Barry Ingham 1932-2015

James Lomond 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.

Barry Ingham, a British actor who worked alongside both the small and big screen versions of the First Doctor, has died aged 82 at his home in Florida.

Born in Yorkshire, Ingham had an impressive and varied career in stage, television and film working with the Royal Shakespeare Company and in musical theatre in both London’s West End and New York’s Broadway. With rich oaky tones and a thoroughly English timbre he was chosen to voice an anthropomorphic Sherlock Holmes in Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective (1986).

Ingham’s work on Doctor Who dates back to the sadly missing serial, The Mythmakers (1965). In the re-telling of the siege of Troy from Homer’s Iliad, he played Paris, son of King Priam in the sieged city and both captured the TARDIS and battled Steven Taylor. Geekbat describe Ingham’s comic performance as an “effete, aside-prone, jokester” as a highlight of the story which, unless more treasures are discovered in basements overseas, we can only enjoy on audio.

However before that he had appeared in the first Big Screen outing for the show earlier that year as the Thal, Alydon in Doctor Who and the Daleks alongside Peter Cushing’s time travelling Grandfather, “Dr. Who”. I remember repeatedly re-watching this film as a child and the totally committed performances by Ingham and his co-stars (despite the heavy eye makeup and beautified Wellington’s) were what made it captivating. Looking back, the score might make it the closest thing to a Doctor Who/ Austin Powers mash-up, but there are some sterling performances in there.

Ingham went on to feature in a number of well-loved genre series including The Avengers and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) – in the latter he worked alongside George Sewell who would appear as Mr Ratcliffe in 1989’s Rememberance of the Daleks. Ingham is one of the few actors to cross the Atlantic Sci-fi divide, playing an Irish leader of a Colony in Star Trek: The Next Generation’s 1989 story Up the Long Ladder – he can be seen here comparing Human and Klingon beverages…

Ingham enjoyed giving lectures on drama appreciation for the Society of the Four Arts in Florida where he retired. He is survived by his wife, for daughters and eight grandchildren.

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