The actress Maggie Stables who had played the Sixth Doctor companion Evelyn Smythe in the Big Finish audios, has died after a long illness.

Maggie Stables turned to acting as a second career after taking early retirement from her post as a French teacher.

After some experience in musical theatre, in 1991 she acted in a production of Jane Eyre with Nicholas Briggs. This led to Briggs later casting Stables as Ruthley in Big Finish's first Doctor Who play The Sirens of Time, and as Evelyn the following year.

She played the character in twenty Big Finish productions.

Nicholas Briggs paid tribute to the actress on the Big Finish Website. Sixth Doctor Colin Baker also paid tribute to the actress Maggie staples died in her sleep on Friday night, the 26th of September.

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The Doctor Who Appreciation Society have an interview with the actor on their YouTube channel (pts 1 and 2), recorded at their Who@38.con convention in 2001.

The classic series writer Jane Baker has died.

Jane Baker, along with her husband and writing partner Pip, was one of the best known writers from the mid 80's era of Doctor Who, writing eleven episodes for the series. Together they created the Rani, a female Time Lord scientist who was brought to life so vividly by the late Kate O'Mara, as well a creating the companion Mel.

Pip and Jane Baker began writing together in the 1960's working on the films The Painted Smile, The Break, The Night of the Big Heat and Captain Nemo and the Underwater City. On Television they worked on the children's thriller Circus as well as episodes of Z-Cars and Space 1999.

In 1985 they were commissioned by producer John Nathan Turner to write for the first full series of the Sixth Doctor, Colin Baker, producing the story Mark of the Rani. The story was well received and the couple returned the following year to pen Terror of the Vervoids the third segment of the Trial of a Time Lord Season, envisaged as a whodunnit in space.

Later that year the couple were called into rescue the series following the departure of the then Script editor Eric Saward, following a disagreement with Nathan Turner. Saward had withdrawn his script for the final episode of the season leaving the Bakers to come up with an alternative ending, without access to anything already written, and without creating anything which needed a new set to be built. They had just three days to come up with a script capable of concluding a season they had very little part in conceiving. Jane Baker later described to Doctor Who Magazine the period as challenging rather than exciting, but rated the script produced as one of her favourites.

After the transmission of the season, Phi and Jane Baker found themselves defending their scripts on the BBC's feedback programme Open Air, facing criticism from some fans including future script writer Chris Chibnall. It was an experience Jane found perplexing. "We were presented with four young men, who seemed to say on the one hand it was to complicated and on the other it was too simple".

The Bakers returned to Doctor Who at the start of the next season, introducing the seventh Doctor in Time and the Rani, a script which brought back their most enduring creation The Rani.

In the early 1990's they created the children's programme Watt on Earth which ran for 24 episodes on BBC One.

Tributes to Jane Baker have been led by Colin Baker, who posted on twitter

The director Michael Kerrigan has died at the age of 61

Michael Kerrigan directed the 1989 Doctor Who story Battlefield

Although this was his only encounter with Doctor Who itself, in 2008 he directed four episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures, The Day of the Clown and Secrets of the Stars, becoming one of a select group who have worked on both the original and the new franchises of Doctor Who.

He had a wide range of credits on British television, working on a number of well known dramas, including Coronation Street, Captain Mack, The Basil Brush Show, The Famous Five, The Courtroom, The Bill, Mr. Majeika, Knights of God, Henry's Leg, No 73 and The Baker Street Boys.

Australian actor Bill Kerr, has died at the age of 92.

Bill Kerr played Giles Kent in the 1967 Doctor Who story The Enemy of the World. Five missing episodes were recovered last year bringing a new appreciation to a story, the vast majority of which had not been seen since its initial transmission.

Kerr was born in Cape Town in June 1922, born into an Australian showbiz family while they were on tour in South Africa. His stage role began at just a few weeks old when he played a babe in arms during the tour.

He grew up in Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, Australia, where he became a radio and vaudeville star. His first major role was in one of Australia's first talking films, The Silence of Dean Maitland.

In 1947 he moved to the UK where he appeared in the BBC radio series Variety Bandbox. In the 1950's he won the role which would make him famous across the UK, that of the Australian lodger in the BBC radio comedy series Hancock's Half Hour, staying with the show for six years. In the theatre he played the Devil in the original West End production of Damn Yankees, directed by Bob Fosse. He worked with Spike Milligan appearing in the stage play The Bed-Sitting Room. In 1972 he co-starred with Anthony Newley in the long-running Newley/Bricusse musical, The Good Old Bad Old Days.

His film appearances include The Dam Busters and The Wrong Arm of the Law. Other TV work included Citizen James, Compact, Dixon of Dock Green and Adam Adamant Lives!.

He returned to Australia in the 1979 where he appeared in the Peter Weir films Gallipoli and The Year of Living Dangerously. He had a number of roles in Australian TV shows such as Minty, Snowy, Sons and Daughters and Anzacs as well as appearing on stage in musicals such as My Fair Lady.

In January 2011 Kerr received the 2011 Walk of Honour in his home town of Wagga Wagga. He died at his home in Perth at the age of 92.

(with thanks to Dallas Jones)

The actor Ray Lonnen has died at the age of 74.

Ray Lonnen played Gardiner, an officer aboard the Earth battle cruiser, in the 1973 Doctor Who story Frontier in Space.

Away from Doctor Who he appeared in many British television dramas over the years, including The Bill, Midsomer Murders, Crossroads, Budgie the Little Helicopter, Rich Tea and Sympathy, Harry's Game, Z Cars, Coronation Street and Jackanory.

The actor died on Friday after a three year long fight with Cancer

He was married to the actress Tara Ward, who announced his death on twitter.

The acclaimed actress Zohra Sehgal has died at the age of 102.

Zohra Sehgal was the longest lived actress ever to appear in Doctor Who, appearing alongside the first Doctor William Hartnell in two stories. She played Sheyrah in the second episode of the 1965 story The Crusade, as well as having a small role playing an attendant in three episodes of the 1964 story Marco Polo.

Zohra Sehgal was born in 1912, in Saharanpur in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, the third of seven children. After attending Queen Mary's Girls College in Lahore she decided to pursue a career as a performer.

Her first role for British television was in a BBC adaptation of a Kipling story, The Rescue of Pluffles. She anchored 26 episodes of BBC TV series, Padosi (Neighbours), made in 1976–77. She was signed by Merchant Ivory Productions appeareing in The Courtesans of Bombay directed by James Ivory in 1982. This paved the way for the role of Lady Chatterjee in the television adaptation The Jewel in the Crown in 1984. She went on to appear in Tandoori Nights, My Beautiful Laundrette, Bhaji on the Beach, The Mystic Masseur, Bend It Like Beckham, Cheeni Kum and others.

The actress received the Padma Vibhushan, India's second-highest civilian honour, in 2010.

Speaking on her 102nd Birthday Sehgal spoke of the future. Zohra Sehgal died at a hospital in Delhi on Thursday afternoon following a cardiac arrest.

The actress Barbara Murray has died at the age of 84.

Barbara Murray appeared in Doctor Who in 1982, playing Lady Cranleigh in the story Black Orchid, alongside fifth Doctor Peter Davison.

Born in London in 1929, Murray made her stage debut in 1949 working in regional rep at the Newcastle Playhouse. Later that year she appeared in her first film, Badger’s Green before appearing as Shirley Pemberton in the classic Ealing comedy Passport to Pimlico.

Her success in the movies led to a string of roles on the small screen, where she became a familiar face, with a career spanning five decades. Some of her more memorable TV roles include parts in The Pallisers, His and Hers, Never a Cross Word, The Power Game and The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling.

West End appearances included the thriller Wait Until Dark , the comedy Flip Side and the play An Ideal Husband. She also appeared with Peter O’Toole in Pygmalion and opposite John Mills in Little White Lies. On Broadway she appeared briefly at the Biltmore Theatre in Leslie Weiner’s comedy about a family-run lingerie business, In the Counting House.

Barbara Murray retired to Spain where, earlier this year, she fell and broke her hip. She died in hospital May 20, aged 84.

She was twice married and divorced, and is survived by three daughters from her first marriage to the actor John Justin.

The actor and writer Glyn Idris Jones has died at the age of 82.

Jones was one of a select group who not only wrote for Doctor Who but also appeared in it.

Born in Durban in South Africa, Jones trained as an actor, touring the country with the National Theatre Company. He arrived in London in the 1950s, having worked his passage to the United Kingdom, entering the country with about five pounds in his pocket. He worked for The Sunday Times and Kemsley Newspapers before returning to acting in weekly rep first at New Brighton and then at Ventnor on the Isle of Wight.

In 1964 he met David Whitaker, the first story editor on Doctor Who, at a dinner party hosted by Trevor Bannister of Are You Being Served fame. The result was that he was commissioned to write The Space Museum for the second series of the show. By the time the script entered production the story editor was Dennis Spooner, who cut much of the humorous elements from the script, much to Jones's dismay. He would later write the Target novelisation of his scripts, reinstating much of this material.

Jones would write only one script for the series, a second was rejected by a later production team, but he would return as an actor, appearing as Krans, one of a group of GalSec colonists stranded on Earth, in the 1975 story The Sontaran Experiment.

Other work as an actor included appearing in London's West End in Reunion in Vienna, Brassbound's Convention and Measure for Measure. In America he played Dodge in Buried Child and Eddie Carbone in A View from the Bridge. He wrote the screenplay for the 1964 Oscar-nominated film A King's Story, based on the life of Edward VIII, and was chief writer for the fondly-remembered children's series Here Come the Double Deckers.

His autobiography No Official Umbrella was published in 2008.

Jones died peacefully at home in Vamos, Crete, on Wednesday 2 April 2014. His death was announced on his blog.