The Androids of Tara

A terrifying Taran wood beast
(Ray Lavender)

Four episodes (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four)
First broadcast Nov 25 to Dec 16 1978
Average audience for serial: 9.13m

REGULAR CAST

Tom Baker (The Doctor) Born Jan 20 1934 Click here for Tom Baker's entry on Robot

Mary Tamm (Romana) Mar 22 1950 to Jul 26 2012 (cancer) Click here for Mary Tamm's entry on The Ribos Operation

John Leeson (Voice of K-9) Born Mar 16 1943 Click here for John Leeson's entry on The Invisible Enemy

GUEST CAST

Lois Baxter (Lamia) Born Apr 26 1947
Career highlights
Lois debuted in Owen, MD (1971), followed by Spyder's Web (1972), Barlow At Large (1974), Z Cars (1975), Dickens of London (1976), Coronation Street (1976-77), All Creatures Great and Small (1980), Minder (1980), When the Boat Comes In (1977/81), The Cleopatras (1983), Turn On To T-Bag (1988), Perfect Scoundrels (1990), Holby City (2002), Waking the Dead (2004), Casualty (2006) and Doctors (2003/15).
Facts
She was once married to actor David Savile, who appeared in The War Games, The Claws of Axos and The Five Doctors. Lois has also been a member of the RADA audition panel and other drama schools.

Neville Jason (Prince Reynart) May 29 1934 to Oct 16 2015
Career highlights
Neville made his debut in Sword of Freedom (1957), then The Little Ship (1960), Hamlet (1961), From Russia With Love (1963), The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965), The Dragon's Opponent (1973), The Carnforth Practice (1974), Warship (1976), The Duellists (1977), Goodbye Darling (1981), Skorpion (1983), Dempsey and Makepeace (1985), The Tripods (1985) and Ahead of the Class (2005). He also had a regular role as Lapointe in Maigret (1960-63/69).
Facts
Neville, who was once awarded the RADA Diction Prize by Sir John Gielgud, read extensively for audiobooks. In 2007 he read all 560,000 words of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace for a 51-disc audiobook, taking him 23 days to record! Before that he recorded an edited version of Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past over 120 CDs and taking 45 days. His wife Gillian founded a modern and contemporary art gallery in the 1980s, and Neville served as a director.

Peter Jeffrey (Count Grendel) Apr 18 1929 to Dec 25 1999 (prostate cancer)
Doctor Who credits
Played: Pilot in The Macra Terror (1967)
Played: Count Grendel in The Androids of Tara (1978)
Career highlights
Prolific Peter was a familiar face on British TV, having started out aged just 15 in the short Sports Day (1944). He then went on to appear in The Castiglioni Brothers (1958), The Spread of the Eagle (1963), Becket (1964), The Plane Makers (1964-65), Adam Adamant Lives! (1966), The Avengers (1966/67/68), If... (1968), Goodbye Gemini (1970), Countess Dracula (1971), The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971), Dr Phibes Rises Again (1972), Napoleon and Love (1974), Survivors (1975), Porridge (1975), The New Avengers (1976), Midnight Express (1978), Bognor (1981), One By One (1984-85), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), Chelworth (1989), The Detectives (1993), Lipstick on Your Collar (1993), Middlemarch (1994), Our Friends in the North (1996), The Moonstone (1997) and The Scarlet Pimpernel (1999).
Facts
Peter was one of the actors offered the role of the Doctor when William Hartnell vacated the role. His speech from the film If... ("Britain today is a powerhouse...") was sampled by pop group Dreadzone on their single Little Britain in 1995. His first wife was the actress Yvonne Bonnamy, with whom he had five children, including actor Victoria Jeffrey.

Simon Lack (Zadek) Dec 19 1913 to Aug 8 1980*
Doctor Who credits
Played: Professor Kettering in The Mind of Evil (1971)
Played: Zadek in The Androids of Tara (1978)
Career highlights
Born Alexander MacAlpine, Simon's earliest credit was in Ah, Wilderness! (1938), and he later took roles in Just William (1940), Silver Darlings (1947), The Creature (1955), Clue of the Twisted Candle (1960), On the Fiddle (1961), The Durant Affair (1962), R3 (1964-65, as Dr Jack Morton), City 68 (1967-68), The Avengers (1968), The Borderers (1970), Trog (1970), Jason King (1971-72), Weir of Hermiston (1973), The Fortunes of Nigel (1974), South Riding (1974), Killers (1976), Enemy at the Door (1978-80, as Major Freidel), Telford's Change (1979), Love in a Cold Climate (1980) and The Borgias (1981).
Facts
*A report on Simon's death appeared in The Times on August 12th, 1980 which gave his birth year as 1917 and the day he died as August 6th. The dates given here are more commonly reported, however.

Paul Lavers (Farrah) Born Apr 16 1950
Career highlights
Paul debuted in the spooky The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974), then appeared in Moll Flanders (1975), Dickens of London (1976), When the Boat Comes In (1976), Fathers and Families (1977), The Wilde Alliance (1978), The Flame is Love (1979), Into the Labyrinth (1981), Photoshoot (2009), Doctors (2012), Tainted Love (2014), Housefull 3 (2016), The Lorelei (2016) and Dawning of the Dead (2017).
Facts
After leaving acting in the 1980s, Paul became a newsreader for Anglian TV (1984-93) and was one of the first shopping channel presenters on QVC (1993-2000). He also appeared on the British version of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy in 2004 as the eponymous straight guy, and was presenter of Tube Poker in 2005. He became a main player in satellite TV shopping and auction channels, including Ideal World, iBuy, The Entrepreneur Channel and Shop America. When he was a child Paul had a defect in his oesophagus which meant he could only eat mashed up food, until he underwent a series of operations to replace the damaged oesophagus with a part of his colon. Paul's second wife is Irish actor Erin Geraghty. Here he is, on Twitter!

Martin Matthews (Kurster) 1939 to 1997
Career highlights
Martin's earliest credit was on Cul de Sac (1960), followed by The Curse of the Werewolf (1961), Seeing and Believing (1963-64), The Leather Boys (1964), Our Man at St Mark's (1965), Volpone (1967), Macbeth (1970), Steven (1974), The Venturers (1975), Spring and Autumn (1976), Prince Regent (1979), Brideshead Revisited (1981), The Tripods (1985), Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (1986), Joint Account (1989), Waterfront Beat (1990-91), Boon (1991), Prime Suspect 4 (1995) and Backup (1995). He also played Ezra Brearly in soap Emmerdale (1983/88).

Declan Mulholland (Till) Dec 6 1932 to Jun 29 1999 (heart attack)
Doctor Who credits
Played: Clark in The Sea Devils (1972)
Played: Till in The Androids of Tara (1978)
Career highlights
Belfast-born Declan started acting in HMS Defiant (1962), and later had credits in As You Like It (1963), The Three Musketeers (1966), The Avengers (1967), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), Great Catherine (1968), Guns in the Heather (1969), Naughty! (1971), The Ruling Class (1972), Theatre of Blood (1973), The Land That Time Forgot (1975), A Roof Over My Head (1977), The Losers (1978), Quatermass (1979), Hawk the Slayer (1980), Time Bandits (1981), Up the Elephant and Round the Castle (1985), Rockcliffe's Babies (1987), The Brittas Empire (1991), Lovejoy (1993), Father Ted (1996) and The Pig's Family (1997).
Facts
Declan's greatest claim to fame was a role that nobody actually saw, playing the original humanoid Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars (1977). The scene was cut from the original film, and when it was reinstated in the 1997 Special Edition, a CGI Jabba (in his Return of the Jedi form) was laid on top of the footage Declan had filmed with Harrison Ford. The scene as shot in 1977 can be seen in the special features of the DVD, but here's a comparison. After Declan died, as a legacy to encourage a new generation of actors, he left the residuals that come in from his work to help students financially while they train. The money goes to the Declan Mulholland Trust, which makes scholarships available to deserving trainees. Declan was found dead on a train, and his body was identified by actor Michael Sheard (another Doctor Who luminary).

Cyril Shaps (Archimandrite) Oct 13 1923 to Jan 1 2003
Doctor Who credits
Played: John Viner in The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967)
Played: Lennox in The Ambassadors of Death (1970)
Played: Professor Clegg in Planet of the Spiders (1974)
Played: Archimandrite in The Androids of Tara (1978)
Career highlights
Prolific character actor Cyril's first credit was in 1955's The Vale of Shadows, followed by Quatermass II (1955), Miracle in Soho (1957), Follow That Horse! (1960), Supercar (1961-62, as the voices of Professor Popkiss and Masterspy), The Third Man (1965), Man in a Suitcase (1967), Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width (1967-70), Please Sir! (1971), The Liver Birds (1971-72), The Onedin Line (1971/73), Freewheelers (1973), Porridge (1975), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Holocaust (1978), Private Schulz (1981), The Young Ones (1982), Running Scared (1986), Dark Season (1991), The Madness of King George (1994), Our Mutual Friend (1998), Doctors (2000), Murder Rooms (2001), The Importance of Being Earnest (2002) and The Pianist (2002).
Facts
Starting out as a child radio broadcaster at the age of 12, Cyril was also one of the voices of Mr Kipling in those "exceedingly good" cake commercials. One of Cyril's children was Simon Shaps, a sometime director of programmes for London Weekend Television and Granada.

CREW

David Fisher (writer) Apr 13 1929 to Jan 10 2018
Doctor Who credits
Wrote: The Stones of Blood (1978), The Androids of Tara (1978), The Creature from the Pit (1979), The Leisure Hive (1980), and provided the original concept for what became City of Death (1979).
Career highlights
David's other writing work includes Between the Lines (1965), This Man Craig (1966-67), Orlando (1967), Dixon of Dock Green (1969), Crime of Passion (1971), The Troubleshooters (1969-71), The Lotus Eaters (1972), Sutherland's Law (1973), Crown Court (1972-75), General Hospital (1975-77), The Mackinnons (1977), Hammer House of Horror (1980) and Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense (1984). David also wrote several non-fiction books about World War Two with Anthony Read, his sometime script editor on Doctor Who.
Facts
He submitted a script entitled A Gamble with Time for Doctor Who's 17th season, but due to a tricky divorce he had to withdraw, and the concept became City of Death, one of the series' best loved stories.

Michael Hayes (director) Apr 3 1929 to Sep 16 2014
Doctor Who credits
Directed: The Androids of Tara (1978), The Armageddon Factor (1979), City of Death (1979)
Played: Man exiting at Metro station in City of Death (1979, uncredited)
Career highlights
His earliest directing duties were on An Age of Kings (1960), and then A for Andromeda (1961, which he also produced), Moonstrike (1963), Maigret (1963), Sherlock Holmes (1965), The Wars of the Roses (1966), Boy Meets Girl (1967), The Troubleshooters (1965/69), Take Three Girls (1971, which he also produced), Churchill's People (1974-75), Z Cars (1964-75), Rooms (1977), When the Boat Comes In (1976-77), The Standard (1978), All Creatures Great and Small (1980), Skorpion (1983) and Nice (1984).
Facts
Michael's son Patrick (who was 14 at the time) had two unseen roles in The Androids of Tara - pushing the boat that K-9 gets marooned in at the end of the story, and waving some bushes around prior to the attack on Romana by the terrifying Taran Wood Beast! Between 1986-94 Michael read news bulletins on the BBC World Service. He was, for a time, married to actor Mary Chester.

Graham Williams (producer) May 24 1945 to Aug 17 1990 (shooting incident) Click here for Graham Williams's entry on Horror of Fang Rock

Anthony Read (script editor) Apr 21 1935 to Nov 21 2015 Click here for Anthony Read's entry on Underworld