Classic Series Actor Ian Fairbairn Has Died

Jonathan Appleton is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Sad to report that the rumours you may have heard earlier are true; classic era actor Ian Fairbairn has passed away.

Fairbairn appeared in four Doctor Who serials ranging from 1967-76, alongside the Second, Third and Fourth Doctors. His first role was Questa in The Macra Terror, one of serials from which no episodes (and sadly very little in the way of clips or production stills) survive. He would feature in the Troughton era again in classic Cyberman story The Invasion playing a researcher for International Electromatics.

In Jon Pertwee’s debut season Fairbairn had a small but memorable turn in Inferno as Bromley, the first to mutate into a Primord, and finally in 1976’s The Seeds of Doom he played Doctor Chester in that story’s third episode.

Ian Fairbairn was one of that legion of actors who could be relied on to give a solid, dependable performance in the often modest roles required by Doctor Who’s scripts. Director Douglas Camfield, who famously ran his set with military precision and valued the comfort of knowing he could rely on those he employed, gave him regular work. His Doctor Who appearances formed only a small part of an impressive list of credits, however and his  page reads like a list of top British dramas from the 1960s onwards: Emergency Ward 10, Z Cars, Van Der Valk, The Onedin Line and The Professionals among many others. Genre fans with long memories may remember him from roles in Adam Adamant Lives! in 1966 and Timeslip in 1970.

It’s for his role in Inferno that Doctor Who fans will probably best remember Ian Fairbairn though. His transformation into a Primord is one of those classic Doctor Who moments that encapsulate the other-worldly horrors the programme has visited on living rooms over the years, and pictures of him in his mutated state have been a staple of features about the programme in the media ever since. In the Can You Hear the Earth Scream? extra on the Inferno DVD he’s a good value interviewee, cheerfully describing his unease at having to climb high up a water tower to fight Jon Pertwee via a precarious metal-runged ladder, and then being on the wrong end of a blast from an all too real (and all too cold) CO2 fire extinguisher…

Our condolences to his partner and friends and family he leaves behind.

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