usually in costume. He has also appeared as a zombie in "28 Days Later"


Matt Jones will be 56 - 4 credits, including Writer for The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit

Matt Jones is a British television writer and television producer, who has worked on a variety of popular drama programmes for several television networks in the UK.

He wrote the 2006 Doctor Who stories "The Impossible Planet" and "The Satan Pit"  and the seventh episode of the second series Torchwood, called "Dead Man Walking".

Matt Jones began his writing career as a columnist for Doctor Who Magazine in 1995, before the following year having a novel, Bad Therapy, printed in Virgin Publishing's range of licensed Doctor Who tie-in books, the New Adventures. He later wrote Beyond the Sun for the same series.

His big break in television came in 1999, when he was the script editor on Red Production Company's controversial drama series Queer as Folk, screened on Channel 4. The same year, he script edited another Channel 4 drama produced by Red, the anthology series Love in the 21st Century, for which he also wrote one episode.

The following year he worked as a writer on two series for Granada Television, their popular children's drama Children's Ward and flagship soap opera Coronation Street, both aired on the ITV network. Returning to Red, in 2000 he script edited the first series of the British Academy Television Award-winning drama Clocking Off, and in 2001 he gained his first credit as a producer when he both wrote and produced the one-off drama Now You See Her, starring Amanda Holden, for the satellite channel Sky One.

In 2003 he began working for Company Pictures, creating, writing and producing the crime drama Serious and Organised, starring Martin Kemp and again screened on ITV. Moving up to become an Executive Producer, he worked on another Company series for ITV, the Second World War-set POW. In 2004 he was an Executive Producer on Company's critically acclaimed drama series Shameless, screened on Channel 4, and became the show's producer for the second season in 2005, the year in which the programme won a British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series.

In 2012 Jones wrote the second episode of the BBC Four TV series Dirk Gently based on the novels by Douglas Adams.


Derek Keller (died 2018 aged 75) would be 82 - credited as Kaufman in Remembrance of the Daleks

Born Derek Smith, Keller changed his name when joining Equity, and was affectionally known as "Bo" in the industry.

Having trained at the Northern School of Music in Manchester, the actor played roles in a number of theatre and television roles, which as well as his appearance as Kaufman in Remembrance of the Daleks also included Coronation Street and shows such as Stand Up, Virgin Soldiers, South Riding, Hadleigh, The Fenn Street Gang, Four Dimensions of Greta, On the House, No Blade of Grass, The Dustbinmen, Parkin's Patch, The Wednesday Play, and Gazette.

In 1988 he formed an agency with Fred Bannon in Brighton named Mahoney Bannon Associates (in memory to the former John Mahoney Management he took over control of upon its owner's death).

Keller divided his time between living in the UK and Nice in France. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2016.

Adapted from The Stage obituary.


Tim Preece will be 86 - 2 credits, including Codal in Planet of the Daleks

Tim Preece (born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire) is an English actor.

He played the politically correct Tom Patterson in two series of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin and The Legacy Of Reginald Perrin and also had a role in Doctor Who in 1973. He later appeared as the editor of a local newspaper in 'The Journalist' an episode of People Like Us with Chris Langham

Other television appearances include Foyle's War: "War Games" (2003) as James Philby, and as the pilot of a doomed holiday jet in the famous Casualty episode Cascade (1992).


Wanda Ventham will be 89 - 3 credits, including Jean Rock in The Faceless Ones

Wanda Ventham is an English actress.

he is well known for her role as Col. Virginia Lake in the 1970 science fiction TV series UFO, and for her recurring role in Only Fools and Horses as Pamela Parry (Cassandra's mother) (1989�1992). She also appeared in TV series The Saint with Roger Moore in multiple episodes.

Ventham was born in Brighton, Sussex, England. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

Her first appearance on film was in a British drama called My Teenage Daughter with Anna Neagle and Sylvia Syms in 1956. She also appeared in the films Carry On Cleo (1964) and Carry On Up the Khyber (1968).

Her numerous television credits included regular roles in Heartbeat as Fiona Weston (1996�1997); Hetty Wainthropp Investigates as Margaret Balshaw; and The Rag Trade as Shirley (1962�1963). She also played a love interest for Arthur Daley in Minder; Susan's mother in Coupling; and Deborah's mother in Men Behaving Badly. She had the lead role in the 15-part BBC TV series The Lotus Eaters in 1972-73, starring with Ian Hendry; and made a guest appearance in Rutland Weekend Television, the first TV series made by comic Eric Idle after Monty Python's Flying Circus came to an end. Other comedy roles included appearances on The Two Ronnies.

She has appeared in Doctor Who on three occasions over three decades: playing Jean Rock in The Faceless Ones (1967), Thea Ransome in Image of the Fendahl (1977) and Faroon in Time and the Rani (1987)

She had a small role in the science fiction drama The Prisoner, and the sitcoms Executive Stress and Next of Kin.

Ventham's son is the actor Benedict Cumberbatch. 


Jeffrey Wickham (died 2014 aged 80) would be 91 - credited as Webster in The Reign Of Terror

Jeffrey Wickham is a British film and television actor.

he played Webster in the 1964 Doctor Who story The Reign of Terror.

He is the father of Rupert Wickham, who played Captain Dudgeon in Big Finish's No Man's Land and Major Jonas Faber in  Klein's Story.

Other credits include Black MirrorSpooksMidsomer MurdersPeak PracticeBodyguardsThe Young Indiana Jones ChroniclesClarissaYes, Prime MinisterStrangers and BrothersSapphire & SteelNannyPlay for TodayBBC2 PlayhouseSecret ArmyEdward the SeventhThe Unpleasantness at the Bellona ClubManhuntITV Play of the WeekObject ZNo Hiding PlaceEmergency-Ward 10