Project: Torchwood: 2017-09-03

As ever, another busy month, and coupled with an injury putting me out of action for a week, with no computer time longer than half an hour if I was lucky, we’ve once again worked past our deadline.

These things can’t be helped, and it has bought us a little more time in order to catch up on articles. And with cast of Torchwood who have helped us out considerably over these past few weeks – thank you to Lloyd Everitt and Gwilym Havard Davies for their help towards the latest ‘Day One’ article.

We’ve got links to look back over Issue 49, on the updated ‘Everything Changes’ article, thanks to Gwilym.

This month sees us bidding Andrew Creak, our front cover graphic designer, a sad farewell. He’s off to Uni, and can no longer create any more wonderful front covers – which means, we’re on the look out for someone who can pick up the baton and run with it, for hopefully a long time. If you know of someone, or you are the person we’re looking for – do please get in touch, either social media, or our email address, listed on our Contact Page.

Until then, it’s me with Pic Collage!!!

Tony has been exceptionally busy putting together a host of reviews for you this month. From Who to Torchwood, and if you’re still unsure about the new Doctor, do please visit our Mothership Page, for Tony’s views on this latest debate that is, dare we say it, splitting the nation.

Mitchell, is slowly getting his feet under the table with Torchwood, but still managing to upset the team. Find out how, in this month’s instalment in our Fans Fiction, Mitchell: Part 6.

We hope our friends over in the US of A, are battening down the hatches and keeping themselves safe against the current violent storms heading their way. Stay safe folks, Mother Nature is in a pissy mood right now!

Welcome to Issue 50 – Day One: Where Are They Now?

~Jack~

Big Finish Reviews+ Signs and Wonders by Tony J Fyler

Tony Fyler is wonder-ful.

For those just joining us, Hex is dead.

Hex, the Scouser nurse from slightly in our future who stood a chance of being something extra special to Ace, but then normalized their relationship to one of bezzie time-travelling mates, is dead.

Hector, on the other hand – who may or may not be Hex’s personality and body re-animated by an Elder God and purged of its Hexish memories – up and about like nobody’s business, back to traveling with Ace and the Doctor, but doing it, from his point of view, the first time round, and doing it in his own very distinct style, while Ace gets a bit puppydog about the fact that he’s Hex…which, as far as he’s concerned, he isn’t.

With us so far?

Good, good.

A trip back to Merseyside is in order then, because clearly, you’re the unflappable sort who doesn’t confuse easily.

Welcome to Signs and Wonders.

Signs and Wonders has a fairly straightforward premise front and centre – there are evangelistic types on the Mersey, prophesying the end of the world. Nothing new there, and the slightly disconcerting thing is, one day they’ll be right, and unbearably smug about it.

What if that day is today?

Weird lights in the sky, earthquakes, power cuts, you name it, it’s being visited on the unfortunate souls of Liverpool and the surrounding boroughs, to the extent that Lucas Stone, former celebrity, now apparently doomsday cult leader, is getting a flock of supporters for his idea of partying like it’s 1999.

The thing that’s particularly interesting – and which makes Matt Fitton’s script more easy to listen to than you might expect against such a doom-laden backdrop – is that almost nothing is what you expect it to be in Signs and Wonders. From the premise, you could make an educated guess at the story you think would unfold: aliens manipulating the weather, for the purpose of enslaving some humans for some diabolical reasons of their own, through the auspices of religion.

Signs and Wonders is way better than that, and way more…Seventh Doctor, to boot. Then, just because it can, it even turns its fundamental Seventh Doctorishness on its head, and gives you elements you’d expect, but twisted in some cases a whole 180 degrees.

It’s genuinely difficult, beyond that, to tell you much about Signs and Wonders that won’t spoil it for you. The cast is top notch, with Warren Brown as Rufus Stone and Jessica Martin as the Reverend Janet Green outstanding on different sides of a religious divide, only one that crackles with a Seventh Doctor Olde Timey ultimate battle vibe. And when you find out what really is going on in Signs and Wonders, it slaps you upside the head like a lemon thrown by an orang-utan – refreshing in a somewhat painful way, but you have to give them points for their aim.

It’s worth mentioning too that this is the last in the chronological run of Hex-or-Hector stories. There’s an ending here, an ever after, though whether or not it’s a happy one would of course be telling. But for Hector, there’s a homecoming, a chance to pick a side, pick a destiny, face his fears, his faith and his future. Oh and of course, meet God. Or at least a god.

For the Doctor, there’s the battle as usual, but flipped first on its head, and then somewhat sideways, because when signs and wonders fill the sky and stalk the earth, it’s probably a good idea to note which god does what before you go picking fights.

And for Ace, there’s an ultimate disappointment, a loss, a gain, and a kind of reconciliation to life after…well, life, if nothing else. In Signs and Wonders, Fitton gives us perhaps the most Seventh Doctorish script it’s possible to write, while actually delivering something cleverer than that cliché, more complex than straight line storytelling on TV would ever allow.

Signs and Wonders will leave you surprised, with a pulse rate pounding, and having confronted life, death, faith, reason and at least a couple of forms of love – one of which turns out to be the most surprising, and arguably the most wonderful, thing of all.

The Mothership Time For The Upgrade by Tony J Fyler

It’s hard to know, really, where the idea of a female Doctor first came from.

Oh no, wait, actually it isn’t. It came from the very idea of regeneration itself – every cell in a Time Lord’s body being renewed, rearranged, changed in times of great physical stress. The idea that the process leaves the Time Lord with an entirely different body – different height, build, hair, teeth, kidneys et al – and with different traits coming to the fore of the same fundamental nature - means anything is technically possible when a Time Lord (or Time Lady) regenerates. If it weren’t, every Doctor since 1966 would have been more or less William Hartnell’s First Doctor in a different physical form, and the challenge of the role would have been stunted early on.

Perhaps the first time we saw the potential of this on screen was in The War Games, back in 1969 (just in case you thought this was all part of some Moffat-driven Social Justice Warrior plan to rob you all of a great peaceful male role model), when the Doctor is offered a series of potential bodies, rejecting each in turn as unsuitable – too fat, too thin, too old, too young. The clear implication there is that the process can in some cases be precisely controlled, the new form chosen in fact. All it would have taken to resolve the whole supposed controversy of a female Doctor would have been for the Second Doctor to reject one more body-sketch as being ‘too female for Earth in the seventies (or eighties)’ That would have established the sex-swapping potential of Time Lords, right there and then, but this was 1969, and society wasn’t ready for it. But the implication of that scene, and in fact of regeneration at all, is that everything can change.

We saw the potential again in Episode 1 of Destiny of the Daleks, where Romana, trying on a range of bodies for size and style, changes age, size, skin colour and interestingly, species-template – clearly, the fact that humans look Time Lordy is little more than coincidence, and Time Lords, when they regenerate, can choose or simply get a species-template from across time and space – never mind a female Doctor, we could perfectly reasonably have a Draconian Doctor, a Silurian Doctor, a Sontaran Doctor, even (now that would have been a different take on the War Doctor!). People who believe there can be no such thing as a female Doctor will point to the fact that with all the changes she makes in Destiny, Romana never tries on a male body, but as arguments go, that’s both presumptuous (we can’t know the truth of it), binary-normative (in the vastness of time and space, we’re assuming there are only two sexes, which even a cursory glimpse at even Earth medical history disproves) and spectacularly missing the point – she changes species-template; in any genetic sense, that’s got to be harder work than changing sex within the same template, meaning Time Lords must surely be able to change sex when they regenerate.

Then of course came the flurry of Moffat-era instances to which people point by way of building the claim that the idea of a female Doctor is a recent one (despite the use of it to gain controversy in the eighties by John Nathan-Turner and the much-touted memo from series creator Sydney Newman at around the same time, advocating the Doctor change sex). The Eleventh Doctor’s initial self-assessment includes his squeaky declaration that ‘I’m a girl!’ before he checks his Adam’s apple to disabuse himself of the notion. The Corsair, a friend of the Doctor’s, is said to have had a tattoo replaced with every regeneration, male or female, in Neil Gaiman’s The Doctor’s Wife. Annnnd then of course there’s Missy – who some fans of the show still don’t believe is what she claims to be, a perfectly normal, stark raving bonkers incarnation of the Master. Some fans persist in the idea that something particular ‘happened’ to the Master to trigger the Missy incarnation, because such a thing never having happened on screen before must mean it can’t happen in the ordinary circumstances of regeneration. Some fans of course are wrong, and inventing the straws to which they’re clinging, more or less exclusively to deny the very idea that Time Lords can change sex.

Even then though, in modern Who, there’s no hiding place for those who maintain that wrongness. Originally, Big Finish held out what might be seen as a fig leaf for them, since its ‘Unbound’ tale, Exile, in which Arabella Weir plays a female Doctor, invents the idea that Time Lords only change sex when they regenerate as the result of suicide. Interesting idea in its own right, but as the company saw the way the series was tending in the Moffat era, they came out with the Troughton Early Adventure The Black Hole, in which it’s categorically stated that a Time Lord character has regenerated into a female incarnation, not as a result of any extraordinary stress, but more or less just…because. Big Finish beat the TV show to such a simple, practical reality by weeks or months, because of course, there really is no getting away from the ‘Let’s settle this once and for all’ visual of the Time Lord General – an older white male – regenerating right there in front of us, on-screen so no-one could quibble – into a younger, black female.

More or less End Of.

So let’s see – there’s no real in-show reason why the Doctor shouldn’t be female. It’s always a mistake to think of the character as human, limited by our human notions of…well, anything at all, really. But yet there’s been such a vehement strain of reaction against Jodie Whittaker’s casting from some fans.

We’ve heard that ‘young boys are losing a peaceful male role model’ as though this is some sort of crime against their mental development. Because having a peaceful female role model is of course unthinkable – what, we’re forced to ask, do they think the situation has been like for young girls all this while? Bear in mind that throughout much of the Classic era of Who at least, highly effective actresses were reduced to ‘looking decorative’ and ‘asking questions of the Doctor.’ Certainly there’s been a shift in the dynamic in New Who, but very often the companion has been stopped from being a fully realised role model by the necessity of peril in the storytelling. Now there will be a Doctor who is female, and still the cleverest life form in the room, and still, at her core, the same character played by all the others – a beacon of intelligence, of rationality, of kindness. There’s no betrayal of young boys inherent in that. At most, there’s a relocation of it in a female form, to tell new, old, exciting, dramatic stories that inspire them. And as a side note, it’s worth mentioning that none of the whining about Whittaker’s casting appears to have come from young boys. No, it’s mostly grown men and women who have had an issue with the idea, so perhaps it’s not ‘young boys’ who are ‘losing a peaceful male role model’ but grown-ups.

If it’s grown-ups who feel the loss of their role model, two questions arise – firstly, have you not had enough of a turn to let at least one actress embody your hero? And secondly, what difference can it possibly make to you that the Doctor is female now? She’s been a male for fifty years, she’ll be a male again at some point in the future. Declaring that you’re not going to watch her be a Time Lord because now she’s shaped like Jodie Whittaker and so she doesn’t ‘count’ is cutting off your nose to spite your prejudice.

We’ve also heard that the casting of a woman personally hurts some fans who used the Doctor when they themselves were children as an avatar of safe, good men when they were personally in difficult circumstances. As an argument goes, there’s more weight to this, but again the point emerges – he was there for you when you were small. She’ll be there for young people when they are small. Ultimately, as long as someone’s there to save children from the screaming evils of the universe, why does it make a difference what sex they are? If the situation’s bad enough that you need a distinctly male role model…again, if you’re watching Doctor Who, it’s difficult to escape the knowledge that he’s had thirteen previous bodies (fourteen if you include the two Tenth Doctors, but let’s not, because that way, madness lies), all of which were male. This is merely the first step towards achieving an equality of Time Lord role modelling.

Oh yes – there’s that. We’ve heard that this move is ‘political correctness gone mad,’ ‘the victory of the equality police,’ and a ‘Social Justice Warrior plot to appease the feminazis.’

Number 1 – political correctness is merely open-mindedness in action. It doesn’t go ‘mad,’ it merely goes beyond your comfort zone. If this is beyond your comfort zone, that’s for you to conjure with, not for a major BBC show to pander to.

Number 2 – this is not equality. If you want to know what equality looks like, it looks like the next fifty years of Doctoring in female bodies. We don’t even get near equality till that happens. One female incarnation after 55 years of males is not some great victory for equality – it’s late, and it’s courageous, but it’s one in fourteen. If you have fourteen pounds and I have one, do we have an equal amount of money?

And Number 3 – well…ok, if you’re against social justice, it begs the question of what the hell show you think you’ve been watching for all of those years. The Doctor is, right down to her fundamental chromosomes, the quintessential warrior for social justice. Curious about the universe and its people, she left her home to experience society in all its forms, and she put herself between the little people of the universe and the people and creatures that would do them harm. Is there something about that that confuses you in to thinking the Doctor’s ever been anything but a Social Justice Warrior, and if so, what could it possibly be? Furthermore, if you’re not down with social justice, how come you idolise or admire a character so thoroughly steeped in equality viewpoints and the rights of the downtrodden to live their lives to the full?

So is there no valid reason to oppose the casting of Jodie Whittaker?

There may be, but the fact that she’s a woman isn’t anywhere among them.

People have expressed concerns that neither this particular actress, nor incoming showrunner Chris Chibnall, is actually good enough to deliver the first female Doctor – because apparently, the stakes are higher for a female Doctor than a male one, because this is some whacky notion from Alpha Centauri that has to be smashed out of the park in order to be valid. No surprise to women anywhere that they have to work twice as hard as men to be taken half as seriously, though surely by 2017, we should have left some of our societal gynaephobia behind. But as far as it goes, this is a relatively ‘clean’ argument – Chibnall’s Who career has been less than spectacular. His Torchwood career is better, with a couple of hard-hitting episodes…but then, and always, there is Cyberwoman. His latest success, Broadchurch, appears to be mostly comprised of moodiness, secrets and long shots of people staring into the distance as a substitute for character. Certainly, its conclusions are about as gripping and logical as the evaporating ending of The Power of Three. So if you say you have qualms about the new production team’s ability to do the idea of a female Doctor justice, you have something to back up your argument. Similarly, while I bear her no ill will in the world, audiences have been split before now by Jodie Whittaker’s portrayals, and have every right in the world to think that, if there’s going to be a female Doctor, she might not be the best fit for the role. This is perfectly ordinary fan-behaviour when a new Doctor is cast – there was little that the mainstream audience knew about Sylvester McCoy that let us guess his performance would go down in history as one of the darkest of Doctors. Nothing about that nice young man from the vet programme that made Peter Davison a natural shoe-in for a sarcastic, contained Doctor who would be a joy to watch. Nothing about Jon Pertwee, come to that, the man of a thousand funny voices, to suggest to the audience at large that he would be an action man dandy Doctor who would match olde worlde chivalry with very contemporary concerns. Nothing – almost literally nothing – that qualified Matt Smith to be the Doctor as much as the daily experience of Being Matt Smith did. Not being sure about Jodie Whittaker is fine, perfectly normal fan-behaviour. The point is, this is a role that makes careers, that stretches actors in ways other roles can barely guess at. It’s a time-space Hamlet that only a few actors have ever got to give us – and it’s potentially among the best pension plans in the acting world. It’s by no means easy, but everyone who’s so far earned the role has gone on to deserve it, to wear it and to be the Doctor to at least a generation of fans.

Not being sure about a female Doctor on principle though is one of two things – three at a push. It’s either anti-woman prejudice, or it’s the kind of idiocy that raises the idea that ‘You wouldn’t like it if Wonder Woman became Wonder MAN, would you?!’ – screeeeeamingly missing every conceivable point along the way. Or, most forgiveably, most personally, while at the same time still completely wrongly, it’s adherence to a comfort blanket sensation that your particular experience of the Doctor is the only real, right experience of the character. That the only line beyond which the Doctor cannot go is the line of sex. If that’s your position, you’re entitled to it, while still being wrong. The Doctor is a character of constructs, up there with the gods of myth and legend, in that there’s nothing, literally nothing, she can’t be. Because the fundamental truth of the Doctor isn’t maleness. It’s curiosity. It’s compassion. It’s enthusiasm for the universe and its people, and the thrill of being out there, as opposed to being trapped in the prison of convention that her home planet would have forced on her. That’s the spirit of the Doctor, and that has nothing to do with how her body appears to us from a subjective human standpoint. That’s why, when the first Doctor of Colour arrives, they’ll be the Doctor too. When the first trans Doctor is cast, they’ll be the Doctor. And why Jodie Whittaker (with honourable nods to Joanna Lumley, Arabella Weir and, as some have suggested, Catherine Tate) will be the first female Doctor – but absolutely not the last. Even if the doomsayers are right and the programme folds on her watch (it won’t, but even if it did), her casting unlocks the idea within the main, ‘canon’ show, that the Doctor can be female. That means whatever happens next, girls will grow up knowing they can be the Doctor too, and that the Doctor can speak to them directly. It’s not the idea of a female Doctor that’s matured, from the days when it was a joke on John Nathan-Turner’s noticeboard to try to win press attention. It’s society that’s matured, to the point where a female Doctor is now an in-show reality that will forever broaden what it means to be the Doctor, and what it means to be a Doctor Who fan. The Doctor’s universe just got much, much bigger – and it’s time for the upgrade.

Thursday 7 September 2017

Articles Torchwood: Day One: Where Are They Now? by DJ Forrest

Day One, broadcast the same night as Everything Changes on BBC 3 told of Gwen’s first night on the case. While out with Rhys, celebrating her new job on secondment, (because let’s face it, was she really going to tell Rhys what she really did?) a fireball streaks across the night sky, crash landing a distance from the city of Cardiff. Torchwood are on the scene moments after the Army, and take over, as usual.

It’s a gas alien, a gas alien predator, who needs a fix of sexual energy to survive. Of course, this doesn’t bode well for the blokes in Cardiff, especially the poor bloke who has been cheating on Carys Fletcher, who as the host for the creature, begins sucking the sexual energy out of every bloke she comes into contact with. Well every bloke but her Dad, thankfully! And Gwen and Owen who fall foul of her, but are either not her type, or just a ruse to escape from.

Day One, saw a lot of action, and many more cast than in the previous episode. Some we’ve met before in interviews but it’s always nice to catch up again for a bit of a blether and we hope to post interviews on our other Page at some point in the near future.

But for now. Here’s what everyone’s been up to so far. Again, if we’ve been unsuccessful with up to date photographs of the cast, it will be purely because there were none available at the time of posting.

Cast

Kai Owen

‘Rhys Williams’

‘Aliens. In Cardiff?!’

Kai Owen plays Rhys Williams, the long-suffering husband of Gwen Cooper. In the early days, his character knew little of the job his girlfriend had, until after a heated argument Gwen blurts it out. (Meat). As expected, he doesn’t take it very well, and demands to be shown where she works and who she works with, just to stretch his protective/jealous streak to the max.

In real life, Kai Owen comes over on social media as a bit of a pussycat, yet his roles since Torchwood have been anything but. His role as ‘paedo’ Pete Buchanan in Hollyoaks for the total of 66 episodes has been one of his best performances to date, and yes, it took a while to shake off that Rhys Williams image I had in my head for a while.

He was a manipulative character was Pete, who convinced the entire McQueen family that he was a nice man, but the cracks began to show, when one abused daughter began to open up about her experiences, and then another, and finally the court case brought it all to light.

Since Torchwood, Kai has raised money for CLIC Sargent, the children’s cancer charity, by running the London Marathon and later the Virgin London Marathon. He’s also the patron for the Llandudno Youth Musical Theatre.

Since 2011 – 2015 Kai has played bit characters. One off’s. Those who appear in one episode and no more. From Da Vinci’s Demons, Waterloo Road and Doc Martin, but after Pete Buchanan, Kai’s roles have soared.

With his role as Matthew Waterhouse in Doctors in 2016, and his stage show performance in The Full Monty, where could we see Kai perform next?

The answer: Canaries Movie written and directed by Peter Stray also starring Steven Meo (Random Shoes and Robert Pugh - Adrift). His role as McDonald, the alien sceptic sounds not too different to Rhys Williams before he saw the Torchwood Hub.

Kai has also been involved, like so many of the Torchwood television cast, in the Big Finish audios, and we look forward as ever, to more audios with him.

(Credits: HollyOaks, BBC)

Sara Lloyd Gregory

‘Carys Fletcher’

‘Eddie, is this all I get now, your voicemail? You're out with her, aren't you? You bastard, you could've had the decency to text. I've been standing in there all on my own. I'm sick of this, hanging around all of the time waiting for you to show up. I wish I'd never met you. I wish I was dead. No, I wish you were dead. Call me back.’

Sara Lloyd Gregory has mostly played characters who are often unbalanced due to things that happened in their past. In her most popular role as Alys in the long running series of the same name, she played a young mum bringing up a child, by any means possible, so that Daniel, her son, could reach for the stars.

In 2013 Sara played Catrin John in the Welsh series Hinterland. It was a hauntingly good episode and lifted the lid on life in a notoriously cruel children’s home next to Pontarfynach or ‘Devil’s Bridge Falls’. It was the first episode of the first series of Hinterland. You really felt for her character towards the end of the episode, and the reasons behind her actions, and the gruesome discovery in the garden of the children’s home many years later, by Mathias, broke your heart.

In 2014, Sara played a young woman who had suffered a near death experience and was convinced that her home was haunted by an evil entity, determined to hurt her. The Devil’s Vice was broadcast on BBC1 and also starred Gareth Jewell and Sharon Morgan. It was produced by Peter Watkins-Hughes of Tred Films. http://www.thedevilsvice.org.uk/ you can view the trailer here. It’s no longer available on iPlayer.

In Byw Celwydd, a political fictional drama set in Cardiff Bay http://www.s4c.cymru/en/drama/byw-celwydd/ Sara plays Lowri Ogwen Jones for 16 episodes to date. Her character is the Special Adviser of Watcyn Davies, Leader of the Democrats and is wife to Tom Ogwen Jones, who is Principal Presenter of ‘News Cymru’. It’s a Welsh language programme with English subtitles. It also stars Mark Lewis Jones, Matthew Gravelle and Rhys ap Trefor. The series was originally broadcast on 3^rd January 2016 and filmed on location in Cardiff. You can watch it on S4C.

Sara has also played three different characters in the long running series Doctors on BBC1 since 2009. Her current character is Rachel Lambert in the two parter Wise Up. She was credited as Sara Gregory for that.

(Credits: Sara Lloyd Gregory, BBC)

Ceri Mears

‘Banksy’

‘Where do you think you're going?

There's no re-admission.’

Banksy was the bouncer outside the night club, who at first was prepared to leave Carys Fletcher out in the cold, denying her re-admission. However, a hard snog from the now sex starved alien host, soon changed his mind, and once inside the nightclub, she checked out her prey. Banksy was to get a bit of a shock while he watched the CCTV of the sex alien and her beau in the Ladies loos later on that night.

Ceri Mears has played a selection of small roles since his appearance as the bouncer in Day One. His roles have varied from Security Guard (4 O’Clock Club), a Custody Sergeant (Being Human), a Blacksmith (Ironclad - a screenplay about the Knights Templar defending Rochester Castle against King John, which has a star studded cast, I might add), and a Farmer in Hurt’s Rescue, about a man who saves another but doesn’t think he’s worthy.

In 2015, he played Danny’s Dad in Bridgend, a film directed by Jeppe Rønde, about a village haunted by suicides amongst the young inhabitants. He’s currently (2017) playing Flowers in Big Girl, written by Adam Llewellyn and Thomas Rees.

Ceri has started filming for a Welsh language series called Gwaith Cartref, and if you don’t blink, you can also spot him in an episode of Sky One, Stella. Not sure which episode, but he is there.

(Credits BBC and Ceri Mears)

Adrian Christopher

'Private Moriarty'

‘Who the hell are you?’

Since Torchwood, as Private Moriarty in Day One, Adrian Christopher has been busy with roles in Judge John Deed (2007), The Bill (2007) and Law & Order: UK (2013).

Adrian's latest role is as Rory in Stan Lee's Lucky Man television series - Season 2, episode 9 - Lamb to the Slaughter. It also stars James Nesbitt.

Lucky Man is a new action crime series about a flawed police officer with powers to control luck. The creator, as if you didn't know, from the title, is of course, the brilliant Stan Lee.

(Credits Adrian Christopher, BBC)

Justin McDonald

'Matt'

Justin's character Matt, 'came and went' before the end of the episode, much to the shock of the character, and for Banksy who was pleasuring himself in the security cupboard.

Since Torchwood, Justin has been extremely busy, from playing Young Heelis in Miss Potter in the same year, to Robin Hartnall in Doctors episode - Hopelessly Devoted in 2008. He played Jed Jimpson, in Inspector George Gently, in the episode Gently Through the Mill, in 2009, which told of an investigation into a mill manager found hanged in what appeared to be a suicide case.

Justin played Trevor Cunningham in Emmerdale for 15 episodes back in 2012, played Rory Timpson and Lewis Cork in 3 episodes of Casualty (love that series - always makes me queasy) from 2008 - 2014

Did you see Justin in the Rag 'n' Bone Man music video - Hard Came the Rain in 2015?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7YZtPIzdtM

Justin played Dr Jones in one of CBBC's best drama serials, Wolfblood, in the episode Captivity last year (2016)

Next year (2018) Justin plays Tom Harris in Winter Ridge - about a detective torn apart with emotions, while hunting a serial killer, and also dealing with his wife in a coma. It's written by Matt Hookings who also stars in the thriller. It's released on 15th February in the UK.

Check out our interview with Justin, that we had a few years ago, here: https://projecttorchwood.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/interviews-justin-mcdonald-aka-matt_29.html

(Credits: Justin McDonald)

Brendan Charleson

'Ivan Fletcher'

He rode his motorbike into the popular children's television series 'Tracy Beaker' three years before playing Ivan Fletcher in Torchwood: Day One, and it's from this, that I remember him so well. He acted alongside another Torchwood star - Claire Cage in the CBBC drama.

Since Torchwood, Brendan has played a variety of characters from a police constable to a police sergeant, from taxi driver to bank clerk.

Coming from South Manchester perhaps it was only a matter of time before he was walking the cobbles of Coronation Street (2011), playing the landlord, although not sure of what, but pretty sure it wasn't the Rovers Return. Although I've not really watched Corrie since my once favourite school teacher from Grange Hill, ran his car into the drink with the Platt family. So, he could well have been!

The roles he's played since the late 90s to 2014 haven't been characters that have stood out from the crowd, apart from his role as Colin in Tracy Beaker.

As well as his roles on television, Brendan has performed on stage, and has been a 'stalwart player' at Theatr Clwyd, in Mold. Playing roles in Under Milk Wood, The Aristocrats, Roots, The Taming of the Shrew and To Kill a Mockingbird to name but a few from the long list.

He has also been a lecturer in Film at the University of South Wales.

(Credits: Brendan Charleson)

Robert Störr

The Postie/Delivery Guy

'All right, that's enough. Joke over. Barry's put you up to this, has he?'

When the postie delivered the parcel to Carys Fletcher's house that morning, I don't think in his wildest dreams that he'd find Carys in a lustful mood, desperately craving sex with the mailman. Lucky for him, that Torchwood weren't far behind and put an end to her shenanigans.

There's little to add to Robert's credits, being that there's only two entries, Torchwood being the latter of the two.

We’ve also been unsuccessful in finding anything about him online since his stint in Torchwood – but we’ll keep trying.

(Credits BBC)

Lloyd Everitt

‘Mikey’

Neither Lloyd nor I can figure out who Mikey was in Day One and it will require another watch of the episode to locate him. He might well have been in a deleted scene. Lloyd also played a Youth in the episode ‘Adam’. Again, so long ago, he’s hard to place. When we find it, we will add it in.

Lloyd has appeared on stage as well as in television dramas, and is probably better known for his role in Casualty as Jez Andrews which he’s played since 2016 for 59 episodes. He also appeared in Holby City playing the same role, as well as Noah Farnum in 2014. He was also a semi regular character in Emmerdale back in 2012 for 16 episodes, playing Ed Roberts.

Lloyd was the youngest actor to play Othello at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. After graduating at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and since his Debut at the Donmar Warehouse, where he worked with Michael Grandage, Lloyd has worked with some exceptionally well known faces, including James Earl Jones, Tim Piggot-Smith, Vanessa Redgrave, Mark Rylance and Felicity Jones.

Lloyd was nominated for Best Newcomer at the National TV Awards recently. He’s currently directing his first short film which he wrote and will also star in. He’s also written a feature, which he’s currently putting funding in place, so when we hear more news on this, we’ll let you know.

(Credits BBC Casualty)

Alex Parry

‘Eddie Gwynne’

Alex Parry has only appeared in a few short roles since playing Eddie Gwynne, the two-timing boyfriend of Carys Fletcher, who really shouldn’t have admitted his true feelings to Carys on the day she was playing host to the sex alien.

Playing a barman in the pilot episode of ‘Dirk Gently’ in 2010 and an unknown character in 7.2, an action drama short, written by Nida Manzoor, (about a schoolgirl called Cleo who wakes up to find herself lying on the ground with no memory of who she is), are the only two other credits after his role in Torchwood.

(Credits: Alex Parry, BBC)

Felicity Rhys

‘Bethan’

One thing I’ve noticed about writing up these articles is that, never just go with the most popular websites out there for information, as it’s only when you really start digging, do you reveal a wealth of information, in some surprising areas.

On a popular credit listing website, full of some useful information, little was posted about Felicity’s acting credits. In fact, aside from Torchwood and Pobl Y Cwm, there was absolutely nothing. However, searching deeper, I found a much better site, that of her management team, and it would explain why a lot of detail had been missing. Much of Felicity Rhys’ acting credits come from her stage roles, and there have been many, including voiceovers for popular BBC Radio Stations and MTV.

Since 2007, Felicity has trodden the boards at the Sevenoaks Playhouse for Pinters The Lover, Chekhov’s The Bear, Ionesco’s The Bald Prima Donna, and The Misanthrope. In 2008 she was the Voiceover for the BBC Radio 4/Fiction Factory as Maureen in the play A Dance to the Music of Time. Played Connie Morris in Pobyl y Cwm and regular Babs in 2 Dŷ a Ni, for series 1 & 2, before returning to theatre, at TNT on the World Tour of Oliver Twist as the Artful Dodger from 2008 – 2009.

Another voiceover for Gethin Jones on Radio 5 Live – Promos, it’s back to theatre, this time at Royal Bath Productions as understudy Linda Craven for the Alan Bennett play Enjoy in 2010. Followed by Sita and multiple roles in The Ramayana at the Redbridge Drama Centre.

In 2010 – 2011, Felicity played Lance Corporal Sully for The Garnett Foundation. Played Cheryl in the Bayer Healthcare Promo in the same year, and back on stage at the Redbridge Drama Centre again for the Theatre tour of The Street, playing All Female Roles.

At the same Drama Centre in 2011, Felicity played three characters for A Merrily Grimm Christmas, ranging from Rapunzel, a Witch and a Grandmother. I’m sure not as scary as the Grimm characters on Netflix.

In 2013, Felicity played Miss Julie for the National Theatre tour in the play of the same name, and in 2014, played Nora, in the National Tour of A Doll’s House, bringing her credits as up to date as possible and much further than the popular credit listing site.

(Credits Felicity Rhys)

Naomi Martell

‘Receptionist at the Conway Clinic’

Alas, aside from her Torchwood role, Naomi’s only other role is on Y Pris as a Clerk in 2007.

(credits Naomi Martell)

David Longden

‘Mr Weston’

‘I don’t think so, love, I’m gay!’

Swapping his acting shoes for his singing ones, David Longden’s role as Mr Weston in Torchwood: Day One, was his one and only acting role.

Now if you want to find David, look up his singing performances at Private Functions, Clubs, Weddings and Corporate Functions. He’s gained recognition as being one of the best male vocalists in Wales, according to his website, with a diverse range of musical genres ranging from the classics of Josh Groban, Musical Theatre and Songs from the Screen to Pop, Easy Listening and Swing.

(Credits: ReverbNation, BBC)

Ross O’Hennessy

‘Sgt Johnson’

‘Don't mess with me, little girl. You're not with Torchwood. And even if you were…’

Since his very brief appearance in Torchwood: Day One as Sgt Johnson, Ross as ever has been extremely busy. Since 2006, he’s played a mixture of roles, from a Roman Soldier in The Passion (2008), a Construction manager in Colonial Gods (2009), Bruce Maverick in Hollyoaks Later, who we learned more about in our interview with Ross, a year or so ago. Brush up on that here: https://projecttorchwood.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/interviews-ross-ohennessy-aka-sgt_29.html

He played Barry McKenzie in Holby City in 2014, was Commander Quattrone, sometimes spelt Quattone in Da Vinci’s Demons for 8 episodes, and was Jeff in Ben Loyd-Holmes Dino adventure Extinction in the same year.

Was the Lord of Bones in Game of Thrones series in 2015. Played blood thirsty Sir Locke in The Bastard Executioner in the same year for 9 episodes. A year later he played Barbier in The Musketeers television series.

This year, (2017) Ross is waiting on a few films being released that he shot in 2016. Sir Richard in Knights of the Damned, which if I’m correct, also stars Ben Loyd-Holmes, and is due out from October. The second film Order of Kings – The Dark Kingdom is in post-production. Carnage Cliff in Accident Man, Wyman in The Lost Viking and The Suspicious in The Apostle.

Also, this year (2017), if you’re a regular viewer of British television adverts, you may have recognised Ross in the new Dairylea Dunkers advert.

Credits: (Kraft Dairylea, Game of Thrones)

Naoko Mori

‘Toshiko Sato’

'Okay. So, if you're seeing this I guess it means I'm well, dead. I hope it was impressive, not crossing the road or an incident with a toaster. I just wanted to say, it's okay. It really is. Jack, you saved me. You showed me all the wonders of the universe and all those possibilities and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Thank you. And Owen, you never knew, I love you, all of you. And I hope I did good.'

Since Toshiko’s demise at the end of Series 2, Naoko has found herself not too far away from science, or science fiction, in at least two dramas since Torchwood. Along with comedy roles back in Ab Fab, reprising the role of Julia Sawalha’s friend, Sarah; life for Naoko Mori has been anything but quiet.

Since leaving Torchwood, Naoko returned to the West End and took over the role of Christmas Eve from Ann Harada, for the London production of Avenue Q, playing the role until April 2007.

She portrayed Yoko Ono in Lennon Naked in 2010, alongside Christopher Eccleston, who played John Lennon. It would be the second time the pair had worked together since Doctor Who. The film was broadcast on BBC4 on 23^rd June, 2010.

In 2011, Naoko played Patricia Ramsey in Private Practice, which was a spin off for Grey’s Anatomy. She appeared in the episode ‘It You Don’t Know Me By Now. Reprising her role in 2011, she returned to Ab Fab to play Sarah, Sawalha’s best friend, for 12 episodes.

In Three Inches, an American action sci fi made for TV film, broadcast on the Syfy channel on 29^th December, 2011, Naoko played Annika, a person who could mimic the sounds she hears, perfectly mimicking the people she meets.

The show followed people with supernatural abilities, focusing mostly around the central character, Walter Spackman, who although an under achiever, developed telekinetic abilities after being struck by lightning. I wonder what Toshiko would have thought of him!!!

Moving away from sci fi for perhaps a year or two, in 2012, Naoko played Liz in the CBBC drama Rocket’s Island for 2 episodes. In the Revolting World of Stanley Brown, another children’s drama, she played Sarah Stripe in the episode Hiccupalypse.

In the English thriller, written and directed by Mike Figgis, Naoko appeared in Suspension of Disbelief as Floy. Interestingly enough, this film also stars Lachlan Nieboer, who played…Gray! I’ve not seen the film, so cannot say if the pair were together in any scenes. If anyone has seen it – do let us know if they do.

I can’t believe it was two years ago since I saw Naoko in Midsomer Murders, playing Nadia Simons.

Also in this year, Naoko played Fiona in episode 4 of the first series of Humans, a Channel 4 sci fi drama. The series was created by Sam Vincent and Jonathan Brackley and interestingly stars a handful of Doctor Who cast and quite possibly, crew.

Naoko returned to sci fi to play Nocturnapram Professor in the You, Me and the Apocalypse episode Home Sweet Home in 2015. If you’ve not seen the programme, broadcast on the Sky network, it’s about a group of people, mostly sharing an underground bunker, awaiting the end of the world.

Naoko played Yasuko Namba, an ill-fated experienced amateur mountaineer in the film Everest, starring alongside, Keira Knightley, Jake Gyllenhaal, Emily Watson and Josh Brolin. The film is based on the true events of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, focusing on the survival attempts of two expedition groups, led by Scott Fischer and Rob Hall.

Adding another string to her bow, Naoko has also done voiceovers for video games, including Hitman as the voice of KAI, Yuki Yoshida in The Amazing World of Gumball, in the episode The Fury, in 2016, and the voice of Yotsuyu in Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood video game released in 2017.

In the film Life, about a team of scientists aboard the International Space Station who discover a rapidly evolving life form that not only brought about the extinction of all life on Mars but looks set to wipe out all life on Earth, sees Naoko once again, working alongside Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s a film I most want to see, and brings Naoko back to sci fi.

Not only that, but returning to Torchwood after such a long break, saw her play out her role of Toshiko, in the frozen wasteland of Russia, in Zone 10, which is another wrap up warm story, full of snow and secrets, and a signal sent from 40 years ago.

Currently, Naoko is playing Dr. Pagazzi, in episode five of the new mini series, Patrick Melrose, which also stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Patrick Melrose, and will air in 2018.

Credits (Blast films, Everest, BBC)

And that’s it for this month, see you back here in October for Cyberwoman!

Pages

Friday 8 September 2017

Articles Welcome to Issue 50 - Where Are They Now? Day One

Big Finish Reviews+ Signs and Wonders by Tony J Fyler

The Mothership Time For The Upgrade by Tony J Fyler

Thursday 7 September 2017

Articles Torchwood: Day One: Where Are They Now? by DJ Forrest

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