- Helen Raynor
Helen Raynor (born Swansea March 1972) is a British
television andtheatre writer andscript editor . From 2004 until 2007 she was one of the script editors of the revived version of theBBC science-fiction series "Doctor Who ", working on its first three series. Her own writing work includes two episodes of "Doctor Who" and episodes of spin-off series "Torchwood ", as well as "Cake", a fifteen-minute television short forBBC One 's "Brief Encounters" strand shown in May 2006, and a sixty-minute play "Running Away with the Hairdresser" forBBC Radio 4 , broadcast in June 2005. For the theatre she has written "Waterloo Exit Two", a short play presented as part ofPaines Plough 's Wild Lunch season at theYoung Vic in 2003.Professional biography
Raynor attended
Trinity Hall atCambridge University . Her initial career was in thetheatre , where she worked for eight years as a director and assistant director for theBush Theatre , theRoyal Shakespeare Company ,Clwyd Theatr Cymru , theRoyal Opera House andOpera North . Her RSC Fringe production of "Soho" byRebecca Lenkiewicz won a Fringe First at the 2000 Edinburgh Festival. Switching to television, from 2002 to 2004 she was a script editor on BBC One's daytime medicalsoap opera "Doctors".Outside of broadcasting, she has written for "
Doctor Who Magazine " and compiled the script book of the 2005 season of "Doctor Who" forBBC Books . She also provides an audio commentary for the "Doctor Who" episode "World War Three" in the 2005 seasonDVD boxset, released in November 2005. She later provided a second audio commentary for the series two episode "School Reunion" in April 2006, this time for free download from thebbc.co.uk "Doctor Who" website.Raynor is currently working as a writer for several theatre companies. [cite web|url=http://www.bigfinish.com/index.asp?function=DISPLAYPRODUCT&productid=434#raynor|title=Biography at the official Big Finish website|publisher=Big Finish Productions |accessdate=2007-09-04]Doctor Who
In addition to her production duties for the show, Raynor wrote the two-part story "
Daleks in Manhattan "/"Evolution of the Daleks " for the 2007 series of "Doctor Who ", in which theDalek s invadeNew York in 1930. She was the first woman to write for the new series, as well as the first woman to write a Dalek story in "Doctor Who"'s history. She then wrote another two-part story for Series 4 [cite news
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accessdate = 2007-05-31 ] , entitled "The Sontaran Stratagem "/"The Poison Sky " in which the Doctor's old enemies theSontarans , last seen in 1985's "The Two Doctors "" make their re-imagined return to series.UNIT andMartha Jones also returned in these episodes. She also returned to her script editing duties later on in the same series, working on theSteven Moffat two-part story "Silence in the Library "/"Forest of the Dead ".Raynor has also contributed the story "All of Beyond" to the "Doctor Who" short story collection "", published in June 2007. This was her first professionally published work of
prose .Torchwood
In "Doctor Who Magazine" issue 366 (dated
March 1 2006 ), it was announced that Raynor would also be script editing the "Doctor Who" spin-off series "Torchwood ", also produced byBBC Wales . She went on to write one episode of the series herself – "Ghost Machine", broadcast on29 October 2006 – making extensive use of locations in the city ofCardiff where she lives. [Interviewed in "Torchwood Declassified ", BBC3,30 Oct 2006 .]She wrote the third episode of the second season of the show, "To the Last Man", in which Toshiko falls for a handsome soldier, trapped out of his time, who unwittingly holds the key to saving the world.
Footnotes
References
*"Gallifrey Guardian Extra". "Doctor Who Magazine". Issue 354. Cover dateJuly 21 2004.External links
* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1649393/ Helen Raynor] at the
Internet Movie Database .
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/news/cult/news/drwho/2005/06/23/20162.shtml Article on "Running Away With The Hairdresser"] atbbc.co.uk .
* [http://www.theatreguidelondon.co.uk/reviews/sohotabledancers.htm Review of "Soho"] .
* [http://www.painesplough.com/index_auto.php?page=Been%20and%20gone&year=Wildlunch Wild Lunch 2003] .
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/news/cult/news/drwho/2006/05/03/31785.shtml Article on "Cake"] atbbc.co.uk .
* [http://www.radiotimes.com/content/show-features/doctor-who/helen-raynor-interview/ Radio Times Interview with Helen Raynor April 2007]
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