Face the Raven

Clara dies. She really does. But before
she does, she's got somewhere else to go...

One episode (Face the Raven)
First broadcast Nov 21 2015
Average audience for story: 6.05m

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

Naomi Ackie (Jen) Born Aug 22 1992
Career highlights
Naomi's other work includes I Used to Be Famous (2015), The Five (2016), Lady Macbeth (2016), Vera (2018), The Bisexual (2018), The End of the F***ing World (2019), Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), Small Axe (2020), Master of None (2021, which she also executive produced), The Score (2021) and I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022).

Awards

2017: British Independent Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer (Lady Macbeth)

2020: BAFTA TV Award for Best Supporting Actress (The End of the F***ing World)
Facts
Here she is on Twitter.

Caroline Boulton (Habrian woman) Born Jun 25 1980
Career highlights
Caroline debuted in Time Trumpet (2006), followed by roles in Spirits of the Fall (2008), The Napoleon Complex (2009), Toothache (2011), World Without End (2012), Dracula (2013), Hercules (2014), Houdini (2014), Tyrant (2015-16), Murder Maps (2016), Emerald City (2017), The Terror (2018), Mars (2018), I Hate Suzie (2020), Shadow and Bone (2021), Baptiste (2021) and Halo (2022).
Facts
Caroline trained as a ballet dancer and also works as a stand-up comedian and TV presenter. Here she is on Twitter.

Angela Clerkin (Alien woman) Born Jan 1961
Career highlights
Other work includes EastEnders (2000), Sugar Rush (2005), My Family (2006), Holby City (2010), Humans (2015) and Coronation Street (2019). She also played Jackie in The Office (2001).
Facts
Angela launched production company Clerkinworks in 2013, and also formed the Irish dancing act the Hairy Marys with her sister Maire. She appeared in the 2009 music video for Fluke's song Absurd.

Simon Paisley Day (Rump) Born Apr 13 1967
Doctor Who credits
Played: Steward in The End of the World (2005, as Simon Day)
Played: Rump in Face the Raven (2015, as Simon Paisley Day)
Career highlights
Simon is more commonly known as Simon Paisley Day to distinguish him from the comedy actor of the same name. His acting career kicked off in 1992 in Red Dwarf, followed by London's Burning (1993), The Knock (1994), Wycliffe (1995), Spartacus (2004), He Knew He Was Right (2004), The Last Detective (2005), Hotel Babylon (2006), The Relief of Belsen (2007), Being Human (2010), The Eagle (2011), Doc Martin (2011), Sherlock (2012), Titanic (2012), Da Vinci's Demons (2013), The Musketeers (2014), Pudsey the Dog: The Movie (2014), Stan Lee's Lucky Man (2016), Victoria (2016), The Crown (2017), Star Wars - The Rise of Skywalker (2019), Alex Rider (2020), Little Birds (2020), Death in Paradise (2022) and Persuasion (2022).
Facts
He is married to conservation biologist Dr Susy Paisley-Day, who specialises in studying the spectacled bear, native to the Andes.

Jenny Lee (Elderly woman)
Career highlights
Jenny debuted in Dr Finlay's Casebook (1965), followed by Ape and Essence (1966), United! (1966), Riptide (1969), Paul Temple (1970), Matlock Police (1971-72), Division 4 (1974), The House on the Hill (1981), EastEnders (1986), Taggart (1987), Hot Metal (1988), The Dirtwater Dynasty (1988), Grange Hill (1989), On the Up (1990), Hope It Rains (1991-92), Monarch of the Glen (2001-03), Doctors (2005) and Holby City (1999/2015). She regularly played Helen Stone in 74 episodes of Certain Women (1973-76) and Granny Campbell in 20 episodes of Hollyoaks (2017-18).

Simon Manyonda (Kabel) Born 1986
Career highlights
Debuted in How It's Done (2009), then Whitechapel (2012), Suspects (2015), Neil Gaiman's Likely Stories (2016), The Current War (2017), Mirrors (2018), His Dark Materials (2019), The Witches (2020), The Bay (2019-21), Pennyworth (2020-21) and Van der Valk (2022).
Facts
At an early age Simon suffered from, but overcame, speech impediments. Here he is on Twitter.

Robin Soans (Chronolock guy) Born Jun 20 1946
Doctor Who credits
Played: Luvic in The Keeper of Traken (1981)
Played: Chronolock guy in Face the Raven (2015)
Career highlights
Robin debuted in 1972's The Reprieve, followed by Absolution (1978), Horse in the House (1979), Dream Stuffing (1984), The Last Place on Earth (1985), Tales of Sherwood Forest (1989), Bergerac (1991), So Haunt Me (1993), Blue Juice (1995), Jonathan Creek (1997), Dangerfield (1999), The Russian Bride (2001), Not Only But Always (2004), Waking the Dead (2005), The Queen (2006), Midsomer Murders (2005/10), Silk (2012), Endeavour (2013), Viceroy's House (2017), Victoria (2016-17), Red Joan (2018) and The Princess Switch franchise (2018-21).
Facts
In 2003, Robin travelled to Israel and Palestine to speak to people caught up in the conflict, then wrote the play The Arab-Israeli Cookbook, which premiered in 2005 to great acclaim. The play is just one of a number of hard-hitting plays by Soans, including A State Affair (2000) and Talking to Terrorists (2005), during the research for which he almost got beheaded!

Joivan Wade (Rigsy) Born Jul 23 1993
Doctor Who credits
Played: Rigsy in Flatline (2014), Face the Raven (2015)
Career highlights
Joivan made his debut in Casualty (2012), followed by Callum (2012), Big School (2013), Pompidou (2015), The Interceptor (2015), Walliams and Friends (2015), EastEnders (2016), The Weekend (2016), The Dare (2019) and Wade in the Water (2020). He regularly played Failia in Youngers (2013-14) and Victor Stone aka Cyborg in Doom Patrol (2019-21).
Facts
Joivan is co-founder of The Wall of Comedy, along with Percelle Ascott. His dad David was a member of the gospel group The Wades. Here's Joivan 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.

Letitia Wright (Anahson) Born Oct 31 1993
Career highlights
Guyana born Letitia debuted in Holby City (2011), then took roles in Victim (2011), Top Boy (2011), Glasgow Girls (2014), Chasing Shadows (2014), Urban Hymn (2015), Humans (2016), Black Mirror (2017), Black Panther (2018), Ready Player One (2018), Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame (2018-19), Small Axe (2020), Death on the Nile (2022), Aisha (2022) and Black Panther 2: Wakanda Forever (2022). She also played Vivienne Scott in several episodes of both Cucumber and Banana (2015).

Awards

2019: BAFTA Rising Star Award

2019: NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Breakthrough Performance in a Motion Picture (Black Panther)

2022: NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Character Voice-over Performance - Motion Picture (Sing 2)

Facts

In 2020 Letitia attracted controversy when she shared a video on Twitter which called into question the safety of Covid-19 vaccines. The speaker in the video, which was later taken off YouTube for violating its terms or service, also appeared sceptical of climate change, accused China of spreading the Covid virus, and make transphobic comments. Letitia later quit social media. In 2021 Letitia suffered "a critical shoulder fracture and concussion with severe side effects" when a stunt went wrong while filming Black Panther 2: Wakanda Forever.

CREW

Sarah Dollard (writer) Born Jan 21 1980
Doctor Who credits
Wrote: Face the Raven (2015), Thin Ice (2017)
Career highlights
Australian Sarah started her TV career as a script editor on Australian soap Neighbours (2005-08), and fulfilled similar script doctoring duties on The Saddle Club (2008), Merlin (2009), Primeval (2011) and Stella (2012). Her script writing work began by writing episodes of Neighbours (2007-13), as well as writing a series of Primeval webisodes in 2010, Being Human (2013), The Game (2014), Love Me (2014, which she also created and produced), You, Me and the Apocalypse (2015), The Halcyon (2017), The White Princess (2017), Bridgerton (2020) and A Discovery of Witches (2018/21). Sarah was also a producer on Bridgerton (2020) and Cuckoo Song (2023).
Facts
Here's Sarah on Twitter.

Justin Molotnikov (director)
Doctor Who credits
Directed: Sleep No More (2015), Face the Raven (2015)
Career highlights
Justin's first directing work was on 1999's My Parents are Aliens, followed by Shoebox Zoo (2004-05), Taggart (2007), Shameless (2012), Merlin (2011-12), Atlantis (2013-15), Lucky Man (2018), Poldark (2019) and Outlander (2022). He is also a screenwriter, having co-created and written for Shoebox Zoo, and written for River City (2003/06) and Crying with Laughter (2009 - which he also directed, and appeared in as Big Hairy Gorilla!).
Awards
2009: BAFTA Scotland Award for Best Feature Film (Crying with Laughter) - shared with production team

Nikki Wilson (producer) Click here for Nikki's entry on The Sontaran Stratagem

David P Davis (script editor)
Doctor Who credits
Script edited: Robot of Sherwood, Listen, Time Heist, The Caretaker, Kill the Moon, Mummy on the Orient Express, Flatline, In the Forest of the Night, Dark Water/ Death in Heaven, Last Christmas, The Magician's Apprentice/ The Witch's Familiar, The Zygon Invasion/ The Zygon Inversion, Sleep No More, Face the Raven, The Husbands of River Song (2014-15)
Career highlights
David has also edited scripts for Merlin (2010) and Casualty (2011-14), as well as being a researcher on Holby City (2009-10). He wrote an episode of Casualty in 2012.
Facts
Here's David on Twitter.