Companion to the Thirteenth Doctor. Graham first encountered her when she fell through the roof of a train he was travelling on. He and his wife Grace were on their way home to Sheffield, whilst she had just regenerated and fallen out of the crashing TARDIS. Graham had met Grace when he was undergoing treatment for cancer, she being his nurse.
The train came under attack by an entity known as a Gathering Coil - sent by an alien named T'zim Sha to locate one of the passengers. His race, the Stenza, hunted people across the cosmos, and one young local man named Karl had been selected as prey.
Graham and Grace took the Doctor into their home as she recovered from her regeneration, and so were drawn further into the alien encounter. Grace's grandson, Ryan, had earlier discovered the pod which T'zim Sha had used to travel to Earth, which in turn had involved WPC Yasmin - Yaz - Khan in events.
Graham struggled to get Ryan to accept him as his grandfather.
A retired bus driver, originally from East London, he used his network of old colleagues to help trace unusual activity in Sheffield to track down the alien.
Karl worked as a crane operator and the Doctor and her new found friends traced him to his place of work - just as T'zim Sha arrived. Unfortunately, in helping to destroy the Gathering Coil Grace was killed.
When the Doctor created a device that would help her travel to the location of the missing TARDIS, she underestimated its power and it took Graham with it - along with Ryan and Yaz. They materialised in deep space, but were picked up by two passing spaceships which were on an interplanetary race.
After having to traverse a hostile planet which had been used as a weapons testing lab by the Stenza, the TARDIS was retrieved.
Arriving in the town of Montgomery, Alabama, in late November 1955, Graham became involved in the US Civil Rights movement. The TARDIS crew had to prevent a racist criminal from the future from meddling in history, to ensure that Rosa Parks made her iconic bus protest. However, by monitoring her movements so closely it was Graham who inadvertently provided the stimulus to make her sit in a whites-only segregated area - he having taken the only other available seat.
On a medical spaceship, Graham and Ryan found themselves having to help an alien humanoid give birth, prompting them to name their child in their honour. This proved to be "Avocado" as this was the only thing they recalled as coming from Earth.
Graham found himself allocated the job as janitor at the Kerblam! retail centre, and then became the Witchfinder General to King James I - a role which allowed him to wear a tall puritan-style hat.
An encounter with a blind girl in the forests of Norway led to an emotional reunion with Grace. This proved to be an illusion created by the Solitract - an entity confined to a pocket universe due to its destructive incompatibility with our universe. Lonely, it created these illusions to lure people into staying with it.
Knowing what he had gone through, Ryan finally accepted him as his granddad at this point.
Graham then had the opportunity to get revenge on the being responsible for his wife's death, as the TARDIS landed on the planet Ranskoor Av Kolos. T'zim Sha had been transported here after his defeat at their hands in Sheffield. The Doctor urged him not to kill the alien as she rejected violence and did not want him to become just as bad as the Stenza. When the time came, Graham recalled what she said and refrained from killing T'zim Sha - imprisoning him instead.
Graham then had to deal with the return of Ryan's absentee father, whose arrival coincided with the rebirth of a lethal Reconnaissance Dalek. Graham was happy to give Aaron Sinclair a piece of his mind regarding his abandoning of Ryan and failure to attend Grace's funeral, but went on to help his grandson and his father reconcile.
Back on Earth, after spending time catching up with his friends, Graham found himself recruited to MI6. The Master had returned and was allied with a ruthless IT mogul and an extra-dimensional alien race to convert the human race into living computer storage. The mogul - Daniel Barton - was able to manipulate the news and social media to present them all as wanted criminals and they had to go on the run. Graham was rather fond of the gadgets they were issued by the head of MI6 - including laser-firing shoes.
Graham went on to win a free holiday at Tranquillity Spa. What appeared to be a luxurious location turned out to be a leisure complex build on the ravaged Earth of an alternative future.
During a visit to the city of Gloucester, Graham was teleported to an alien spaceship and encountered Captain Jack Harkness, who initially mistook him for the Doctor. Jack later nicknamed him the "Silver Fox".
Graham later began to suffer vivid dreams, in which he saw a young woman trapped in a cell which was suspended between two colliding planets. It transpired that all of the Doctor's companions and their friends were experiencing bizarre nightmares. Graham was linked to the TARDIS telepathic circuits to identify the exact location of the woman, as the Doctor had realised that his dream was actually a psychic projection and an appeal for help. This proved to be a trap, however, as the captive was a malign immortal being.
Graham experienced genuine ghosts at the Villa Diodati in Switzerland, where he got to meet Lord Byron and Mary and Percy Shelley. This led the TARDIS crew into the Cyber-war of the far future.
At one point Graham had to hide inside an empty Cyber-Warrior shell.
As the oldest human member of the TARDIS crew, Graham saw his role as a parent figure to the younger pair. As well as forging a closer bond with his grandson, he also took Yaz under his wing when he saw that she needed someone to talk to - the Doctor being too busy, or just too socially awkward to engage (as Graham found when he tried to talk to her about his fears about his cancer returning).
Following a second encounter with the Daleks and with Captain Jack, Graham's time in the TARDIS came to an end when Ryan elected to remain back in Sheffield, having missed his friends. Graham could have travelled on, but decided to stay with Ryan, not wishing to jeopardise their stronger relationship. The Doctor gave them each some psychic paper with which they could continue to investigate events on Earth in her absence.
Some time later, he encountered a previous companion of the Doctor - Ace - when investigating a newly active volcano. It was being triggered by a Dalek unit. He and Ace joined forces to defeat them.
The meeting with Ace, and then with Dan Lewis, prompted Graham to set up a support group for ex-companions, where they could meet to discuss their adventures with those who had similar experiences.
Played by: Bradley Walsh. Appearances: The Woman Who Fell To Earth (2019) to Revolution of the Daleks (2021), The Power of the Doctor (2022).
- Graham is the oldest human companion of the Doctor in the history of the series, to date. The only comparable companion characters was on audio - Evelyn Smythe.
- No matter what the planet, or the level of peril, Graham usually carried a cheese sandwich with him - just in case he missed lunch.
- Walsh is never off British TV. He is best known for his long-running role as host of the quiz show The Chase, and even devised his own quiz format, Cash Trapped. This proved to be overly complicated and almost impossible to win any money, so didn't last long.
- Of late he has been seen in a reality TV series with his son, engaging in adventurous new activities and experiences - Bradley Walsh & Son: Breaking Dad.
- Acting roles have included a lengthy stint on Coronation Street, the remake of The Darling Buds of May, and crime drama Law & Order: UK.
- In 1979 he became a professional football player, with Ace's favourite team Brentford.
- Walsh appeared in The Sarah Jane Adventures story Day of the Clown, playing a shape-shifting being which fed on people's fears, appearing as different creepy circus characters.
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