Sometimes edits can remove entire characters from episodes of Doctor Who – even after a performance has been recorded…

Feature by ANDREW PIXLEY

Donna (Catherine Tate) and the Doctor (David Tennant) meet the elderly Agatha Christie (Daphne Oxenford) in a scene cut from The Unicorn and the Wasp (2008).

When scenes and dialogue compete for space, there are often casualties in the cutting room. Some actors are ultimately never heard. If they’re very unlucky, they aren’t even seen.

Possibly the earliest Doctor Who cast member to go missing between performance and programme was Bill McGuirk – indeed, his role in the show was a bit of a puzzle for emergent fandom in the 1980s. He wasn’t credited in the Radio Times (not unusual for minor roles at this point in the show’s history)… but he was listed as ‘Policeman’ at the end of Episode Three of Terror of the Autons (1971). As such, it was assumed that he was one of the two Auton constables who kidnapped the Doctor at the end of Episode Two. So why wasn’t he billed at the end of that instalment as well? In fact, Episode Three originally had a third policeman – a real one!

A production document from 1970, stating the cast list for the third episode of Doctor Who serial EEE (ie, Terror of the Autons). Bill McGuirk is credited as ‘Policeman’, but did not appear in the broadcast programme.

William McGuirk was previously ‘Guard in Corridor’ in The Enemy of the World (1967-68).

Living plastic attacks in Terror of the Autons Episode Four.

Bill’s single scene was recorded on the evening of Saturday 24 October 1970, but wasn’t included when the episode was shown on Saturday 16 January 1971; nevertheless, his caption slide credit remained. Originally, after the Doctor and Brigadier’s visit to the Farrels’ factory, there was to have been a sequence filmed on location of a police car pulling up alongside the coach of Auton daffodil men. Inside, the Master and the Auton Leader are studying a map for their planned stops to hand out the deadly daffs when Rex Farrel suddenly notices the approaching officer. The Auton Leader dons its carnival head moments before the constable enters to enquire: “Everything all right, sir?