Mark Ayres

With a lifelong interest in film, music, and electronics, Mark took an eccentric joint degree and therefore holds a BSc (Hons) in Electronics and Music. He started his professional life as a sound engineer at UK breakfast television station TVam before turning freelance five years later. He wrote incidental music for Doctor Who in the 1980s during Sylvester McCoy’s tenure, for stories "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy", "Ghost Light" and "The Curse of Fenric". More recently he wrote the music for, sound-designed and mixed the reconstructed 'lost' Tom Baker adventure, “Shada”, and a celebratory feature length version of the original 1963 “Daleks” serial transmitted on BBC4 on 23rd November 2023, Doctor Who’s 60th birthday, and is currently working on the follow up for 2024. He has composed for television and film including scores for 1996 feature "The Innocent Sleep" (a mafia thriller starring Rupert Graves, Annabella Sciorra and Michael Gambon, with soprano Lesley Garrett on the soundtrack) and the more recent "Scar Tissue".

Mark was involved in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s final days and went on to become their archivist. A personal friend of Delia Derbyshire, he was entrusted with her personal archive after her death in 2001, which is now on permanent loan to the University of Manchester John Rylands Library and accessible for study. He is a Trustee of the Delia Derbyshire Day Charity. His devotion to the Workshop after Doctor Who ceased broadcasting in 1989 proved vital in regenerating interest in their work, and he is now the driving force behind their live revival on the festival circuit and in the creation of new works including the score for Matthew Holness' disturbing psychological horror film, "Possum". He has produced and mastered many recordings for Silva Screen Records and others, and his work remastering classic television programmes including Doctor Who, Quatermass, and the films of Ken Russell and Alan Clarke for broadcast, DVD and Blu-ray, including 5.1 - and more recently Dolby Atmos -  remixes of many titles, has been highly acclaimed.

Annette Badland

Annette is most well-known in the Doctor Who universe for portraying Margaret Blaine aka Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen during the Ninth Doctor era. She has now gone on to feature in several Big Finish audios titles spanning the Fourth Doctor Adventures to The Diary of River Song.

Aside from Doctor Who, she has appeared in many television roles including Bergerac, 2point4 children, Jackanory, The Demon Headmaster, The Worst Witch, The Queen's Nose, Coronation Street, Wizards vs Aliens, EastEnders, Midsomer Murders, and most recently, Ted Lasso.

Throughout her career, she has also featured in several on-stage productions, movies, and BBC Radio productions.

Jan Chappell

Born in Brixton, London, and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Jan Chappell has featured in British television shows such as Reilly, Ace of Spies, Inspector Alleyn Mysteries, The House of Eliott, Lovejoy, Pie in the Sky, Holby City, New Tricks, Spooks, and Rosemary & Thyme as well as years of theatre that included Richard II and A Comedy of Errors.

In the Doctor Who-adjacent universe, she was also featured as Lisa Deranne in the Reeltime Pictures video drama Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans.

She is most known in the science fiction world for playing Cally in three seasons of Blake’s 7. This is a role that she has now returned to in various Big Finish audio adventures.

Brian Croucher

Not only did Brian Croucher portray Travis in the second season of Blake’s 7, but he is also known for his role as Ted Hills in EastEnders as well as featured parts in Doctor Who and Doctor Who-adjacent projects.

He played Borg in the Doctor Who story The Robots of Death. He also appeared in the Doctor Who spin-off Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans.

In addition to these roles, Brian has also been seen in films such as Burke & Hare, Made, A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, Scrubbers, and Underworld, and television shows The Jensen Code, The Young Ones, The Bill, and Rockliffe’s Babies among others.

Jason Haigh-Ellery

Jason is an award-winning producer (recipient of an Olivier Award, three Whatsonstage Awards, a Chicago International Television Drama Award and two BBC Audio Drama Awards) with many companies in the entertainment space, including the world’s largest independent audio drama production company working regularly with media corporations such as the BBC, ITV and MGM on Doctor Who, The Avengers, Stargate, Space:1999 and original series such as The Confessions of Dorian Grey.  

He has produced 16 West End shows and 30 touring shows including Burlesque, Footloose – the musical, Yes Prime Minister, The Ladykillers, Bonnie and Clyde, Fame, Flashdance, Rock of Ages, Curtains, Jeeves and Wooster and New Boy.  

In television, Jason has produced the original series Prisoner Zero for ABC and Netflix, seven animated Doctor Who serials for the BBC and the hit teen drama More Than This for Paramount+ as well as a number of reality shows.  

He was also Executive Producer on the films The Time of Their Lives distributed by Universal Pictures and starring Joan Collins and Pauline Collins and Mrs. Lowry and Son starring Timothy Spall and Vanessa Redgrave.

Frazer Hines

Best known in the Doctor Who universe as Jamie McCrimmon, companion to the Second Doctor, Frazer Hines is a fan favorite at Chicago TARDIS.

Post-Doctor Who, Frazer starred in Emmerdale – the long-running ITV soap opera – for just over 20 years.

Frazer has been featured as both Jamie McCrimmon and the Second Doctor in countless Big Finish Audio productions. His role as Jamie McCrimmon is ongoing.

Author Diana Gabaldon credits watching Frazer Hines in the Doctor Who serial The War Games (and finding him fetching in a kilt) as the inspiration for her first novel Outlander, which is now on screen via the TV netword STARZ. Frazer even made a guest appearance in the first season of the show.

Frazer recently reprised his role as Jamie on-screen in “The Mind Robber” episode of the Doctor Who spinoff Tales of the TARDIS.

Sally Knyvette

On screen, Sally Knyvette is best known for her roles as Jenna Stannis in the first two seasons Blake's 7 and as Kate Sugden in the soap opera Emmerdale.

After leaving her role in Blake’s 7, she received her English and drama degree at the University of London and has now gone on to have a storied theatre career.

Over the last 20 years, she has directed and featured in the productions Twelve Angry Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, Inherit the Wind, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Judgment at Nuremberg, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - among many others.

Sally also regularly works as a voice over artist. She has done countless commercials, portrayed Doctorman Allen in the Doctor Who audio adventure Spare Parts and Queen Carmilla in the video game Castlevania: Lords of Shadow as well as its sequel.

Jo Martin

Jo Martin is best known in the Doctor Who universe for her role as the Fugitive Doctor - a previously unknown incarnation of the Doctor introduced in the 13th Doctor Era.

She has also played Natalie Crouch in the BBC One sitcom The Crouches, neurosurgeon Max McGerry in Holby City, and had roles in other television shows and films such as Wizards vs. Aliens, Batman Begins, Fleabag, 100 Streets, Jonathon Creek, Casualty, 97 Minutes, Death in Paradise, and Dreaming Whilst Black, among others.

She is currently set to return to the role of the Fugitive Doctor as part of a series of Big Finish audio adventures.

(Appearing Friday and Saturday only.)

Sylvester McCoy

Sylvester McCoy was born on 20 August 1943, in Dunoon, Scotland.  His father was killed in the Second World War a couple of months before he was born, and he was brought up by his mother, his grandmother, and aunts. 

He attended St. Mun’s, a local Dunoon school. McCoy expressed an interest in every job, and as a result, eventually found himself given an afternoon off school to go to see a local priest about entering the priesthood.  He joined Blair’s College, a seminary in Aberdeen, and between the ages of twelve and sixteen trained to be a priest.

It was while at Blair’s College that he realized that there was more to life than could be found in Dunoon. He discovered classical music and history, which fascinated him.  He eventually decided to become a monk and applied to join a Dominican order, but his application was rejected as he was too young.  He went instead to Dunoon grammar school, where he discovered that he didn’t want to be a priest or a monk after all.

With the help of a cook at London’s Roundhouse Theatre, McCoy gained a job there selling tickets and keeping the books in the box office. Eventually, he joined the Ken Campbell Roadshow.  Along with Bob Hoskins, Jane Wood, and Dave Hill, McCoy started performing a range of sketches with the umbrella theme of “modern myths.”  McCoy found himself for a while in a double-act with Hoskins before Hoskins left to pursue his film career.

During a break from one of their UK engagements, the Roadshow team was discovered busking on the street by Joan Littlewood, who invited them to go on stage as a curtain up before her production of The Hostage.  Littlewood invited McCoy to join her world-renowned Theatre Workshop. Numerous engagements followed.

McCoy was starring at the National Theatre in The Pied Piper, a musical play written especially for him when he learned that the BBC was looking for a new lead actor to replace Colin Baker in Doctor Who.   He later won the role as the Seventh Doctor.

Following Doctor Who, McCoy continues to work extensively in theatre, films (including The Hobbit trilogy), radio, opera, and on television.

He continues to portray the Seventh Doctor in various Big Finish Production audio adventures.

Paul McGann

Paul McGann’s entrance into dramatic acting came in 1986 with his portrayal of Percy Toplis in the BBC serial The Monocled Mutineer. Following his success in this role, he starred in the cult classic film Withnail and I alongside Richard E. Grant. Countless other film roles would follow. He starred in such films as Empire of the Sun, The Three Musketeers, and Alien 3. During the early to mid-90s, McGann also continued to feature in several TV shows and miniseries for the BBC.

In 1996, McGann made his debut in the Doctor Who universe as the Eighth Doctor in the Doctor Who TV movie. Originally intended as a “back door pilot” of sorts for a potential revival of the series, the TV ratings were too low in the United States to justify a relaunch of the popular sci-fi show.

Throughout the late 90s and early 2000s, McGann again starred in several film and television roles. Two notable portrayals were David Talbot in 2002’s Queen of the Damned and William Bush in the ITV/A&E joint production of Hornblower.

McGann has gone on to star in other television shows throughout the 2010s such as Jonathan Creek, Luther, and Holby City.

McGann has yet to give up his role as the Eighth Doctor. Not only does he continue to portray the Time Lord in countless audio adventures for Big Finish Productions, but he also reprised the role on screen in 2013’s Night of the Doctor. Fans got a never before seen glimpse at the regeneration of the Eighth Doctor into the War Doctor.

Sonny McGann

Sonny McGann has most notably, he has portrayed the Doctor's great-grandson, Alex Campbell, as part of Big Finish Productions in the Eighth Doctor Adventures stories “An Earthly Child”, “Relative Dimensions”, “Lucie Miller/To the Death” and reprised the role as part of The Eighth Doctor: Time War series.

In addition, he has voiced other characters for Big Finish and helped produce the Master: Planet Doom installation, starring Eric Roberts reprising his role as The Master.

He is the real life son of Paul McGann, the Eighth Doctor.

Sadie Miller

  In April 2016, Miller published her debut novel as the first book of the second series of the Lethbridge-Stewart novels, Moon Blink, under the publishing house, Candy Jar Books. She explained her comeback from her association with Doctor Who, as an author: "...I
feel that the time is right to reconnect with Doctor Who, and the fans. My dad did so last year with an appearance in Peter Capaldi’s first episode, and so now it’s my turn."

  In 2021 Miller took over for her mother in the role of Sarah Jane Smith for the Doctor Who Big Finish Productions audio dramas, first with
Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor in “Return of the Cybermen”, then with Tim Treloar as the Third Doctor
in The Third Doctor Adventures.

  Her one woman show, A Girl is a Haunted House - The Horror Story of Being a Woman, debuted at the Brighton Fringe this year and she continues to tour the show around further fringe venues.

Wendy Padbury

Cast as the Second Doctor's new companion, Zoe Heriot, in Doctor Who in 1968, Wendy Padbury became close to her co-stars Frazer Hines and Patrick Troughton throughout their time together on the series.

After leaving the series, Wendy appeared in Doctor Who and the Daleks in Seven Keys to Doomsday (1974), a stage play at the Adelphi Theatre London based on the television series, in which she played a companion named Jenny, opposite Trevor Martin as the Doctor. She made a cameo appearance, again opposite Hines and Troughton in Doctor Who's twentieth anniversary story, The Five Doctors.

Other roles include co-presenter of the second series of Score with the Scaffold, roles in TV shows Freewheelers and Emmerdale, and appearances in movies Charlie Bubbles and The Blood on Satan's Claw.

Wendy voiced Lorraine Baynes in the Big Finish Doctor Who audio story Davros and the Time Eater in Jago & Litefoot audio story Chronoclasm. She has reprised the role of Zoe in several Big Finish audio plays and was also recently seen on-screen in “The Mind Robber” episode of the Doctor Who spin-off Tales of the TARDIS.

Stacey Smith?

Stacey Smith? (the question mark is part of her name) is a professor of disease modelling at the University of Ottawa in Canada. Using mathematics, she studies infectious diseases such as HIV, malaria, human papillomavirus, COVID-19, influenza, neglected tropical diseases... and zombies. She’s published over 100 academic articles; is a winner of a Guinness World Record for her work on modelling a zombie invasion; was the winner of the 2015 Mathematics Ambassador award, given by Canada's Partners in Research association; won the 2018 Society for Mathematical Biology Distinguished Service Award for exceptional contribution to the field of mathematical biology and its advancement outside of research; and was awarded a 2021 prize for her outstanding contributions to the advancement of diversity, equity, inclusion and justice at the Society for Mathematical Biology Annual Meeting. She was the first University of Ottawa employee to transition... but won't be the last! Outside of her day job, she has more than 20 books to her name, including The Top Ten Diseases of All Time (uoTtawa Press), How to Write^Edit your Scientific Article (World Scientific), Bookwyrm (ATB Publishing), Who is the Doctor, Who’s 50 and The Doctors Are In (ECW Press), Look at the Size of That Thing! (Pencil Tip Publishing), as well as a Black Archive on Doctor Who and the Silurians (Obverse Books), guides to the wonderful world of Doctor Who. She's also the editor extraordinaire of the Outside In series of pop-culture reviews with a twist (ATB Publishing), covering Doctor Who, Star Trek, Buffy, Angel, Firefly and The X-Files. Oh, and she’s the world’s leading expert on the transmission of Bieber Fever, but let’s not worry about that one.