On This Day... 26th May

 

The Green Death delivered its second episode today in 1973.

2007 saw the Virgin New Adventures novel Human Nature adapted as a two-part story for the Tenth Doctor. The first half was broadcast today - titled after the book.

Today we remember actor Stephen Thorne, who passed away on this date in 2019, aged 84. He tended to be hidden behind masks and make up for his performances in Doctor Who - all four of them.

The first role he was given was that of the Daemon Azal in The Daemons. Originally the character was going to be voiced by another actor, but as he was an established radio performer it made sense to let Thorne speak his own lines. He was back in Season 10 as the Time Lord Omega in The Three Doctors. He was an Ogron in Frontier in Space which, although shown after The Three Doctors, was made first. His final role was as the male version of Eldrad in the fourth episode of The Hand of Fear.

Thorne was employed by Barry Letts to act opposite the candidates in their audition for the role of Sarah Jane Smith, and he also used him in his second Doctor Who radio story "The Ghosts of N-Space".

We also remember Peter Cushing - the cinema Dr Who - on what would have been his birthday. He starred in Dr Who and the Daleks and Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150AD, as well as in the pilot for a radio series, written by Malcolm Hulke, which sadly never made it into full production. The latest issue of DWM, out today, has a lot to say about the movies. Cushing passed away in 1994, aged 81.

The films are about to get 4K restorations and will have a limited cinema outing. They used to be shown regularly on C4 in the UK, but have lately appeared on both Talking Pictures and the Horror Channel (indeed, they are back to back on the latter this Sunday - 29th May - alongside Hammer's Quatermass and the Pit).