Creator / Peter Purves

Peter Purves (born 10 February 1939) is an English TV presenter and actor. He is known for playing Steven Taylor, a companion to William Hartnell's First Doctor, on Doctor Who from 1965-66, and serving as one of the presenters of Blue Peter from 1967 to 1978.

Since Blue Peter he has mainly concentrated on presenting, and spent over 40 years presenting dog show Crufts for Channel 4 before being controversially axed in 2020.

Over four decades after leaving Doctor Who on television, he returned to acting in audio drama, reprising his role to voice Steven Taylor for Big Finish Productions from 2007 onwards.

His acting roles include:

TV

• Z Cars, 3 episodes:
  • "You Get All Kinds" (1964) — Bus Conductor
  • "All Through the Night": Part 1 & 2 (1967) — Cord
• Dixon of Dock Green, episode "Castles in the Air" (1965) — Brian
• Doctor Who:
  • 1 episode of story "The Chase" (1965) — Morton Dill
  • 45 episodes / 10 stories^{show list} "The Chase", "The Time Meddler", "Galaxy 4", "The Myth Makers", "The Daleks' Master Plan", "The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve", "The Ark", "The Celestial Toymaker", "The Gunfighters", "The Savages" (1965-66) — Steven Taylor
• Eastenders, 3 episodes (1987) — Presenter
• The Office, episode "Training" (2001) — Himself

Audio Play

• Big Finish Doctor Who:
  • Companion Chronicles: 14 releases^{show list} "Mother Russia", "The Suffering", "The Perpetual Bond", "The Cold Equations", "Tales from the Vault", "The First Wave", "The Anachronauts", "Return of the Rocket Men", "Upstairs", "The War To End All Wars", "The Founding Fathers", "The Locked Room", "Across the Darkened City", "The Vardan Invasion of Mirth" (2007-19) — Steven Taylor
  • Special Releases: 2 releases^{show list} "The Five Companions", "The Light At The End" (2011, 2013) — Steven Taylor
  • The Early Adventures: 10 releases^{show list} "The Bounty of Ceres", "An Ordinary Life", "The Ravelli Conspiracy", "The Sontarans", "The Dalek Occupation of Winter", "An Ideal World", "Entanglement", The Crash of the UK-201", "Daughter of the Gods", "The Secrets of Det-Sen" (2014-21) — Steven Taylor
  • Main Range: "The Secret History" (2015) — Steven Taylor
  • Short Trips: 6 releases^{show list} "[Big Finish Doctor Who Short Trips S 5 E 1 Flywheel Revolution Flywheel Revolution]]", "Etheria", "This Sporting Life", "O Tannenbaum", "Peace in Our Time", "Out of the Deep" (2015-20) — Steven Taylor

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