Gareth Roberts

Gareth Roberts (born Gareth John Pritchard Roberts) was a writer for Doctor Who and several of its spin-offs.

His first contributions to Doctor Who, in the early 1990s, were several novels in Virgin Books' New Adventures and Missing Adventures lines; these books were generally well-received by fans, with four of them eventually being adapted by Big Finish in their Novel Adaptations range. Roberts went on to contribute to a wide variety of other Doctor Who ranges and media, including novels for subsequent Doctors and several episodes of the television show.

As a fan of the Graham Williams/Douglas Adams era, he used the Fourth Doctor, Romana II, and K9 TARDIS team more than any other Virgin writer; years later, he was chosen to be the BBC Wales representative for the documentary about the Graham Williams era included with the UK DVD release of The Ribos Operation, and he would later novelise the unfinished Douglas Adams script Shada.

Roberts' debut in comics was 1994's Plastic Millenium, which was the first appearance of Mel in comics. He went on to be a recurring comics writer during the Ninth Doctor's era, and he would often reuse ideas from his comics for his television episodes: he showed the Ninth Doctor visiting William Shakespeare in A Groatsworth of Wit before writing the episode The Shakespeare Code; the poisoning scene in The Unicorn and the Wasp was directly lifted from one of his comic strips^{[source needed]}; and his series 5 episode The Lodger was an adaptation of his 2006 comic of the same name.

In September 2017, Roberts posted a tweet on his Twitter account that gained some media attention for being trans-misogynistic.^[1][2][3][4] In early May 2019, BBC Books released details about an upcoming Doctor Who anthology that would include a short story by Roberts;^[5] a month later, Roberts announced in an article that his story would not be included in the anthology after other contributing writers threatened to withdraw from the publication due to Roberts' tweets.^[6]

Outside of official Doctor Who, Roberts contributed to the charity reference book Behind the Sofa: Celebrity Memories of Doctor Who, and he was interviewed in issue 485 of Doctor Who Magazine for the revival series' tenth anniversary.

Bibliography Edit

Television Edit

Doctor Who Edit

• The Shakespeare Code
• The Unicorn and the Wasp
• Planet of the Dead (with Russell T Davies)
• The Lodger
• Closing Time
• The Caretaker (with Steven Moffat)

Documentaries Edit

• The Ultimate Guide (Beginning & end scenes)

The Sarah Jane Adventures Edit

• Invasion of the Bane (with Russell T Davies)
• Revenge of the Slitheen
• Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?
• Secrets of the Stars
• The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith
• The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith
• The Empty Planet
• Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith (with Clayton Hickman)
• The Man Who Never Was

Comic Relief Special Edit

• From Raxacoricofallapatorius with Love (with Clayton Hickman)

Interactive Red Button story Edit

• Attack of the Graske

Prose Edit

Novels Edit

Virgin New Adventures Edit

• The Highest Science
• Tragedy Day
• Zamper

Virgin Missing Adventures Edit

• The Romance of Crime
• The English Way of Death
• The Plotters
• The Well-Mannered War

BBC New Series Adventures Edit

• Only Human

BBC New Series Adventures - Quick Reads Edit

• I Am a Dalek

BBC Books Doctor Who novelisations Edit

• Shada

The Sarah Jane Adventures novelisations Edit

• The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith

Short fiction Edit

Doctor Who Magazine Edit

• Prelude The Highest Science
• Prelude Tragedy Day
• The Final Analysis
• Voice from the Vortex!

Brief Encounter Edit

• Anti-Matter with Fries

Virgin Decalogs Edit

• Vortex of Fear
• Fegovy

Short Trips Edit

• Return of the Spiders
• Special Occasions: 1. The Not-So-Sinister Sponge (with Clayton Hickman)
• The Brain of Socrates

Doctor Who annuals Edit

• Doctor vs Doctor

Doctor Who Yearbooks Edit

• The Changeling Years
• The Hungry Bomb

Doctor Who Storybooks Edit

• The Cat Came Back
• The Body Bank
• Bing Bong (with Clayton Hickman)

Audio Edit

Big Finish Main Range Edit

• The One Doctor (with Clayton Hickman)
• Bang-Bang-a-Boom! (with Clayton Hickman; he also voiced News Anchorman)

Novel Adaptations Edit

• The Highest Science (adapted by Jacqueline Rayner from the novel by Roberts)
• The Romance of Crime (adapted by John Dorney)
• The English Way of Death (adapted by John Dorney)
• The Well-Mannered War (adapted by John Dorney)

Comics Edit

DWM comic stories Edit

• The Lunar Strangers
• Operation Proteus
• Target Practice
• The Last Word
• Doctor Who and the Nightmare Game
• The Love Invasion (with Clayton Hickman)
• A Groatsworth of Wit
• The Lodger

Doctor Who Magazine (special issues) Edit

• Plastic Millenium
• The Seventh Segment

Stage play Edit

• Doctor Who: The Monsters Are Coming! (with Steven Moffat)

External links Edit

• Gareth Roberts at the Internet Movie Database
• Official Twitter account
• Official YouTube channel
• Official Facebook page
• Gareth Roberts Interview By Warwick Gray

References Edit