Paul McGann

Paul McGann (born 14th November 1959) played the eighth incarnation of the Doctor in the 1996 Doctor Who television movie and also voices the role in audio plays for BBC Radio and Big Finish Productions. His is considered to be either the longest or shortest tenure as the Doctor, depending on whether one counts the non-television stories to be canon or not.

He was born in Surrey, although his family moved to Liverpool when he was a young child. His brothers Mark, Joe, and Stephen are also actors; the four of them starred together (as four brothers) in the 1995 television miniseries The Hanging Gale. They also formed the pop quartet "The McGanns", releasing the single "Everything But The Boy".

Career
McGann made his name on the BBC serial The Monocled Mutineer, in which he played the lead role of Percy Toplis. Following that part, he was cast as the eponymous "I" in Bruce Robinson's cult film comedy, Withnail and I (1987). He also starred as Anton Skrebensky in Ken Russell's 1989 adaptation of D. H. Lawrence's The Rainbow.

Doctor Who
Paul McGann reportedly found out about the Doctor Who TV Movie during production of the 1993 film The Three Musketeers. Tim Curry was offered the role of the Eighth Doctor and he was interested in playing the role, because he's always interested in a role that isn't a villain, but he didn't know how to play the character. One day during filming, Curry approached McGann on how he would play The Eighth Doctor if he was cast. Curry turned down the role of The Eighth Doctor because of scheduling conflicts with several movies and McGann would go on to be cast as the Eighth Doctor. (However, given that the 1996 TV movie wasn't cast or even organized until 1995, it's possible the production discussed by Curry and McGann in 1992 when The Three Musketeers was being filmed was a different film.)

Post-Who work
Since Doctor Who McGann's career has concentrated on television work including the Hornblower series and he has had small roles in a number of high-profile American films including Alien³ and Queen of the Damned. His voice was featured in the 1997 video game Ceremony of Innocence, together with those of Isabella Rossellini and Ben Kingsley. Coincidentally, his co-star in Withnail, actor Richard E. Grant, also played the Doctor in the 2003 animated webcast Scream of the Shalka, and also played the (Quite Handsome) 10th Doctor in the Doctor Who parody sketch, "The Curse of Fatal Death."

Reprising the Doctor
McGann had given permission for his likeness to be used in BBC Books' Eighth Doctor Adventures novel range and the weekly Doctor Who Magazine comic strip continuing his character's adventures without him having any actual involvement. As a result, despite no new television Who going into production, the Eighth Doctor remained the "current" doctor in all the new Doctor Who spinoff media with the character's mannerisms extrapolated from his brief performance.

In 1997, McGann made his first foray into Doctor Who audio when he recorded several audiobooks for BBC Audio, beginning with an audio adaptation of DWN: Doctor Who - The Novel of the Film and continuing with a collection of short stories, BBCR: Earth and Beyond. In 2000 he joined the roster of Big Finish Productions, reprising the role of the Eighth Doctor for the range of Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories, and was treated as the "current" Doctor by the majority of fandom and the BBC until Christopher Eccleston assumed the role in 2005. He also made his webcast debut with the animated Shada. McGann continues to play the Eighth Doctor in Big Finish's main Doctor Who range as well as The New Eighth Doctor Adventures, a second series of audios produced by Big Finish for broadcast on BBC7 Radio.

Like other past Doctors, he contributes to BBC Video's, ever-growing series of classic series DVD releases, for example providing the narration for "The Ties That Bind Us", a featurette on the 2008 release of The Five Doctors.

Television Movie - 1996

 * Doctor Who

Webcast - 2003

 * Shada (webcast)

Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories

 * Storm Warning
 * Sword of Orion
 * The Stones of Venice
 * Minuet in Hell
 * Invaders from Mars
 * The Chimes of Midnight
 * Seasons of Fear
 * Embrace the Darkness
 * The Time of the Daleks
 * Neverland
 * Scherzo
 * The Creed of the Kromon
 * The Natural History of Fear
 * The Twilight Kingdom
 * Faith Stealer
 * The Last
 * Caerdroia
 * The Next Life
 * Terror Firma
 * Scaredy Cat
 * Other Lives
 * Time Works
 * Something Inside
 * Memory Lane
 * Absolution
 * The Girl Who Never Was
 * The Company of Friends
 * Klein's Story
 * The Four Doctors

Webcast Audio

 * Shada

The New Eighth Doctor Adventures

 * Blood of the Daleks
 * Horror of Glam Rock
 * Immortal Beloved
 * Phobos
 * No More Lies
 * Human Resources
 * Dead London
 * Max Warp
 * Brave New Town
 * The Skull of Sobek
 * Grand Theft Cosmos
 * The Zygon Who Fell to Earth
 * Sisters of the Flame
 * The Vengeance of Morbius
 * Orbis
 * Hothouse
 * The Beast of Orlok
 * Wirrn Dawn
 * The Scapegoat
 * The Cannibalists
 * The Eight Truths
 * Worldwide Web
 * Death in Blackpool
 * Situation Vacant
 * Nevermore
 * The Book of Kells
 * Deimos
 * The Resurrection of Mars
 * Relative Dimensions
 * Prisoners of the Sun
 * Lucie Miller
 * To the Death

BBC Audio releases

 * Doctor Who - The Novel of the Film (audio book)
 * Earth and Beyond

The Minister of Chance

 * The Pointed Hand
 * The Broken World
 * The Forest Shakes