Victor Pemberton – who acted, script-edited and wrote for the classic series of Doctor Who – has died aged 85.

Pemberton appeared in the Patrick Troughton story The Moonbase, script-edited the Telosians’ next appearance in The Tomb of the Cybermen, and wrote Fury from the Deep for the Second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria. Eight years later, he wrote The Pescatons, an original audio story for Tom Baker’s Doctor and Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith. He novelised both of his stories for Target, with Fury from the Deep widely regarded as one of the best in the range.

In addition to many non-genre pieces, Victor Pemberton’s other writing work included a radio serial, The Slide; although many sources often claim that Fury from the Deep was an adaptation of The Slide, Pemberton himself noted on his website: “I’d like to make it quite clear that I did not submit ‘THE SLIDE’ as a DOCTOR WHO story, but because of the huge success of ‘THE SLIDE’ on radio, Peter thought it would be a good idea to do something which used the environment as a theme, and as North Sea Gas was just coming on flow around that time, that’s what I went for.” He also penned The Fall of Mr Humpty and Dark for Radio 4, as well as adaptations of H. Rider Haggard’s She, and an original werewolf story Night of the Wolf, starring Vincent Price.

 

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