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On This Day (USA) - 2 April



The Celestial Toymaker: The Celestial Toyroom premiered on BBC One in 1966 at 5:50pm BST, watched by 8.00 million viewers.

Arriving in the strange world of the Celestial Toymaker, the Doctor and his companions find themselves trapped there and forced to play a series of deadly games.


The Talons of Weng-Chiang: Part Six premiered on BBC One in 1977 at 6:30pm BST, watched by 9.30 million viewers.

The Doctor tracks Greel to his secret hideaway at the House of the Dragon. There the Doctor reveals the Weng-Chiang's real identity and confronts him for the last time.


The End Of The World premiered on BBC One in 2005 at 6:59pm BST, watched by 7.97 million viewers.

The Doctor and Rose visit the year five billion to watch as the expanding Sun swallows the Earth. But among the alien racesgathering to watch the spectacle, a murderer is at work.

Doctor Who Confidential is at 7.45pm on BBC3.


Aliens: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly premiered on BBC Three in 2005 at 7:45pm BST

This episode goes behind the scenes of The End Of The World

The focus is on the memorable monsters from the past 40 years of the show, from those who made them and those who played them to the Doctors who starred opposite them.


Totally Doctor Who (#2.1) premiered on BBC One in 2007 at 4:59pm BST, watched by 0.76 million viewers.
Barney Harwood and Kirsten O'Brien look at everything Doctor Who, with exclusive behind-the-scenes clips, a new Team Totally competition, and the first episode of exclusive Doctor Who animation, The Infinite Quest. Freema Agyeman, the Doctor's new companion, drops by for a chat.

The Doctor And Douglas premiered on Radio 4 in 2010 at 11:00am BST

As a new generation of fans await the debut of the 11th incarnation of the Doctor, long-time fan Jon Culshaw travels back in time to look at the man who changed Doctor Who forever: Douglas Adams.

After years toiling for success as a writer, in 1978 Douglas' world turned upside down. Just weeks after the radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was commissioned, so was his first script for Doctor Who. The following year - just as Hitchhikers was taking off - he was offered the job as script editor, one of the most demanding jobs in television.

The scripts he wrote for Doctor Who - The Pirate Planet, City of Death and Shada - still stand as a benchmark for the series today. But his time on the series was beset by problems. Technician strikes would seriously affect production, inflation was squeezing the series budget, and Douglas was exhausted by the simultaneous demands of Hitchhikers and Doctor Who.

Nevertheless, Douglas left an indelible mark on Doctor Who, bringing in a sharp wit that hadn't been seen before in what was ostensibly a children's TV series. Today's crop of writers and producers strive to emulate the intelligence, humour and ideas in Adams' scripts from 1979.

Jon Culshaw looks at Douglas' work on a television institution, talking to the writers, directors and actors who worked with him, and looks at the legacy of his work on Doctor Who with new executive producer Steven Moffat.


 Birthdays
Clare Thomas was 35 - credited as Lucy Skinner in The Last Sontaran(SJA)

Clare Thomas (born BuckinghamshireEngland) is a British actress who has appeared in several British films and television series.

 Some of her highest profile roles have been as Aggie, one of the title character's classmates in the film Madeline, and Ingrid Dracula, daughter of the Count, in the children's television series Young Dracula. She also made an appearance in BBC One show Holby City, as the stepdaughter of a male patient.

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


Melanie Burgess was 45 - 10 credits, including Casting Director for The New World(TW)

Melanie Burgess was, with John Frank Levey, in charge of casting Torchwood: Miracle Day.

She has enjoyed a working partnership with Levey since the mid-2000s. Their first screen credit together seems to have been on ER — though this first ER credit came long after the casting of DWU actors, Alex Kingston and Mekhi Phifer. She has worked exclusively with Levey since 2005, and she has risen from the position of his casting assistant to his casting associate to finally, as on Miracle Day, his co-equal casting director. Amongst their non-ER work are: The Evidence, Smith, the US version of Shameless and Southland.


David McAlister (died 2015 aged 64) would have been 73 - credited as Megara Voice in The Stones of Blood

Brian Glover (died 1997 aged 63) would have been 90 - credited as Griffiths in Attack of the Cybermen

Brian Glover was an English character actor, writer and wrestler. Glover was a professional wrestler, teacher, and finally a film, television and stage actor. 

He played Griffiths  in the 1986 story Attack of the Cybermen.

Glover was born in Sheffield, but grew up in Barnsley. He attended Barnsley Grammar School and the University of Sheffield, where he supplemented his student grant by appearances as a professional wrestler, going under the ring name "Leon Aris the Man From Paris". 

In 1954 he married and became a teacher at the same Barnsley school where he had been a pupil. Glover worked as a school teacher (teaching English and French) from 1954 until 1970.

Glover's first acting job and probably his most memorable came playing Mr Sugden, the sports teacher in Ken Loach's film Kes. 

He also played Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream, had a recurring role in the classic sitcom Porridge, played Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop, and lent his voice to a number of animated characters, including the "gaffer" of the "Tetley Tea Folk" in a long-running series of television advertisements for Tetley tea and as the voice behind the slogan, 'Bread with nowt taken out' for Allinsons bakery. 

He also appeared in An American Werewolf in London, The First Great Train Robbery, Jabberwocky, Alien 3, Leon the Pig Farmer and as General Douglas in a Bollywood hit 1942: A Love Story.

Glover's performance in Kes led to parts at the Royal Court Theatre, London, notably in Lindsay Anderson's The Changing Room (1971). A season with Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company followed, where appropriately enough his roles included Charles the wrestler in As You Like It, and a robust Peter in Romeo and Juliet. For the Royal National Theatre he appeared in The Mysteries (as God, creating the world with the help of a real fork-lift truck), Saint Joan and Don Quixote.

His performance in The Mysteries brought work in the commercial theatre. The Canterbury Tales (West End) was followed by a return to television and the Play for Today series, both as writer and performer and, in turn, more screen roles. Glover went on to play "Lugg", the endearing rogue manservant to Albert Campion in the series Campion. He played Edouard Dindon in the original London cast of La Cage aux Folles. 

In 1991 he starred in the second episode of Bottom � "Gas" � as "Mr Rottweiler". His last film was John Godber's rugby league comedy Up 'n' Under (1998).

Glover also wrote over 20 plays and short films. In 1982 he was a guest presenter in series six of Friday Night Saturday Morning, a late-night BBC chat show.

Glover developed a brain tumour and died in a London hospital on 24 July 1997. He is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.


Robert Holmes (died 1986 aged 60) would have been 98 - 46 credits, including Script Editor for Robot

Robert Holmes was an English television scriptwriter, who for over twenty-five years contributed to some of the most popular programmes screened in the UK and is considered one of the best writers to have worked on Doctor Who.

In 1944, at the age of eighteen, Holmes joined the army, fighting with the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders regiment in Burma. He became the youngest commissioned officer in the entire British army during the Second World War. After the end of the war, Holmes returned to England and left the army, deciding to join the police. He trained at Hendon Police College, graduating the top of his year and joining the Metropolitan Police in London, serving at Bow Street Police Station. While serving at a Police officer that Holmes developed an interest in writing as a career. He worked for a time writing and editing short stories for magazines, before receiving his first break in television when he contributed an episode to the famous medical series Emergency Ward 10 (1957).

Holmes found himself working almost exclusively in television drama after 1957. He began contributing episodes regularly to the adventure series Knight Errant before becoming that programme's Story Editor in 1959. He wrote several episodes of another medical drama, Dr. Finlay's Casebook, before in the early 1960s writing for a range of crime-related dramas: Dixon of Dock Green, The Saint, Ghost Squad, Public Eye. Iin 1965 that he first began writing in the science-fiction genre, when he contributed scripts to Undermind, a body-snatching drama fromITV. He also worked in film for the only time, storylining the movie Invasion, which had also been inspired by Nigel Kneale's 1955 Quatermass II serial.

During the late sixties and seventies and early eighties Holmes has penned some of the most highly regarded stories for Doctor Who, including writing the story voted by the fans as the best ever, The Caves of Androzani. In 1970 he created the Autons for the introduction story for Jon Pertwee and in 1974 created The Sontarans. He wrote the first story featuring The Master .

Holmes served as as script editor three years, seeing Doctor Who through one of its most successful eras in terms of both viewing figures and critical acclaim. Despite this, a number of stories came under fire for being excessively violent or too frightening in tone by Mary Whitehouse and her National Viewers' and Listeners' Association. A scene from Holmes's story, The Deadly Assassin, caused controversy when the Fourth Doctor's head is held under water as the cliffhanger,

During a break from the series he wrote for the BBC science-fiction show Blake's 7, the police series Juliet Bravo and an adaptation of the science-fiction novel Child of the Vodyoni, which was screened as The Nightmare Man in 1981. He also script-edited detective series Shoestring (TV series).

His final story for Doctor Who was the first four-part segment of Trial of a Time Lord Season. He has began writing the final segment of the season, but died before completion

His last work to be broadcast was an episode of the detective series Bergerac.

  Russell T Davies praised Holmes' talents, saying "Take The Talons of Weng Chiang, for example. Watch episode one. It's the best dialogue ever written. It's up there with Dennis Potter. By a man called Robert Holmes. When the history of television drama comes to be written, Robert Holmes won't be remembered at all because he only wrote genre stuff. And that, I reckon, is a real tragedy." Davies has also mentioned that Holmes' story The Ark in Space is his favourite story from the original series.


 Deaths
Glyn Jones (died 2014 aged 82) - 2 credits, including Writer for The Space Museum

Glyn Jones was a South African actor, writer and director. His writing credits included A King's Story (1965), The Magnificent Six and ½ (1968) Script editor for the childrens TV series Here Come the Double Deckers (1970) and The Gold Robbers (1969), also a number of stage plays produced in England and America, Thriller of the year and Beautiful Forever published by Samuel French Ltd, London and Red in the Morning by Samuel French New York. In 2006 he created a new private eye by name Thornton King; charming, urbane and a little bit accident prone and in 2007 the first Thornton King book, Dead on Time' was published by Raider International. That same year he wrote a sequel Just in Case and a follow up Target of Death both awaiting publication.

He died peacefully in his sleep, after having an ongoing heart condition.

You can read an obituary from his official blog.


Johnny Byrne (died 2008 aged 72) - 14 credits, including Nyssa created by for Castrovalva

Johnny Byrne was an Irish writer and script editor for the BBC. 

In the 1960s he worked as a literary editor, and wrote poetry and short stories which were published in Science Fantasy magazine. His other works include Groupie (1969, co-written with Jenny Fabian), Season Of The Witch (1971), and the scripts for the films Adolf Hitler, My Part In His Downfall (1972), and Rosie Is My Relative (1976). 

In 1986 he took on the role of script editor of the series All Creatures Great and Small based on the books of James Herriot.  He wrote for the vet series One by One . He created the series Noah's Ark and wrote many of the episodes for the two series. He also created the series Heartbeat (loosely based on the Constable books by Nicholas Rhea) and was the main script writer for 17 series from 1992 to 2007.

Byrne was the most prolific script contributor to the first season of Space: 1999 (1973�75), and was initially given the assignment of story consultant for the second season (1976�77).

In 1981 he made his first contribution to Doctor Who with s The Keeper of Traken (1981), which resurrected the character of the Master. For the same story, Byrne created the character of Nyssa, who later became one of the Doctor's companions.

His second story, Arc of Infinity (1983), featured the areturn of Omega, who had previously appeared in The Three Doctors. His last screened story was Warriors of the Deep (1984) which brought back the Silurians and the Sea Devils. 

He wrote the script for a Doctor Who movie in 1990, but due to a legal dispute between the BBC and the film production company, his script went unused.


George Sewell (died 2007 aged 82) - credited as Ratcliffe in Remembrance of the Daleks

George Sewell  was an English actor.

The son of a Hoxton printer and a florist; Sewell left school at age 14 and worked briefly in the printing trade before switching to building work, specifically the repair of bomb-damaged houses. He then trained as a Royal Air Force pilot, though too late to see action during World War II.

After his demobilisation, Sewell joined the Merchant Navy, serving as a steward for the Cunard Line, on the RMS Queen Mary and RMS Queen Elizabeth on their Atlantic crossings to New York. He worked as a street photographer, assisted a French roller-skating team and was drummer and assistant road manager of a rumba band. He also travelled Europe as a motor coach courier travelling around Europe for a holiday company.

Ages 35 Sewell auditioned for a production by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop of Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be. He went on to star in two other Littlewood productions, Sparrers Can't Sing (1962) and as Field Marshal Haig in Oh! What a Lovely War (1963) which later went to Paris and Broadway. The experience garnered from stage acting led to a long career in both film and television.

For many years Sewell was the gritty face of crime and law enforcement in a huge array of television series. Amongst his early roles, he was the tallyman in Ken Loach's TV play Up The Junction (1965), a criminal who runs off with a teenage girl in Softly, Softly (1966), a hard-nosed building engineer in The Power Game (1965–66), a cowardly informer in Man in a Suitcase (1967), and a seedy private eye in Spindoe (1968). In 1970 he played Colonel Alec Freeman in the first series of Gerry Anderson's live-action science-fiction drama UFO.

In 1973, Euston Films reinvigorated the TV series Special Branch, formerly a videotaped series starring Derren Nesbitt. Sewell was brought in to play the defining character of DCI Alan Craven. The show ran for two seasons with Sewell, and is very fondly remembered - not least as a stylistic forerunner of crime drama The Sweeney (in which Sewell also appeared - as a villain). Later Sewell was to parody this role as Supt Frank Cottam in the Jasper Carrott/Robert Powell comedy, The Detectives.

Later television appearances include Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979), in which he played Mendel, and the Doctor Who story Remembrance of the Daleks, (1988), in which he played a fascist called Mr Ratcliffe. He also appeared frequently in cinema films, notably This Sporting Life (1963), Poor Cow (1967) and Get Carter (1971).


Frank Crawshaw (died 1984 aged 84) - credited as Farrow in Planet of Giants

Frank Crawshaw played Arnold Farrow in DW: Planet of Giants.

He played Arnold Tanner, Elsie's first husband, in episodes of Coronation Street in 1961 and 1966. Elsewhere he could be seen in Z-Cars and Men of Rochdale, a dramatised documentary celebrating the Co-operative society's centenial anniversary