Nicholas Briggs

Nicholas Briggs
Briggs in 2008
Born	(1961-09-29) September 29, 1961 London, England
Nationality	British
Occupation	Actor, voice actor, screenwriter, director, composer
Years active	1987-present

Nicholas Briggs (born September 29, 1961) is a British actor and writer, predominantly associated with the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who and its various spin-offs, particularly as the voice of the Daleks and the Cybermen. Briggs sometimes uses the pseudonym Arthur Wallis. He is the younger brother of BBC Look North presenter Colin Briggs.

Career

Doctor Who

Some of Briggs' earliest Doctor Who-related work was as host of The Myth Makers, a series of made-for-video documentaries produced in the 1980s and 1990s by Reeltime Pictures in which Briggs interviews many of the actors, writers and directors involved in the series. When Reeltime expanded into producing original dramas, Briggs wrote some stories and acted in others, beginning with War Time, the first unofficial Doctor Who spin-off, and Myth Runner, a parody of Blade Runner showcasing bloopers from the Myth Makers series built around a loose storyline featuring Briggs as a down on his luck private detective in the near future.

In the late 1980s, Briggs also provided the voice of a future incarnation of the Doctor for a series of unofficial audio dramas by Audio Visuals (a forerunner of Big Finish Productions). This version of the Doctor also appeared in "Party Animals", an instalment of the Doctor Who comic published in Doctor Who Magazine issue 173, cover date 15 May 1991. Briggs also provided the model for the face of the supposed "Ninth Doctor" for Doctor Who Magazine in the late 1990s, when the magazine's comic strip ran a storyline in which the Eighth Doctor apparently regenerated, only for it to later be revealed that the whole thing had been a massive deception (see Shayde and Fey Truscott-Sade).

He wrote and appeared in several made-for-video dramas by BBV, including the third of the Stranger stories, In Memory Alone opposite former Doctor Who stars Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant. (In Memory Alone would be the last of the Stranger series to have any similarity to Doctor Who, which had inspired it.) He also wrote and appeared in a non-Stranger BBV production called The Airzone Solution (1993) and directed a documentary film, Stranger than Fiction (1994).

Briggs co-wrote a Doctor Who book called The Dalek Survival Guide (ISBN 0-563-48600-7, published by BBC Books 2002).

Since Doctor Who returned to television in 2005, Briggs has provided the voices for several monsters, most notably the Daleks and the Cybermen. Briggs also voiced the Nestene Consciousness in the 2005 episode "Rose", and recorded a voice for the Jagrafess in the 2005 episode "The Long Game"; however, this was not used in the final episode because it was too similar to the voice of the Nestene. He also provided the voices for the Judoon in both the 2007 and 2008 series, and did the voice of the Ice Warrior Skaldak in the 2013 episode "Cold War".

On 9 July 2009, Briggs made his first appearance in the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood in the serial Children of Earth, playing Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary Rick Yates.^[1]

Briggs has directed many of the Big Finish Productions audio plays, and has provided Dalek, Cybermen, and other alien voices in several of those as well. He has also written and directed the Dalek Empire and Cyberman audio plays for Big Finish. In 2006, Briggs took over from Gary Russell as executive producer of the Big Finish Doctor Who audio range.^[2] In 2007, he guest starred in the Sapphire and Steel audio drama Water Like a Stone.

Briggs voiced the Daleks in a charity theatre production of The Daleks' Master Plan and briefly appeared on stage playing a regenerated Doctor.^[3]

In 2010 he starred in Doctor Who Live as Winston Churchill.

In 2013 the BBC began production of a docudrama depicting the creation and early days of Doctor Who, called An Adventure in Space and Time, to be shown as part of the programme's fiftieth anniversary celebrations. Briggs has a cameo role in the drama playing actor Peter Hawkins, who was the original voice of the Daleks in 1963.^[4] In November 2013 he also appeared in the one-off 50th anniversary comedy homage The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot.^[5]

Other

Briggs also directed the BBC Radio 4 science fiction comedy Nebulous, written by Graham Duff and starring Mark Gatiss.

Outside the realm of science fiction, Briggs has appeared on stage at Nottingham's Theatre Royal, including a run as Sherlock Holmes in Holmes and the Ripper by Brian Clemens.^[6] He also appeared in the film Adulthood, written and directed by fellow Doctor Who actor Noel Clarke. As of 15 April 2013, Briggs is part of a rotating lineup of hosts of the 7th Dimension on BBC Radio 4 Extra.^[7]

Filmography

Film

Television

Video games

Bibliography

• Doctor Who (in Doctor Who Magazine #218-220, 1994)

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nicholas Briggs.

• Nicholas Briggs at the Internet Movie Database