The Girl Who Died/ The Woman Who Lived

Ashildr (Maisie Williams).
Or is it Me?

Two episodes (The Girl Who Died, The Woman Who Lived)
First broadcast Oct 17 to 24 2015
Average audience for story: 6.34m

REGULAR CAST

Peter Capaldi (The Doctor) Born Apr 14 1958 Click here for Peter Capaldi's entry on The Fires of Pompeii

Jenna Coleman (Clara Oswald) Born Apr 27 1986 Click here for Jenna Coleman's entry on Asylum of the Daleks

GUEST CAST

Ariyon Bakare (Leandro) Born Jul 1 1971
Career highlights
Ariyon made his screen debut in Supply & Demand (1997), followed by roles in The Secret Laughter of Women (1999), Family Affairs (2000-01), Shoot the Messenger (2006), A Touch of Frost (2008), The Dark Knight (2008), Silk (2011), Full Firearms (2012), Dancing on the Edge (2013), Jupiter Ascending (2015), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2015), Tyrant (2015), Thirteen (2016), New Blood (2016), Death in Paradise (2016), Star Wars: Rogue One (2016), Frankie (2019), Good Omens (2019), Carnival Row (2019), His Dark Materials (2019-20) and The Mosquito Coast (2022). He also played Dr Ben Kwarme in more than 600 episodes of BBC daytime soap Doctors (2001-05), and wrote and directed several episodes of Doctors between 2004-07.
Facts
Here's Ariyon on Twitter.

Gareth Berliner (Coachman) Born 1972
Career highlights
Gareth's other acting work includes The Bastard Executioner (2015), EastEnders (2016) and The Essex Serpent (2022), while he also played the character of Macca occasionally in Coronation Street (2014-19). He is best known as a comedian.
Facts
Gareth is married to Australian actress Kiruna Stamell, who suffers from a rare form of dwarfism called acromeseomerlic dysplasia and is 3ft 6in tall. Gareth himself suffers from osteoporosis as well as Crohn's Disease, which means he is unable to absorb nutrients in food. As a teenager he experienced drastic weight loss and now takes nutritional feed directly into his blood via a tube in his chest. Surgery also considerably shortened his intestines. There's a lovely article here about how he and Kiruna met and fell in love.

Will Brown (Voice of the Knightmare)
Career highlights

Will's other work includes Spotless (2015), Call the Midwife (2016), Unforgotten (2017), Midsomer Murders (2018), The Nevers (2021) and The Outlaws (2022).

Ian Conningham (Chuckles) Born Oct 17 19??
Career highlights
Ian debuted in Millions (2004), then took roles in The Courtroom (2004), Casualty 1909 (2009), The Hollow Crown (2012), EastEnders (2012), Da Vinci's Demons (2013), Moomins on the Riviera (2014), The Dresser (2015), The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret (2016), Grantchester (2016), Peaky Blinders (2016), The Royals (2016), Outlander (2017), Coronation Street (2017), The Last Kingdom (2018), Top Boy (2019), Manhunt (2021) and The Girl Before (2021).
Facts
Here's Ian on Twitter.

Daniel Fearn (Crowd) Born May 9 1977
Career highlights
Daniel's other work includes The Bill (1993/99/2006/08), Ruth Rendell Mysteries (1997), Battle of Britain (2000), EastEnders (2001), Soccer AM (2005-07), Thorne: Sleepyhead (2008), Dave Shakespeare (2012), A Young Doctor's Notebook (2013), Call the Midwife (2014), Silk (2014), Ripper Street (2014), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2015), The Five (2016), Sherlock (2016), The Rack Pack (2016), Porridge (2017), Peaky Blinders (2014/17), Manhunt (2019), Top Boy (2019), The Irregulars (2021) and Man vs Bee (2022).
Facts
You can spot Daniel in the music video for Lily Allen's single Smile (2006). Here's his Twitter feed.

Gruffudd Glyn (Pikeman Lloyd Llewelyn) Born 1990
Career highlights
Debuted in Thor: The Dark World (2013), followed by Hinterland (2013), Stella (2014), The Theory of Everything (2014), Lewis (2014), Poldark (2015), The Martian (2015), Holby City (2018), A Christmas Carol (2019) and 35 Diwrnod (2020).
Facts
Here's Gruffudd on Twitter.

John Hales (Hangman) Born Apr 1970
Career highlights
Other acting work includes Jonathan Creek (1998), One Foot in the Grave (2000), Office Gossip (2001), Someone You Thought You Knew (2018), Endeavour (2020) and Cursed (2020). John also works behind the cameras and has written episodes of Doctors (2004-05) and Freak of Nurture (2015, which he also directed).
Facts
John runs his own production company, July 14, named after the day following the first of two heart attacks he suffered in 2012.

Elisabeth Hopper (Lucie Fanshawe) Born 1988
Career highlights
Debuted in Scattered (2013), then Black Mirror (2013), Doctors (2013), The Smoke (2014), Cuckoo (2014), Home Fires (2015), Drifters (2015), Endeavour (2016), Agatha Raisin (2016), Ghosts (2019) and Hurt By Paradise (2019).
Facts
Here's Elisabeth on Twitter.

Rufus Hound (Sam Swift) Born Mar 6 1979
Career highlights
Born Robert Simpson, Rufus made his screen acting debut in Big Fat Gypsy Gangster (2011), followed by parts in The Wedding Video (2012), Cucumber (2015), Scottish Mussel (2015), Trollied (2016), Beautiful Devils (2017), Doctors (2021), Matchmakers (2021) and Lore (2022). He regularly played Mattis in Ronia the Robber's Daughter (2014-15) and voiced Waffle in Waffle the Wonder Dog (2018-20). He is also known as a comedian and TV presenter, and in this capacity has appeared in Destination 3 (2005), Top of the Pops (2005-06), The Pyramid Game (2007), Would I Lie to You? (2010), Argumental (2008-10), What Do Kids Know? (2010), Hounded (2010), Celebrity Juice (2008-12), Mad Mad World (2012), The Xtra Factor (2009-12), Tofu (2015), Countdown (2015) and Too Much TV (2016). He also appeared on the sofa next to Peter Capaldi on Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor (2013).
Facts
In 2014, Rufus stood in the European Parliament elections in the London constituency, representing the National Health Action Party. He came ninth, attracting just 1.06% of the ballot. In 2017 he wrote a series of tweets claiming the Manchester Arena bombing was a false flag operation designed to help the Conservative Party in the General Election. Following widespread condemnation, Rufus apologised. Here's Rufus on Twitter.

Reuben Johnson (Pikeman William Stout) Born 1989
Career highlights
Debuted in Weekender (2011), then Prisoners' Wives (2012), Casualty (2013), Territory (2014, which he also wrote and directed), Doctors (2015), The Aliens (2016), Loaded (2017), Postcards from London (2018) and The Teacher (2022).
Facts
Reuben, who is also a playwright, is a founder of the production company Fiddy West. Here he is on Twitter.

Barnaby Kay (Heidi) Born Apr 9 1969
Career highlights
Barnaby made his screen debut in Minder (1994), followed by roles in The Vet (1995), Ghostbusters of East Finchley (1995), Cracker (1996), The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997), Croupier (1998), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Eisenstein (2000), The Bill (2000), Prime Suspect 6 (2003), The Fixer (2008), Wuthering Heights (2009), Without You (2011), Dead Boss (2012), Frankie (2013), New Tricks (2013-14), One Child (2014), Wallander (2012-15), The Five (2016) and Anatomy of a Scandal (2022).
Facts
Barnaby's father was actor Richard Kay, who tragically died in a road accident in 1985. Barnaby's mother is actor Venetia Maxwell. Barnaby is married to actor Nicola Walker (best known for playing Ruth Evershed in Spooks, and Big Finish audio companion Lev Chenka). The couple have a son together called Harry, named after the character of Harry Pearce in Spooks.

Simon Lipkin (Nollarr) Born Jan 6 1986
Career highlights
Other work includes The Bill (2009), Casualty (2009), Nativity 3: Dude, Where's My Donkey? (2014), Show Dogs (2018), Nativity Rocks! (2018), First Date (2021) and The Beaker Girls (2021).
Facts
Simon's mum worked in TV production, and claims to be the one to blame for the Sex Pistols swearing live on TV in 1976 when she was in the control box and fed the questions through to host Bill Grundy. In 2011, Simon stripped off for Gay Times magazine. Here's Simon on Twitter.

Murray McArthur (Hasten) Born May 4 1966
Career highlights
Murray debuted in The Real McCoy (1993), followed by roles in EastEnders (1994), Stanley's Dragon (1994), The Famous Five (1995), Black Hearts in Battersea (1995), Tales from the Crypt (1996), Human Bomb (1998), Burnside (2000), Endgame (2001), Ella and the Mothers (2002), Finding Neverland (2004), Keeping Mum (2005), Commercial Breakdown (2006), The Last Legion (2007), Summerhill (2008), John Adams (2008), A Congregation of Ghosts (2009), Game of Thrones (2015-16), Barbarians Rising (2016), Outlander (2017), Of Gods and Warriors (2018), Pitching In (2019) and The Northman (2022).

Alastair Parker (Limpy)
Career highlights
Debuted in the short Hell for Leather (1998), then The Merchant of Venice (2001), Crossroads (2001), White Teeth (2002), An Audience with Harry Hill (2004), Sinchronicity (2006), I Hate Suzie (2020), Whitstable Pearl (2021) and The Witcher (2021). He is also a prolific voice artist for video games, such as the Fable and Dragon Age franchises.

Struan Rodger (Clayton) Born Sep 18 1946
Doctor Who credits
Played: Voice of the Face of Boe in New Earth (2006), Gridlock (2007)
Played: Clayton in The Woman Who Lived (2015)
Played: Voice of the Kasaavin in Spyfall (2020)
Career highlights
Struan's CV stretches right back to Hobson's Choice in 1967, after which he appeared in The Regiment (1972), Look and Read: Joe and the Sheep Rustlers (1973), Warship (1974), Les Miserables (1978), Return of the Saint (1979), Chariots of Fire (1981), Boys from the Blackstuff (1984), Cover Her face (1985), The Detective (1985), Edge of Darkness (1985), Yesterday's Dreams (1987), Imaginary Friends (1987), Game, Set and Match (1988), Who Bombed Birmingham? (1990), Afraid of the Dark (1991), Spender (1993), Prime Suspect 3 (1993), Chandler and Co (1994), Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), The Madness of King George (1994), Richard II (1997), Young Adam (2003), Sea of Souls (2004), Stardust (2007), Moses Jones (2009), The Thick of It (2009), Kill List (2011), Endeavour (2014), Prey (2014), Grantchester (2014), Game of Thrones (2014-15, as the voice of the Three-Eyed Raven), The Enfield Haunting (2015), Shetland (2016), Vera (2017), Save Me (2018), Age Before Beauty (2018), The World We Knew (2020) and A Discovery of Witches (2021).

David Schofield (Odin) Born Dec 16 1951
Career highlights
Debuted in Z Cars (1972), after which he was found work in The New Avengers (1976), Kids (1979), The Dogs of War (1980), Funny Man (1981), An American Werewolf in London (1981), Icebound in the Antarctic (1983), Studio (1983), Boogie Outlaws (1987), Shadow of the Noose (1989), Jekyll and Hyde (1990), The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Correlli (1995), Our Friends in the North (1996), Band of Gold (1995-96), Tangier Cop (1997), Our Mutual Friend (1998), Junk (1999), Gladiator (2000), Chunky Monkey (2001), The Musketeer (2001), From Hell (2001), The Forsyte Saga (2002), Blue Murder (2003-04), Beethoven (2005), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), Goldplated (2006), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007), Valkyrie (2008), Merlin (2009), The Wolfman (2010), F (2010, which he also executive produced), The Shadow Line (2011), Land Girls (2011), Shameless (2013), The Great Fire (2014), Father Brown (2016), Undercover (2016), The Coroner (2016), The Last Kingdom (2017), Press (2018), Six Minutes to Midnight (2020) and Unforgotten (2021). He also played Piero Da Vinci in Da Vinci's Demons (2013-15).
Facts
David was hastily cast as Odin after the original actor hired for the part - Brian Blessed - suffered a heart attack in January 2015.

Karen Seacombe (Crowd) Born 1964
Doctor Who credits
Played: Sandra in The Lodger (2010)
Played: Crowd in The Woman Who Lived (2015)
Career highlights
Debuted in Reasons to be Cheerful (1981), then Miss Marple (1984), The Tripods (1985), Ping Pong (1987), 15 Storeys High (2002), Little Britain (2003), Magicians (2007), Made in Dagenham (2010) and Friday (2012).

Tom Stourton (Lofty) Born May 16 1987
Career highlights
Tom debuted in the Comedy Lab presentation Totally Tom (2011, which he co-wrote with Tom Palmer), and then took roles in Ruddy Hell! It's Harry and Paul (2012), Common Ground (2013, one episode of which he wrote), About Time (2013), Scrotal Recall (2014), Up the Women (2015), Count Arthur Strong (2015), Horrible Histories (2015), Crackanory (2015), Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge (2016), Hail Mary (2016), Loaded (2017), Tales from the Lodge (2019), The Windsors (2018/20), Pls Like (2018-21), All My Friends Hate Me (2021), Stath Lets Flats (2018-21) and Mood (2022). He also played Dan in Siblings (2014-16), and provides the voice of Duncan in Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (2015-20). Tom is also a regular member of the team which makes Horrible Histories (2015-22).
Facts
He is one half of comedy duo Totally Tom, alongside Tom Palmer (who appeared in Human Nature in 2007). Tom is the son of BBC broadcaster Edward Stourton.

John Voce (Mr Fanshawe) Born Jan 7 1963
Career highlights
Debuted in My Parents are Aliens (2001), then Happy Hour (2001), Crush (2001), Penelope (2006), Primeval (2007), Clone (2008), Miranda (2010), Scoop (2011), Way To Go (2013), The Great Train Robbery (2013), Utopia (2014), Art Party (2014), Dough (2015), The Kennedys (2015), Downton Abbey (2012/15), Grantchester (2016), Neighbours (2019) and Clickbait (2021). He also provides voices for video games, including the Assassins Creed franchise.
Facts
Here's John on Twitter.

Maisie Williams (Ashildr/ Me) Born Apr 15 1997
Doctor Who credits
Played: Ashildr/ Me in The Girl Who Died/ The Woman Who Lived, Face the Raven, Hell Bent (all 2015)
Career highlights
The role for which Maisie is known around the world is Arya Stark in Game of Thrones, which she played in 59 episodes between 2011-19. Further work includes The Olympic Ticket Scalper (2012), The Secret of Crickley Hall (2012), Heatstroke (2013), Gold (2014), The Falling (2014), Cyberbully (2015), Book of Love (2016), Mary Shelley (2017), Departures (2018), The New Mutants (2020), Two Weeks to Live (2020) and Pistol (2022).

Awards

2016: Evening Standard British Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer (The Falling)
Facts
Maisie's first name is really Margaret, but she goes by Maisie after the character in the Perishers comic strip. She also pops up in the music videos for Seafret's Oceans and the Vamps' Rest Your Love (both 2015). Maisie has a tortoise dynasty: "I do have a tortoise dynasty. Barney, Stevie, Adventure Man, and then the one that lives with someone we don't know. I don't know what they named it, probably not a very good name. If I have children, they won't inherit nice jewellery, they'll just inherit tortoises." Here she is on Twitter.

CREW

Jamie Mathieson (writer, The Girl Who Died) Born 1970
Doctor Who credits
Wrote: Mummy on the Orient Express (2014), Flatline (2014), The Girl Who Died (2015), Oxygen (2017)
Career highlights
Jamie's other screenwriting credits include My Parents are Aliens (2005), Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009), Becoming Human (2011), Dirk Gently (2012), Being Human (2010-13) and Tripped (2015).

Awards

2012: Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award for Best TV Drama Series (Being Human) - with production team
Facts
Jamie is a former stand-up comedian who spoke to the Doctor Who production team in 2004 about writing for the series, but did not get a script successfully commissioned for another decade. Here he is on Twitter.
In 2015 Toby Hadoke released his Who's Round interview with Jamie, as well as Toby Whithouse, here.

Steven Moffat (writer, The Girl Who Died) Born Nov 18 1961 Click here for Steven Moffat's entry on The Empty Child

Catherine Tregenna (writer, The Woman Who Lived)
Doctor Who credits
Wrote: Torchwood: Out of Time (2006), Torchwood: Captain Jack Harkness (2007), Torchwood: Meat (2008), Torchwood: Adam (2008), The Woman Who Lived (2015)
Career highlights
Catherine started out as an actress, working on I Used to Live Here Before I Was Born (1990), Y Mapiwr (1995) and Satellite City (1996), as well as regular character Kirsty McGurk in Welsh soap opera Pobol y Cwm, but then moved into writing and worked on The Bench (2001-02), EastEnders (2003), Casualty (2003-06), Law and Order UK (2009-10), Lewis (2013), DCI Banks (2014), Lucky Man (2018), Riviera (2020) and The Watch (2021).

Ed Bazalgette (director)
Doctor Who credits
Directed: The Doctor's Meditation, The Girl Who Died/ The Woman Who Lived (all 2015), Class: For Tonight We Might Die, Class: The Coach with the Dragon Tattoo, Class: Nightvisiting, The Return of Doctor Mysterio (all 2016)
Career highlights
Ed's career began as a dubbing editor on Campion in 1990, as well as Lovejoy (1991), The Long Roads (1993) and Great Moments in Aviation (1994), after which he was credited with editing the fly-on-the-wall series Airport (1996), and then broke into directing with Home Front in the Garden (1998). Further directing work includes Turner: The Man Who Painted Britain (2002), Genghis Khan (2005), Hannibal (2006), EastEnders (2007), Top Gear (2007), Casualty (2011), Holby City (2008-11), Endeavour (2013), DCI Banks (2014), Poldark (2015), Houdini and Doyle (2016), Versailles (2018), The Last Kingdom (2018-20) and The Witcher (2021). He is also credited as an executive producer on The Last Kingdom.
Facts
Ed was the lead guitarist with the band The Vapors, who scored a UK number three hit in 1980 with Turning Japanese. His great great grandfather was Sir Joseph Bazalgette, who designed and engineered the London sewer system. His third cousin Sir Peter Bazalgette is a leading figure on the British arts scene, as well as a creative force in the TV production company Endemol, responsible for shows such as Big Brother and Deal or No Deal. Here he is on Twitter.

Derek Ritchie (producer) Born 1978
Doctor Who credits
Script edited: The Time of the Doctor (2013), Deep Breath (2014), Into the Dalek (2014), The Caretaker (2014). Derek also script edited the 50th anniversary sketch The Five(ish) Doctors (Reboot) (2013)
Produced: The Doctor's Meditation, Under the Lake/ Before the Flood, The Girl Who Died, The Woman Who Lived (all 2015), Class (2016). He also produced Strax's cinema introduction for Deep Breath (2014)
Career highlights
Derek first worked as a locations assistant on The Book Group (2003), and has also edited scripts for Wizards vs Aliens (2012-13). He also produced that series in 2014. As an assistant director he has worked on The Planman (2003), AfterLife (2003), Shoebox Zoo (2004), The Last King of Scotland (2006), Still Game (2002-07), Identity (2010), Frankenstein's Wedding... Live in Leeds (2011), Becoming Human (2011) and Being Human (2008-12). Production work includes Luther (2019), The Capture (2019) and Then You Run (2022).

Nick Lambon (script editor) Click here for Nick Lambon's entry on Under the Lake