Doctor Who Magazine 500 - Guest Biographies

Dan Starkey played various Sontaran roles in televised Doctor Who, as well as for audio dramas and the Doctor Who video game The Gunpowder Plot. He has also played other non-Sontaran characters for audio and televised Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures.

He is best known for playing Strax, an occasional associate of the Doctor's. Besides appearing in episodes, Dan Starkey also appears as Strax in a number of online promotional videos uploaded by the BBC under the title Strax Field Report and has also made public appearances in costume and in character as Strax at venues such as the Doctor Who Experience and the 2013 edition of Doctor Who at the Proms.  In 2015, Dan Starkey co-wrote the audio story Terror of the Sontarans with John Dorney

Dez Skinn is an important figure in the history of British comics. He is in many ways a "British Stan Lee", given the number of publications he launched.

To Doctor Who fans, he is best known as the founding editor of Doctor Who Magazine, known during his tenure as Doctor Who Weekly. He edited it from issue 1 to 22, but he's responsible for much of the current magazine. Chief amongst these was his vision of a comic strip featuring the current incarnation of the Doctor, but drawn in an American style. He hired the book's first comic teams, including Pat Mills, John Wagner, Dave Gibbons, Steve Dillon and Steve Parkhouse. He also co-wrote Timeslip, one of the most oft-reprinted strips in Doctor Who comics history.

For hardcore comics fans, his decision to reprint early American strips in the Tales from the TARDIS backup series offered rare glimpses at the early, non-super hero work of Marvel Comics greats like Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.

Philip Hinchcliffe was producer of Doctor Who from 1974 to 1977. He served as the producer for Tom Baker's first three seasons as the Fourth Doctor, often cited ^{[by whom?]} as the "Gothic era" of the series. He also novelised three stories for Target Books.

On the DVD commentary for The Robots of Death, Hinchcliffe recounts that one of the perks he had as producer was picking out which coat Tom Baker would wear in each story.

Hinchcliffe had a young girl living next door who was a fan of the show, and once asked her which of the characters the girl identified with the most. He was surprised when she answered "The Doctor" instead of "Sarah Jane". This made him decide that the next female companion should be more pro-active and action orientated, resulting in the creation of Leela.

He appeared on-camera only once in the series, as one of the faces that appears in the Doctor's mental battle with Morbius. For this appearance, he wore a Cavalier's outfit from BBC stock. (TV: The Brain of Morbius)

As of 2015, he and Derrick Sherwin are the only producers of the classic series still alive.

Andrew Smith, wrote the Doctor Who television story Full Circle and its novelisation. At the time of initial broadcast, he was the youngest writer to contribute to the TV series.

Smith submitted his work to more than one Doctor Who script editor. They replied with "positive criticism". Finally he sent The Planet that Slept, which became Full Circle.

Shortly afterwards, he became a police officer, spending a long time in that career.

Smith was approached by Big Finish and displayed interest in writing for them. Because he had started the trilogy with Full Circle, they asked him to write a Companion Chronicles story set in E-Space. The Invasion of E-Space was released in October 2010.

Smith remains a great fan of Doctor Who, and still attends "Big Finish Day", a UK convention dedicated to the Doctor Who audio CD dramas he has written fo

Lisa Bowerman is an actor and director. She played Karra in Survival, the last televised story of the original Doctor Who series, but is better known as the voice of Professor Bernice Summerfield in the spin-off audio dramas produced by Big Finish Productions. She is also the human face of the character, appearing in publicity photographs dressed as Summerfield. She is the younger sister of Robin Bowerman.

Lisa Bowerman also provides the voice of Ellie Higson in the Jago and Litefoot audio series and the voice of Murash in the I, Davros story Guilt. She has appeared in Dreamland, an animated Doctor Who serial, as the voice of Seruba Velak. She has also directed many stories in Big Finish's various ranges, including being the most prolific director of the Companion Chronicles as well as being the sole director of the Jago and Litefoot series.

She also contributed to the reference book Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It.

She was a regular in the first series of the BBC medical drama Casualty and is also a professional photographer.