8.28 million watched the UK transmission of Last Christmas according to consolidated figures available today, which include those recording the programme and watching within one week of transmission.

The final chart position should be available next week.

The actor Bernard Kay has died, aged 86.

Born in Bolton, Kay began his working life as a reporter on Bolton Evening News, and a stringer for The Manchester Guardian. He was conscripted in 1946 and started acting in the army. Gaining a scholarship to study at the Old Vic Theatre School, he became a professional in 1950 as a member of the company which reopened the Old Vic after the Second World War. In 1952, for the Nottingham Rep, he learned, rehearsed, and played Macbeth in less than 24 hours. In 1984, he played Shylock in The Merchant of Venice during a British Council tour of Asia, ending in Baghdad, in the middle of the Iraq/Iran war. Other theatre includes An Inspector Calls (Garrick Theatre), Macbeth (Nottingham Playhouse), Titus Andronicus (European Tour), A Man for all Seasons (International Tour), The Merchant of Venice (International Tour), Galileo (Young Vic), Death of a Salesman (Lyric Theatre, Belfast) and Halpern and Johnson (New End Theatre). He twice appeared at the Finborough Theatre, London - in 2006 in After Haggerty and in 2010 in Dream of the Dog.

Over the course of his career he appeared in a large number of TV productions, including South Riding, Dick Barton Special Agent, Emmerdale Farm, The Avengers, The Champions, The Cellar and The Almond Tree, The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe (1967), Clayhanger, A Very British Coup, Century Falls, Casualty, Casualty 1909, Doctors, Coronation Street and Foyle's War. He also appeared in the very first episode of Z Cars.

He portrayed Captain Stanley Lord of the SS Californian in the BBC dramatisation Trial by Inquiry: Titanic in 1967; and he played the bandit leader Cordova in Zorro television episode Alejandro Rides Again in 1991 which was filmed in Madrid, Spain. Kay also gave a sympathetic performance as Korporal Hartwig in an early episode of Colditz.

His film career kicked off with Carry on Sergeant, during which he encountered the indomitable star, William Hartnell. They would work together again in Doctor Who, with Kay appearing in two of the first Doctor's stories, as Tyler in the second Dalek adventure The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964), and as Saladin a few months later in The Crusade; he later worked alongside Patrick Troughton in The Faceless Ones (1967) and Jon Pertwee in Colony In Space (1971). In 2006, he also guest-starred in the Doctor Who audio adventure Night Thoughts alongide seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy.

Other film roles included They Came From Beyond Space, The Shuttered Room, Witchfinder General, The Hunting Party, Sweeney!, Sinbad and the Eye of The Tiger, and most recently as the Reverend Swan on Psychosis. His most famous film appearance is perhaps his appearance as a Bolshevik leader in Doctor Zhivago in 1965.

(Bernard Kay, 23rd February 1928 - 29 December 2014)

Candy Jar Books has released the following image relating to their forthcoming Lethbridge-Stewart novel series:

Along with the image, the publisher released the following quotation, attributed to Plato: "We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." (Unfortunately, the attribution, although widespread, appears to be spurious; it is not found in any of Plato's extant works.)

The title Fear of Light is not one of the four previously announced novels in the series. Range editor Andy Frankham-Allen promises that more information will be forthcoming.

Happy New Year!
From Willy Phantom and the Doctor Who News team

John Hurt, who played the War Doctor in the 50th Anniversary special The Day of the Doctor, has been awarded a knighthood in the Queen's New Year Honours list.

The actor was given his award for services to drama. Sir John Hurt has had a career lasting more than five decades, appearing in films such as The Elephant Man, where he played John Merrick, Nineteen Eighty-Four where he played Winston Smith and Scandal where he played Stephen Ward. On Television he is best known for playing Caligula in the renowned I, Claudius and Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant. His distinctive voice has been used in many productions such as Watership Down and the animated The Lord of the Rings.

Also honoured is actor James Corden who played Craig Owens alongside the Eleventh Doctor, who has been made an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, or OBE. Corden, who was also honoured for services to drama said he was delighted at with award.Other actors honoured include Sheridan Smith who is made a OBE and Meera Syal who is made a CBE.

The awards are given by Queen Elizabeth on the advice of the British Government.

Big Finish are running a "12 Days of Big Finish-mas" special offer over the course of the festive period, during which each day sees an item from their catalogue of series made available for download at a special price of £2.99 for 48 hours.

Details of each day can be found via their website: today's offer features the Companion Chronicle The Scorchies, which stars Katy Manning reprising her role as Jo Grant.

Toby Hadoke has completed the 100th Podcast in his quest to get anecdotes about every Doctor Who story broadcast during the show's first fifty years.

The actor and comedian, and the man behind the review Moths ate my Doctor Who Scarf, began his quest in January 2013 by interviewing special effects make-up artists Susan Moore and Steve Mansfield. Over the next 100 editions he has talked to a vast range of personal associated with the series in its long history, giving a real insight into the way the show was made and uncovering previously unheard stories.

The 100th edition was released on Christmas Day and reveals whether Hadoke was successful in his quest.

All The Podcasts are hosted by Big Finish and all are available to download for free from the Big Finish Website.

Everyone involved has given their time for nothing and listeners are invited to make donations to the interviewee's favourite charity.

Last Christmas has debuted in Australia, averaging 563,000 viewers in the five major capital cities. It was the top-rating drama of the day and the thirteenth highest rating programme of the day overall.  These ratings do not include regional or time-shifted viewers.

Doctor Who Last Christmas had an Audience Appreciation Index score of 82.

The Appreciation Index or AI is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the programme. The score, out of a hundred, is compiled by a specially selected panel of around 5,000 people who go online and rate and comment on programmes.

The highest scoring programmes from Christmas Day were Call the Midwife and Downton Abbey.

The BBC Three repeat of Last Christmas had 0.42 million watching, a share of 1.9% of the total TV audience.

It was on Saturday 26th December 1964, fifty years ago today, that we said goodbye to the first regular to leave Doctor Who, with the departure of Carole Ann Ford from the series.

When 12.4 million viewers saw Susan fall in love with freedom fighter David Campbell and the Doctor lock the TARDIS doors so she wouldn't have to choose between her grandfather and her new love, it was the end of an era for the Doctor and his granddaughter. For the programme Doctor Who it was a major milestone, with one of the quartet of actors to have created the series moving on to new challenges, and leaving a sizable hole in the tight-knit team.

Carole Ann Ford was an experienced character actress when she joined Doctor Who. She first appeared in a film at the age of eight. After appearing in a number of commercials and walk-on work, her first proper role was in the play Women of the Streets. She had appeared in the TV Movie Expresso Bongo and had roles in Horrors of the Black Museum, Probation Officer, The Ghost Train Murder, Emergency-Ward 10, Dixon of Dock Green, No Hiding Place, Crying Down the Lane, The Day of the Triffids, Mix Me a Person, Harpers West One, The Punch and Judy Man and Z-Cars.

It was that role in Z-Cars which led to her being cast as Susan, a role originally envisaged, and pitched to Ford, as a much more alien character than that which eventually emerged. It is well known that the changes to the proposed role frustrated Ford. In 2013 she talked to The Daily Telegraph: The role of Susan had been toned down on the instructions of the Head of Drama, Sydney Newman, who wanted the character to be much more ordinary, a character that a teenager in the 1960's could relate to.

Carole Ann Ford decided to leave the series at the end of the first year of production. She completed her last studio recording on Friday 23 October in Riverside Studio 1. Following the recording she sent a note to the BBC Head of Drama, Sydney Newman, thanking him for allowing her to appear in the series. He replied the following week Following her departure from the series Carole Ann Ford had a couple of small roles in British Television. However as a key member of one of the most successful series in the BBC repertoire, seen by up to twelve million viewers each week, Ford found herself typecast. She told the Daily TelegraphIn 1965 she played a prostitute, Jenny Graham, in an episode of Public Eye, the long-running British TV series starring Alfred Burke, but received complaints from parents expecting the role to be a copy of Susan. In 1974 She played Valerie in an episode of the comedy Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?.

Ford was taken ill in 1977 when a mistreatment for a back injury caused her to become hyper allergic. She nearly died in Spain when an aspirin caused anaphylactic shock. Her weight plummeted to just five stone (70lb) and she lost her voice.

To help her recover Ford undertook voice coaching which led to a new career as a vocal adviser for actors, politicians and business leaders. In 1983 she well enough to return to the role of Susan when she was offered a part in the Doctor Who Twentieth Anniversary special The Five Doctors. She was still very possessive of the role, insisting the script was changed when she was initially asked to refer to The Doctor rather than Grandfather.

Carole Ann Ford now lives in North London. She has reprised the role of Susan in a number of Doctor Who audio plays by Big Finish Productions. In 2013 she appeared in a cameo role in the BBC Two docu-drama about the creation of Doctor Who, An Adventure in Space and Time, a play where Ford herself was played by Claudia Grant.

She still holds great affection for the series she left fifty years ago, the show she helped to create.

Goodbye Susan 
Susan has fallen in love with resistance fighter David Campbell, and the Doctor decides to leave her on Earth to find a new life with him, bidding her a fond but firm farewell