Statistics


On This Day (USA) - 10 October



The Curse of Clyde Langer: Episode One premiered on CBBC in 2011 at 5:15pm BST, watched by 0.79 million viewers.

The Demons of Red Lodge premiered on Radio 4 Extra in 2015 at 6:00pm BST

Something menacing lurks outside the woodshed on a dark, misty Suffolk night in 1665.


Before The Flood premiered on BBC One in 2015 at 8:26pm BST, watched by 6.05 million viewers.

On a remote outpost, a fearsome alien warlord sets in motion a plan to ensure his own survival. As the ripples are felt across the universe, the Doctor must consider the unthinkable.


Before The Flood premiered on BBC America in 2015 at 9:00pm EDT, watched by 0.94 million viewers.

Part 2. On a remote Army outpost, a fearsome alien warlord, the Fisher King, sets in motion a twisted plan to ensure his own survival. The ripples will be felt around the universe. Is this chain of events inevitable? And can the Doctor do the unthinkable?


 Birthdays
Joe Dixon will be 59 - credited as The Chancellor in The End of Time

Joe Dixon is a British television and film actor who is perhaps best known for his role as Jacques in The Mummy Returns.

Joe Dixon was born in BirminghamEngland. He was nominated for a 2004 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role of 2003 for his performance in The Roman Actor at the Gielgud Theatre (Royal Shakespeare Company). He began acting with the Birmingham Youth Theatre. Dixon graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and Castle Vale Comp. A professional tenor, Joe Dixon sang the lead role in "The Bacchae" Opera at Queen Elizabeth Hall, and was in the top ten in DenmarkSpain and Russia for backing vocals. Can play the euphonium, guitar, tuba and piano fluently.

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


Sarah Lancashire will be 60 - 2 credits, including Miss Foster in Partners in Crime

Sarah Lancashire (born in OldhamLancashire) is an English actress, probably best recognised for her role as Raquel Watts in Coronation Street. She graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1986.

Lancashire's first recurring television role is still her best known. She played barmaid Raquel Watts in the ITV1 soap opera Coronation Street from 1991 to 1996, reappearing for one last episode in 1999. Raquel was a sweet, if somewhat dippy character, who was a firm favourite with viewers of the long running show. She had previously appeared on the programme in November 1987 playing Wendy Farmer.

After leaving Coronation Street, rather than struggle to find work in other shows after playing such a well known character (a fate that has befallen many soap opera actors), Lancashire worked in a number of high profile series. From 1997 to 1999 she played Ruth Goddard in the ITV1 drama series Where The Heart Is, and in 1999 she appeared in the BBC sitcom Murder Most Horrid, which also starred comedienne Dawn French.

Lancashire has appeared in the BBC Radio 4 legal sitcom Chambers which later moved onto television. In 2000, she starred in the dramaSeeing Red, portraying actress Coral Atkins, who founded a care home for children. and won two British television industry awards as a result. In 2001 she went on to star in the acclaimed BBC drama series Clocking Off, a role that saw her win the Best Actress award at theTelevision and Radio Industry Club Awards. Lancashire has continued to work regularly since, notably in a BBC drama portraying Angela Cannings, a British woman who was convicted of killing her two baby sons but was released when medical evidence given at her trial was deemed dubious. She has recently appeared in two series of the ITV1 drama series Rose and Maloney.

In 2002, she played the role of Meg Bartlet in the psychological thriller tele-movie The Cry. Her character Meg, a social worker grieving the stillbirth of her daughter, befriends a woman called Christine whose baby daughter Eleanor suffers from breathing problems. Gradually, Meg becomes convinced the child is being abused and eventually abducts her after the claims make headline news. Changing her car and appearance and using the name Annie Lomax, she heads to Cheshire where Christine used to live, determined to prove that Eleanor's mother is guilty of abuse.

In September 2006, she starred in a BBC comedy drama Angel Cake, and in 2007 she played Mary Miles in the E4 teen Comedy/DramaSkins. In April 2008, she appeared in "Partners in Crime", the opening episode of the 2008 series of Doctor Who, as "Miss Foster, an enigmatic and powerful businesswoman".[1] She also narrates the BBC drama series Lark Rise to Candleford. Filmed in August to December 2008, Lancashire stars in All the Small Things alongside Neil Pearson and Richard Fleeshman. She plays Esther Caddick, a full-time mother and choir member in the short TV series Heart and Soul.[2]

In Spring 2010 Lancashire portrayed the mother of murdered prostitute Anneli Alderton in the BBC Drama Five Daughters At a time,she was listed as the highest paid actress in british television.

On 5 December 2005, she returned to the West End stage to play Miss Adelaide in the Donmar Warehouse production of Guys and Dolls at the Piccadilly Theatre. Her taking over from Jane Krakowski coincided with Nigel Harman's taking over of the role of Sky Masterson fromEwan McGregor. Lancashire suffered a reported chest infection and was forced to leave the production officially on 7 February 2006 having not performed since the matinee performance on 4 January 2006.

Lancashire's last role to date was that of Joyce Chilvers in the new Cameron Macintosh production of Betty Blue Eyes, which ran in the Novello Theatre in London until September 2011.

In 2005, Lancashire made her directorial debut on an episode of the BBC series The Afternoon Play and was nominated for the Best New Director award at the BAFTA television awards.

In 2006 she presented an edition of the Five documentary social heritage series Disappearing Britain in which she interviewed people with memories of Wakes Week holidays in Blackpool by Cotton mill workers in the early 20th Century. It included an investigation of her own family history and holidays by her great grandfather Tom Lancashire in Llandudno.

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



Victor Pemberton (died 2017 aged 85) would be 93 - 4 credits, including Writer for Fury From the Deep

Victor Pemberton was a British writer and television producer.

Victor Pemberton's scriptwriting work included BBC radio plays, and television scripts for the BBC and ITV, including Doctor Who, The Slide and The Adventures of Black Beauty.

His television production work included the British version of Fraggle Rock (second series onwards), and several independent documentaries including the 1989 International Emmy Award-winning Gwen: A Juliet Remembered, about stage actress Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies.

In his earlier years Pemberton had several small screen acting roles. In addition to novelisations, he has written many nostalgic novels set in London, prompted by the success of his autobiographical radio drama series Our Family.

His partner for many years was the actor David Spenser.

In the Summer of 2016 Pemberton traveled to the Arctic circle to raise money for Help for Heroes.


Nicholas Parsons (died 2020 aged 96) would be 101 - credited as The Rev. Mr. Wainwright in The Curse of Fenric

Nicholas Parsons OBE is a British radio and television presenter and actor.

Parsons is best known as the host of the BBC Radio 4 panel game Just a Minute since it was first broadcast on 22 December 1967. The show continues to be transmitted and Parsons has been heard in every edition. 

He played Reverend Wainwright in the Doctor Who serial The Curse of Fenric.

Parsons was in GranthamLincolnshire, the middle child, with an older brother and a younger sister.

He started his career while training as an engineering apprentice; he was found by Canadian impresario Carroll Levis, doing impressions and working in small repertory theatres in Glasgow.

Parsons made his film debut in Master of Bankdam in 1947. He continued his stage career in small parts in West End theatre shows, then did two years in repertory at Bromley, Kent and later WindsorMaidstone and Hayes. After becoming a resident comedian at the Windmill Theatre in 1952, Parsons became well known to TV audiences during the 1950s as the straight man to comedian Arthur Haynes. After the pair appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1961, the partnership broke up at Haynes request allowing Parsons to return to the stage, before he became a regular on The Benny Hill Show from 1969 to 1974. After Haynes' sudden death, Parsons appeared as a personality in his own right, culminating in the long-running Anglia Television game showSale of the Century, broadcast weekly from 1971 to 1983.

He was the non-singing voice of Tex Tucker in the TV series Four Feather Falls at the suggestion of his then wife, actress and voiceover artiste Denise Bryer. During the late sixties he presented a satirical programme on Radio Four called Listen to This Space, which by the standards of its time was very risqu�. Also, in the late 1960s, he portrayed "David Courtney" on the short-lived American sitcom The Ugliest Girl in Town.

In 1988 he appeared as himself in The Comic Strip Presents episode "Mr Jolly Lives Next Door", in which he had the misfortune to encounter two incompetent escort agency directors (Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson in their usual cheerfully-violent, dipsomaniac personas) followed by the psychopathic and misnamed Mr Jolly himself (played by Peter Cook).  Another guest role in 1989 was in The New Statesman, where he played host to a daytime quiz show. He has also taken the role of the narrator in the stage musical The Rocky Horror Show. In 1993 he appeared in the final fourth series of the UK TV show Cluedo as Reverend Green. In 2010, he made a brief appearance as Father Gorman in Marple: The Pale Horse but was killed off three minutes into the show.


 Deaths
Alan Lake (died 1984 aged 43) - credited as Herrick in Underworld

Alan Lake  was an English actor, best known as the third husband of Diana Dors.

Lake was born in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. He studied acting at RADA, and began to work in television roles in 1964.

He met his later wife, Diana Dors, on the set of the 1968 television series The Inquisitors. Their stormy marriage produced a son, Jason David, born in 1969. The pair worked together in the early 1970s, on stage in plays such as Three Months Gone.

In July 1970 Lake was involved in a pub brawl for which he was sentenced to eighteen months in prison later that year (his friend, the musician Leapy Lee, was sentenced to three years for stabbing the pub's relief manager), although he was released after serving a year.

Lake was a keen horseman and on his release from prison Dors presented him with a mare named Sapphire. While riding the horse in 1972 he was unseated when the horse ran into the bough of a tree, and broke his back, and for a time it was thought he may spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair; In fact, he recovered and was walking again within three weeks.

After leaving hospital, unable to work while he recovered, and in severe pain, he began drinking heavily. 

Lake's once promising acting career was now reduced for the remainder of the 1970s to small parts in low-budget comedy films and television dramas, although he had a significant role as a singer Jack Daniels in the Slade vehicle Slade In Flame in 1974 and also as John Merrick in the first episode of the hugely popular TV series The Sweeney. Both he and Diana Dors attended the film premiere at the Metropole Theatre, Victoria, London on 13 February 1975.

In 1980, the pair separated for a time, although they were reconciled when Lake promised to undergo treatment for his alcoholism. In May 1984, Dors died after a long illness.

On 10 October 1984, after taking their son to the railway station he returned to their Sunningdale home and committed suicide by shooting himself in the head in their son's bedroom.

His roles included  parts in Cluff, Redcap, Sergeant Cork, The Saint, Public Eye, The Avengers, Department S, Dixon of Dock Green, The Protectors, Z-Cars, Softly, Softly: Taskforce, Crown Court, The Sweeney, Angels, Target, Hazell, Strangers, Blake's 7, Juliet Bravo, The Gentle Touch, Hart to Hart and Bergerac.


Joan Young (died 1984 aged 81) - credited as Catherine de Medici in The Massacre

Joan Young played Catherine de Medici in the 1966Doctor Who story The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve.

Other credits include All Creatures Great and Small, Salvage 1The Chiffy KidsShades of GreeneSykesBilly LiarThe Stanley Baxter ShowZ CarsThe Wednesday PlayNo Hiding PlaceDixon of Dock GreenDr. KildareDoctor KnockThe CitadelThe Inn of the Sixth HappinessMaverickAnne of Green Gables


Laidlaw Dalling (died 1982 aged 54) - credited as Rouvray in The Reign Of Terror

Angelo Muscat (died 1977 aged 47) - credited as Chumbley in Galaxy 4

Angelo Muscat  was a character actor.

Muscat was born in Malta. He appeared in 14 of the 17 episodes of the sixties cult television series The Prisoner, in which he played the famously mute Butler. Distinctly diminutive at only 4 ft 3 in (1.3 m), he played an Oompa-Loompa in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (uncredited, 1971). He also appeared in the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour.

He appeared in the 1965 Doctor Who story Galaxy 4.

He made ornate birdcages by hand. Each year, on October 10, a small group of enthusiasts dubbed the "Friends of Angelo Muscat" (FOAM) celebrate his life.