The Stones of Blood

Vivien Fay (Susan Engel) tries to
out-stare the Doctor (Tom Baker).
She lost, obviously.

Four episodes (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four)
First broadcast Oct 28 to Nov 18 1978
Average audience for serial: 8.03m

• A pictorial guide to the guest cast is at the bottom of this entry

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

Gerald Cross (Megara voice) Feb 20 1912 to Feb 26 1981
Doctor Who credits
Played: White Guardian voice in The Stones of Blood (1978, uncredited)
Played: Megara voice in The Stones of Blood (1978)
Career highlights
Gerald debuted in The Man with the Cloak Full of Holes (1946), after which he appeared in The Olive Jar (1955), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955), The Adventures of the Big Man (1956), The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1956), A Time of Day (1957), William Tell (1958), Our Mutual Friend (1958-59), Law and Disorder (1958), Bleak House (1959), The World of Tim Frazer (1960), Murder She Said (1961), The Avengers (1962), Murder Ahoy (1964), The Scarlet and the Black (1965), The Newcomers (1967), Doctor in Charge (1972), Doctor on the Go (1975-77), Rumpole's Return (1980) and Bless Me Father (1978/81).
Facts
He was married to actress Nuna Davey.

Susan Engel (Vivien Fay) Born Mar 25 1935
Career highlights
Austrian born Susan first appeared in The Comedy of Errors (1964) before taking roles in The Wars of the Roses (1965), A Farewell to Arms (1966), The Rat Catchers (1966), Charlie Bubbles (1967), The Queen's Traitor (1967), Inspector Clouseau (1968), King Lear (1971), The Lotus Eaters (1973), Moody and Pegg (1975), The Barry Humphries Show (1977), Armchair Thriller: Quiet as a Nun (1978), Scorpion Tales (1978), Hopscotch (1980), We'll Meet Again (1982), A Kind of Alaska (1984), Damage (1992), Inspector Morse (1997), Underworld (1997), Trial and Retribution (2002), Dalziel and Pascoe (2005), Afterlife (2005), The Cafe (2011/13) and Holby City (2016). She will be best remembered as Helen Bourne in the series The Cedar Tree (1976).
Facts
Susan's husband is fellow actor Sylvester Morand.

Elaine Ives-Cameron (Martha) Dec 5 1938 to Nov 15 2006
Career highlights
Debuting in Illegal Abortion (1966), American-born Elaine's further roles include Codename (1970), The Road Builder (1971), The Message (1977), Terror (1978), Murder By Decree (1979), Ragtime (1981), Supergirl (1984), Dempsey and Makepeace (1985), Northanger Abbey (1987), Selling Hitler (1991), Revenge of Billy the Kid (1992), Dead Babies (2000) and Time Trumpet (2006).
Facts
Elaine was particularly prolific on the stage, having written and performed the one-woman show Sylvia Plath: Reflections in a Psychic Landscape. In the early 1990s Elaine was embroiled in a bitter legal battle to evict squatters from her home after a former tenant, who failed to pay rent, brought in other illegal occupiers and locked her out of her own home. She wrote about her ordeal in the Independent in 1994.

Beatrix Lehmann (Professor Rumford) Jul 1 1903 to Jul 31 1979 (following a stroke)
Career highlights
Beatrix's earliest screen credit was in The Passing of the Third Floor Back (1935), and later had roles in Strangers on Honeymoon (1936), Candles at Nine (1944), The Key (1958), Operation Snafu (1961), The Ghost Sonata (1962), The Spread of the Eagle (1963), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), Out of the Unknown (1967, the episode The Prophet, which featured the black versions of the White Robots from The Mind Robber), The Portrait of a Lady (1968), Staircase (1969), Paul Temple (1970), Affairs of the Heart (1975), Just William (1977), Love for Lydia (1977), Armchair Thriller: The Limbo Connection (1977), The Cat and the Canary (1979) and Crime and Punishment (1979).
Facts
Beatrix started her acting career predominantly on the classical stage in the 1920s, moving into TV and films in later life. Beatrix was also an author, having written books such as Rumour of Heaven (1934) and a number of short stories. Her father was writer Rudolph Chambers Lehmann who most famously wrote for Punch magazine and was founding editor of Granta magazine, and was also Liberal MP for Harborough between 1906-10. Her brother was poet and writer John Lehmann, one of the 20th century's foremost literary editors and a contemporary of Virginia Woolf; her sister was author Rosamond Lehmann, a member of the infamous Bloomsbury set; and her great-uncles were artists Henri and Rudolf Lehmann. Beatrix was a strong, openly gay woman throughout her career, and her links to homosexuality don't end there - sister Rosamond's most popular book Dusty Answer (1927) boldly depicted homosexuality among the university set of the age, while brother John was a key chronicler of gay male life in London during World War Two. Beatrix was also a friend of gay author Christopher Isherwood, who dedicated his The Berlin Stories (the basis for the musical Cabaret) to Beatrix and John Lehmann. It is also thought Beatrix may have enjoyed a sexual relationship with infamous Hollywood legend Tallulah Bankhead in the 1920s during a period when she was understudying Bankhead in a series of plays in London. Beatrix suffered a stroke in May 1979. At the time of her death, Beatrix had been in a relationship with actor Shelagh Fraser (best known as Aunt Beru in Star Wars: A New Hope) for 15 years. Beatrix left Shelagh her house, but her sister Rosamond prevented her from inheriting the property. Thirteen portraits of Beatrix are housed by London's National Portrait Gallery.

David McAlister (Megara voice) Apr 2 1951 to Jun 26 2015 (cancer)
Career highlights
Debuted in The Human Jungle (1964), and was then cast in Secret Army (1977), The Sandbaggers (1978), Triangle (1982), Widows 2 (1985), Brookside (1985), Kit Curran (1986), A Taste for Death (1988), Traffik (1989), Waterfront Beat (1991), Specials (1991), Harry Enfield and Chums (1994), Fatherland (1994), Bugs (1995), Rab C Nesbitt (1996), Cor, Blimey! (2000), Starhunter (2000), Two Thousand Acres of Sky (2003), Time Commanders (2003), Red Cap (2004), Mike Bassett: Manager (2005), Silk (2014), Holby City (2014) and Starhunter ReduX (2018). He also narrated 16 episodes of the children's series Time Commanders (2003) and played rapist Dennis Richardson in soap Hollyoaks in 1999 and 2003. He was a prolific voice actor and worked extensively in this field, including voiceovers for commercials for HSBC Bank, Kleenex tissues and Marks and Spencer.
Facts
David played Friedrich Von Trapp in the original West End production of The Sound of Music in the early 1960s.

Nicholas McArdle (De Vries) Born 1940
Career highlights
Nicholas started out playing various roles in the series Broaden Your Mind (1968-69), and was then cast in Softly Softly (1969), The Gnomes of Dulwich (1969), The Liver Birds (1971), Colditz (1974), Heidi (1974), Late Call (1975),The Howerd Confessions (1976), Little Lord Fauntleroy (1976), The Mike Reid Show (1978), Z Cars (1978), Butterflies (1978), Porridge (1979), To the Manor Born (1979-80), The Goodies (1980), The Flipside of Dominick Hyde (1980), Only When I Laugh (1982), No Place Like Home (1984/86), Wipe Out (1988), Taggart (1990), Strathblair (1992-93) and Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War (2000).
In 2017 Toby Hadoke released his Who's Round interview with Nicholas here.

James Murray (Camper) Aug 6 1952 to Aug 5 1981 (suicide)
Career highlights
James's other credits include The Fenn Street Gang (1971), The Dancing Years (1976), Raffles (1977), 1990 (1978) and An Ordered Life (1980).
Facts
James (real full name Michael Murray James) was the son of actor and DJ Peter Murray OBE, a BBC and commercial radio DJ and presenter of Top of the Pops. James suffered from depression and drug addiction, which led to him taking his own life one day before his birthday.

Shirin Taylor (Camper) Born 1956
Doctor Who credits
Played: Camper in The Stones of Blood (1978)
Played: Customer in Dragonfire (1987)
Career highlights
Shirin's further credits include Men of Affairs (1974), Crown Court (1982), Nana (1982), The Cleopatras (1983), Give Us a Break (1983-84), Crossroads (1985), I Woke Up One Morning (1985-86), Turn On To T-Bag (1988), Bust (1988), Streetwise (1989), A Touch of Frost (1995), London's Burning (1998), Night and Day (2001), Doctors (2001) and Extended Rest (2014). She may be best remembered as Mike Baldwin's love interest Jackie Ingram (later Baldwin!) in 75 episodes of Coronation Street (1990-92).

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.

Darrol Blake (director) Born May 15 1937
Career highlights
Darrol started his TV career as a production designer on the likes of Quatermass II (1955), Blue Peter (the original set from 1958), Peridot Flight (1960), What's New? (1962), Pops and Lenny (1963), Tricks 'n' Nixon (1963), Crackerjack! (1962-63), The Graham Stark Show (1964), Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life (1964-65), The World of Wooster (1965-66), Adam Adamant Lives! (1966) and The Dream (1967), but then moved into directing programmes such as BBC3 (1965-66), The Late Show (1966-67), Paul Temple (1971), The Onedin Line (1971), Doomwatch (1971-72), Ace of Wands (1972), Harriet's Back in Town (1973), The Tomorrow People (1974), Shadows (1975), Crossroads (1976-77), Coronation Street (1977), The Boy Merlin (1979), Triangle (1981-83), Tucker's Luck (1984-85, which he also produced), EastEnders (1989-90), 77 episodes of soap Emmerdale (1977-94), Brookside (1987-95) and Family Affairs (1997).
Facts
Darrol is married to actress Anne Cunningham, who may be best remembered as Linda Cheveski in soap Coronation Street (1960-84).
In 2016 Toby Hadoke released his Who's Round interview with Darrol here.

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

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