Our 2023 Guests
Katy Manning
Katy Manning has been acting and directing for 55 years. 6 years in television followed by a theatre career that has spanned 3 countries from London's West End to the Sydney Opera house to New York and L.A. Katy has voiced multiple animated films and even hosted her own chat show.
Katy was cast in Doctor Who as Jo Grant alongside Jon Pertwee and returning as Jo Jones in The Sarah Jane Adventures with Elizabeth Sladen and Matt Smith. Katy has now met 4 Doctors and was seen briefly in The Power of the Doctor this past October.
She has just completed her third and last audio drama box set as Jo Grant. With Big Finish, Katy has played Jo Grant / Jo Jones, Iris Wildethyme (with several Doctors and Sir Derek Jacobi 's Master), plus characters in their productions of Dorian Grey and Dracula. She even appeared in Torchwood as Jo Jones and as Mother Nothing and the Ice Warrior queen in the Troughton years. “Not a Well Woman” was written and performed by Katy.She has even worked with Tom Baker in “Bakers End”.
Penguin published her first short story “Origin Stories” which is available now. A new audio set “The Return of Jo Jones” was recently released from Big Finish.
Paul McGann
Paul McGann is best known to Doctor Who fans as the eighth incarnation of our favorite Time Lord from Gallifrey. He starred in the 1996 Doctor Who movie and made a surprising appearance in the 50th anniversary prequel Night of the Doctor. He reprised the role in the 2022 episode The Power of the Doctor. The Eighth Doctor's adventures continue thanks to the Big Finish Productions audio dramas including a reunion with Emma Campbell-Jones in the recently released story “Cass”.
Paul has an extensive acting resume that includes Ripper Street, The Musketeers, Horatio Hornblower, Luther, Empire of the Sun, Alien 3, and the cult classic Withnail and I.
Frazer Hines
No L.I. Who based convention would be complete without an appearance by Frazer Hines! He is the godfather of Long Island Doctor Who and he also played Jamie McCrimmon, one of the most beloved companions of all time, during the Second Doctor’s era. Our annual Saturday night tradition continues this year with FrazerCon 4!
Jan Chappell
Jan Chappell starred as the telepath Cally in three seasons of the influential British sci-fi series Blake’s 7 from 1978-1980. She reprised her role in the Blake’s 7 audio dramas from Big Finish Productions.
This is a rare convention appearance for her in the United States.
Catherine Schell
Catherine Schell has lived a life more dramatic and colorful than any of her many acting roles.
Her story sweeps from her birth during an allied bombing raid in Budapest, to life under post-war Russian occupation, escape and life as a refugee in Austria, a strict convent school life in America, and on to Germany where she becomes an actress.
Whilst international fame would follow through roles in the James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service starring George Lazenby as 007 and the Pink Panther franchise, as well as the iconic role of the shapeshifting Maya in popular 1970’s sci-fi TV series SPACE: 1999, the story off camera is all together more human and real. An abusive husband, her father’s surrender to Alzheimer’s, her brother’s paranoid schizophrenia, and a dominant and passionate mother, all play their part in her tale. In 2016, the first part of her memoirs was published under the title A Constant Alien. The second part, When God Was Out For Lunch, was published in 2018.
In 1979 she starred as Countess Scarlioni in one of the most iconic Doctor Who stories of all time, City of Death with Tom Baker and Lalla Ward. The story was co-written by Douglas Adams and featured co-stars Julian Glover and Tom Chadbon. Paris filming locations and cameos by John Cleese and Eleanor Bron delivered the highest ratings in Doctor Who history!
Catherine continues to appear in television and film including the Steven Moffat / Mark Gatiss production of Dracula in 2020 and Rob Zombie’s The Munsters (also starring Sylvester McCoy) in 2022.
This is a rare convention appearance for her in the United States.
Gary Russell
After a ten-year career as a young actor (which one day he plans to write a book about), Gary moved into other aspects of the industry, working as a runner/assistant director/AFM, as well as spending a period of time in press and publicity and brand management for the BBC. As a freelance writer he has written for a number of national magazines and periodicals such as Radio Times, Mojo and Time Out. For Marvel UK he served as an Editor and then Group Editor in both magazine and comic book departments, before moving on to work for gaming magazines and TV Soap magazines.
He has written over 30 Doctor Who related novels and factual books, including both the novelisation of the 1996 Doctor Who TV Movie and the behind-the-scenes making of book about the same production. As well as Doctor Who, he has also written non-fiction books on The Simpsons, Frasier and a number of New York Times best-selling hardbacks about the Peter Jackson-directed The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. He's also written fiction based around TV shows such as Blake's 7 and Robin of Sherwood.
In 1997 Gary helped establish Big Finish Productions Ltd, for which he was the Executive Producer, overseeing all audio drama and book publishing programming; script-editing, producing and directing over 200 hours of original audio drama. After 8 years at Big Finish, he rejoined the BBC as a Script Editor at BBC Wales Drama, where he stayed for nearly 6 years, working on Doctor Who, Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures and Wizards vs Aliens. Whilst at BBC Wales he also produced and directed a number of Doctor Who animation and game projects – including The Infinite Quest, Dreamland and the BAFTA-winning The Gunpowder Plot adventure game.
In 2013 he temporarily relocated to New South Wales, Australia, to be the Executive Producer on a 26-part ABC Me childrens’ animated series, from Planet 55 Studios, called Prisoner Zero. He returned to the UK in 2016 and wrote the Doctor Who Infinity video game The Orphans of the Polyoptera. Working with Big Finish Creative, he most recently oversaw the making of the animated version of the Doctor Who adventures Fury From the Deep, The Web of Fear, Galaxy 4 and The Abominable Snowmen for BBC Studios.
He has most recently completed writing an audio novel for BBC Audio, The Lagoon Monsters, featuring the Tenth Doctor.
John Peel
John Peel is a British writer, best known for his TV series tie-in novels and novelizations of Doctor Who, Star Trek, The Avengers, James Bond Jr., and many others. A friend of Terry Nation, Peel wrote adaptations of several Doctor Who Dalek stories for Target Books and wrote for the ‘BBC Books’ Eighth Doctor Adventures range again featuring Nation’s Daleks which include War of the Daleks (1997) and Legacy of the Daleks (1998).
2023 Autograph Send In Partner
Marked Out Collectibles
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