Actor and Children's presenter Brian Cant has died at the age of 83.

Brian Cant appeared in two Doctor Who stories. In 1965 he played Kert Gantry, a Space Security Agent, in the first episode of The Dalek's Master Plan. He returned to the series in 1968 playing Chairman Tensa in two episodes of The Dominators

However for most people in the United Kingdom Brian Cant will be lovingly remembered for his work on children's television.

He was working for a BBC Schools drama on The Romans in 1964 when he heard that the BBC was holding auditions for presenters on a new programme aimed at pre-school kids, Play School, due to launch on the new station BBC Two. His audition involved getting into a cardboard box and pretending to row out to sea. He joined the in its third week and stayed for twenty-one years.

His work on Play School led him to be selected as the voice on three Gordon Murray puppet series: Camberwick Green in 1966, Trumpton in 1967, and Chigley in 1969.

In 1971 the BBC launched a spin-off from Play School, Play Away, aimed at older children, featuring songs and jokes and airing on Saturday afternoons, with Cant as the main presenter alongside actors such as Toni Arthur, Derek Griffiths, Floella Benjamin, Johnny Ball, Carol Chell, Jeremy Irons, and Tony Robinson.

In 2007 Cant topped a poll of presenters with the best-loved voices in children’s TV.

The actor had been living with Parkinson’s disease in recent years and died at Denville Hall, a retirement home often used by those in the entertainment industry.

A family statement said:Cant's Play School co-presenter Derek Griffiths paid tribute on Twitter, posting a reunion picture of the team. And former Blackadder star Sir Tony Robinson also tweeted: "Brian Cant was my mentor and friend on Play Away. We wrote and performed together for two years. Always patient, courteous and funny P-L-A-Y R-I-P."

Brian Cant was married twice, and had five children, including the actor Richard Cant who appeared in Blink.

Doctor Who - The Eaters of Light had an Audience Appreciation or AI figure of 81

The Appreciation Index in an indication of how much viewers enjoyed the episode. It is based to the reactions of a selected panel of viewers, who rate the episode shortly after transmission.

The highest score for the evening on the two main channels was for Casualty, which scored 85

The Eaters of Light has debuted in Australia, averaging 396,000 viewers in the five major capital cities. The story was the second highest rating ABC drama of the day and the eleventh highest rating program of the day overall. These ratings do not include iview, regional or time-shifted viewers.

Meanwhile, including time-shifted viewers, The Lie of the Land averaged 497,000 consolidated viewers in the five major capital cities. With 69,000 extra viewers it was the fourth highest time-shifted program of the day (the highest time-shifted program had 164,000 extra viewers) and the tenth highest rating program of the day overall. These ratings do not include iview or regional viewers.

Press reaction to this week's Doctor Who, The Eaters of Light, is mixed, with most reviews calling it a solid, if flawed, episode.

Radio Times enjoyed the story calling the script beautifully written. "What’s often rewarding about Doctor Who is that – beyond rewrites, budget constraints, casting and performance – it allows an authorial voice to sing through. It happened for Munro in 1989’s Survival and does so again in The Eaters of Light. It’s a beautifully written script that feels at one with half-remembered Celtic myths."

Digital Spy agreed the story had a both a strong sense of place and a formidable grasp on character. "Some fantastic location work – many evocative shots of a moody, misty Scotland – helps bring Munro's script to life as she milks the 2nd-century setting for its worth. She finds both humour and pathos in the past, such as the Doctor's using a totally anachronistic bag of popcorn to frighten the natives, followed by Bill's horror at the shockingly low age of soldiers on the battlefront."

The Telegraph also appreciated the Direction. "Director Charles Palmer made full use of the sweeping Highland landscape, while the script had fun with the Scots theme, with references to the permanently damp weather and a fatal absence of sunlight being “death by Scotland”. By the end of the episode, Capaldi even wanted to stay."

The Mirror felt the story was safe filler material with some niggles. "The Light Eaters are visually glorious and using them sparingly helps build the tension for their screen appearances. This series of Doctor Who continues its tightrope act of exactly how gory can corpses get before the watershed and this is pretty gruesome. The bodies of the fallen soldiers and villagers are truly unpleasant, but more than enough to punctuate the danger for anyone who crosses the Eaters' path."

AV Club praised the script written by veteran Doctor Who writer Rona Munro "She skillfully mixes the political and the personal here: The Roman army is a weapon premised solely on overwhelming force, one that relies on taking hundreds of scared teenagers and siccing them on a bunch of peaceful farmers who are in the way. The empire is terrible and vast, but only in aggregate, and that reality makes the cowardice of the surviving soldiers all but inevitable."

Ars Technica felt the story was a good introduction to the series "There's a portal that has trapped a hungry beast between dimensions; the Doctor jigs his way through problem-solving while reminding Nardole and the audience that he's an old hand at this kind of thing and a classic Who story device features, sidekick Bill is separated from her time-travelling pals for much of the episode—leaving her to untangle yet more of the Time Lord's powers, such as the telepathic link from the TARDIS that auto-translates any language to English."

However Games Radar felt the threat in the story was confusing "Unfortunately the monsters are pretty badly explained; we know they eat light, but somehow being exposed to light in great amounts is their greatest weakness. They serve no other purpose than to be the baddies of the episode, and are (as usual) billed as a threat to the entire universe. No nuance, just lots of teeth and Medusa-y tentacles"

Den of Geek also felt the episode was missing something. "What The Eaters Of Light lacked for me was a sense of threat, a strong monster or force to push against. The creature we got was an impressive looking beast for the most part, the one who keeps popping through a portal when able and allowed to wreak havoc. But whereas there are moments in this run of Who that have really dug under the skin and been quite creepy, this time it felt like we got a decent enough creature, yet the sense of peril didn’t come across for me."

IGN praised the supporting cast "The supporting players of Romans and Scots are all pretty good and an improvement over many of the guest stars from earlier this year. Bill’s interplay with Lucius (Brian Vernel, who Star Wars fans might recognize from The Force Awakens) regarding his romantic intentions is pretty funny, and the pain of the girl Kar (Rebecca Benson), who has lost everything, rings true."

The Reel Bits felt the episode was old school Doctor Who "The Eaters of Light’ is a solid if not outstanding historical adventure. Spinning its wheels slightly, it’s reminiscent of the show’s original ethos of being an educational outing for kids. Indeed, if the special effects and outfits hadn’t been updated, a episode that primarily hangs around in a handful of locations with Roman soldiers in stock BBC costumes would fit right in with the original series."

Finally TV Fanatic felt it was a solid episode. "There was plenty to enjoy here, from Nardole "blending in" with the natives to the Doctor's speech about crows being in a huff to Bill's realization about the TARDIS's translation feature. Though once the Doctor volunteered to guard the gate, every likely viewer knew that someone else would stand up and do the job in his stead. Seriously, there are two more episodes left in this season after this one!"

Doctor Who - The Eaters of Light, had an audience of 2.89 million viewers, a share of 22% of the total TV audience, according to unofficial overnight figures.

The overnight rating is the lowest the series has received in its history, just below that received by The Lie of the Land, which was up against the Britain's Got Talent final.

Doctor Who faired relatively well compared to other programmes on Saturday with all suffering from the good weather across the UK on Saturday with the highest rated programme, BBC News, getting just 4.09 million watching. Casualty had 3.75 million while Mrs Brown's Boys had 3.40 million. Pitch Battle, which followed Doctor Who had just 2.03 million watching.

ITV peaked with just 3.11 million viewers for The Voice Kids, while the film Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason had just 1.60 million viewers.

Final figures which will include those who recorded the programme and watched it later, will be published next week.

The BBC has released a new image for the Doctor Who series 10 finale, which sees Missy (Michelle Gomez) and the Master (John Simm) together for the first time.

The pair are seen either side of the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) as they put their own chilling spin on the poster image that previously accompanied Doctor Who’s 50th-anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor.

Simm will return to Doctor Who as the Master for the first time since New Year’s Day 2010, when he was responsible for the regeneration of the Tenth Doctor. This time the Master will come face-to-face with Missy, his later regeneration, and battle the Doctor during the series’ two part finale which begins next weekend.

The episodes will also feature the return of the Cybermen - including the original Mondasian Cybermen, for the first time in over 50 years - plus Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie) and Nardole (Matt Lucas) in an adventure that promises to change Doctor Who forever.

Doctor Who’s series finale begins in the UK with episode 11, World Enough and Time, at 6:45pm on Saturday 24 June on BBC One, followed by broadcasts around the world. It concludes on Saturday 1 July with Episode 12, The Doctor Falls – an extended, 60-minute episode.

This week BBC One will show Doctor Who at the earlier time of 6.45pm.

Main Broadcast Details
United Kingdom	BBC One	Sat 17 Jun 2017	6:45pm BST
Middle East	BBC First	Sat 17 Jun 2017	9.20pm AST	(Sat 7:20pm BST)
United States of America	BBC America	Sat 17 Jun 2017	9:00pm EDT	(Sun 2:00am BST)
Canada	SPACE	Sat 17 Jun 2017	9:00pm EDT	(Sun 2:00am BST)
New Zealand	PRIME	Sun 18 Jun 2017	7:30pm NZST	(Sun 8:30am BST)
Finland	YLE2	Sun 18 Jun 2017	12:05pm EEST	(Sun 10:05am BST)
Australia	ABC	Sun 18 Jun 2017	7:40pm AEST	(Sun 10:40am BST, also on ABC ME)
Brazil	SyFy	Sun 18 Jun 2017	8:00pm BRT	(Mon 12:00qm BST)
Latin America	SyFy	Sun 18 Jun 2017	10:00pm CDT	(Mon 4:00am BST)

Full listings here

A blue plaque has been unveiled at the childhood home of the woman who realized the original Doctor Who theme music, Delia Derbyshire.

The mark of respect is one of 47 Blue Plaques unveiled as part of BBC Music Day, to commemorate people or places that have influenced the UK’s musical landscape. Those honored include singers, musicians, songwriters, producers, and broadcasters, as well as significant locations that played a major role in the UK's musical heritage.

People commemorated include John Peel and David Bowie, while places getting a plaque include the Brighton venue where Abba won the Eurovision Song Contest.

The final list was selected from BBC Local Radio listeners’ suggestions, as well as those of a committee including music industry experts and BBC representatives.

David Holdsworth, Controller of BBC English Regions, said: The plaque honouring Delia Derbyshire was unveiled by Sixth Doctor Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant who played Peri, who joined BBC Coventry & Warwickshire's Vic Minett to officially perform the ceremony.

Delia Derbyshire's blue plaque unveiled on #BBCMusicDay pic.twitter.com/8WibGs30cX

— BBC Cov Warks (@BBCCovWarks) June 15, 2017

The BBC have announced a special screening of Episode 11 of Doctor Who, complete with a live music accompaniment from the The National Orchestra of Wales will take place in Cardiff on June 24th

The episode will be screened at BBC Hoddinott Hall in Cardiff’s Wales Millennium Centre. It will be followed by an on-stage Q&A with some of the team behind the show, including Pearl Mackie (Bill Potts) and lead writer and executive producer, Steven Moffat.

The evening will be hosted by Jason Mohammad and promises monsters and surprises. Fans will be invited to submit questions for both Pearl and Steven through the BBC’s official Doctor Who website and social feeds. For those unable to attend in person, the live Q&A with Pearl will be live streamed on the BBC One Facebook page and the Doctor Who YouTube Channel.

Tickets are free and will be allocated via a random ballot. Applicants need to be able to attend the event in Cardiff and make their own arrangments for travel and accommodation.

To enter the ballot you need to Tweet #DWFinaleCountdown to @bbcdoctorwho.

Fifteen winners will be selected at random from all entries. Each winner will receive a pair of tickets for the event.The winners will be contacted by Direct Message just after 3pm Wednesday 14 June, so you must be following @bbcdoctorwho. If you do not reply within the time specified in the Direct Message the tickets will be offered to another entrant selected at random.

Full details on the BBC Webpage

The BBC have released a number of new publicity images to promote this week's episode of Doctor Who, The Eaters of Light
This week BBC One will show Doctor Who at the earlier time of 6.45pm.

Main Broadcast Details
United Kingdom	BBC One	Sat 17 Jun 2017	6:45pm BST
Middle East	BBC First	Sat 17 Jun 2017	9.20pm AST	(Sat 7:20pm BST)
United States of America	BBC America	Sat 17 Jun 2017	9:00pm EDT	(Sun 2:00am BST)
Canada	SPACE	Sat 17 Jun 2017	9:00pm EDT	(Sun 2:00am BST)
New Zealand	PRIME	Sun 18 Jun 2017	7:30pm NZST	(Sun 8:30am BST)
Finland	YLE2	Sun 18 Jun 2017	12:05pm EEST	(Sun 10:05am BST)
Australia	ABC	Sun 18 Jun 2017	7:40pm AEST	(Sun 10:40am BST, also on ABC ME)
Brazil	SyFy	Sun 18 Jun 2017	8:00pm BRT	(Mon 12:00qm BST)
Latin America	SyFy	Sun 18 Jun 2017	10:00pm CDT	(Mon 4:00am BST)

Full listings here