Sarah Sutton
| Sarah Sutton | |
|---|---|
| Born |
12 December 1961 Basingstoke, Hampshire, England |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Known for | Nyssa in Doctor Who |
| Children | Hannah |
Sarah Sutton (born 12 December 1961) is a British actress best known for her role as Nyssa in the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who. Nyssa was a companion to "Doctors" Tom Baker, then Peter Davison, from 1981 to 1983.
Sutton was born in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England. Sutton studied ballet as a little girl and was only 11 when she became the (then) youngest British actress to have played Alice on screen, in a 1973 television film of Alice in Wonderland.
Besides her performance as Alice, Sutton appeared in a number of television programmes before Doctor Who, including The Moon Stallion (1978) as Diana Purwell and The Crucible (1980) as Susannah Walcott.
After joining the fourth Doctor in 1981, her final full Doctor Who serial was with the fifth Doctor, in 1983's Terminus. Sutton, famously, removed her skirt for Terminus, effectively playing out the rest of the serial in her undergarments—the scripted reason being that she was feeling unwell and feverish as well as leaving a clue for The Doctor, though Sutton described it later as "a parting gesture to [the] fans".[1][2]
Sutton took a break from acting after Doctor Who, focusing for a number of years on raising her daughter, Hannah, with her GP husband, Andrew.[3] She made a brief appearance in Peter Davison's final Doctor Who serial, The Caves of Androzani (1984), played Sarah Dryden in a 1989 episode of the BBC medical drama series Casualty and Wendy in a 1991 episode of Unnatural Pursuits.
Sutton reprised the role of Nyssa in the 1993 Doctor Who Children in Need special Dimensions in Time, and subsequently in several of the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who spin-off audio plays from 1999 onwards. In November 2013 she appeared in the one-off 50th anniversary comedy homage The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot.[4]
References
- ↑ "Sarah Sutton". Doctor Who Interview Archive. (Orig. published 1988.) 3 October 2009. Retrieved 18 February 2010.
- ↑ "Women: It's OK to be brainy...". Guardian (G2): p. 8. 25 March 2005. (via Lexis-Nexis).
- ↑ Davies, Barbara. "Who's That Girl?; After The Tardis: We Track Down The Time Lord's Assistants". The Mirror: pp. 22–23. 24 March 2005. (via Lexis-Nexis).
- ↑ "The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot", BBC programmes, retrieved 26 November 2013