On This Day... 5th May

 

In 1973 Planet of the Daleks reached its fifth episode.

In 2007, Mark Gatiss became only the second person to have both written a Doctor Who story and appeared in one as an actor. This was in The Lazarus Experiment. Gatiss went on to make a further two appearances in the show, but never in one of his own stories. The closest he got was providing the Spitfire pilot voice in his Victory of the Daleks.

For his portrayal of the younger Lazarus, Gatiss provided his own blond wig (the one he used for the incompetent vet in The League of Gentlemen, who had been based on Peter Davison in All Creatures Great and Small).

Today we wish Richard E Grant a very happy 65th birthday. He portrayed Dr Simeon / the Great Intelligence in 2012 / 13, but prior to that he played two alternative Doctors. The first was one of the incarnations seen in the Comic Relief piece The Curse of Fatal Death, and the other was as the animated Ninth Doctor in Scream of the Shalka, which was shunted to the sidelines by the announcement that the series would be returning to BBC TV in 2005.

Today would also have been the birthday of Delia Derbyshire, arranger of the original version of Ron Grainer's iconic theme music. She died in 2001, aged 64.