Katy Manning

Katy Manning
Birth date:	14 October 1946
Work in the DWU
Main roles:	Jo Grant, Iris Wildthyme
Stories:	see list
Main time period active:	1971-1973, 2002-03, 2008-present
Career highlights
Notable non-DWU work:	Softly Softly: Task Force, Serendipity, Target, Not a Well Woman, The Confessions of Dorian Gray, Casualty, Dracula, Baker's End
Twitter
IMDb profile
Official site
Interview

Catherine Katy Ann Manning (born on 14 October 1946 in Guildford, Surrey, England) played companion Jo Grant in Doctor Who beginning with Terror of the Autons and ending with The Green Death. She has also provided the voice for Iris Wildthyme in several of the Big Finish Productions audio dramas, and made many theatre appearances.

Manning is famously short-sighted. A story regarding Manning's short-sightedness is often related about Terror of the Autons, her first Doctor Who story. Manning had not informed anyone of her limited vision, and the script called for her and Jon Pertwee to run across a field. Manning ran straight into a tree, and knocked herself unconscious. From then on, whenever a story called for the Doctor and Jo to run across quarries or down corridors, Jon Pertwee could be seen leading Manning by the hand.

She played the part of Jo from 1971 to 1973 alongside Jon Pertwee's Doctor. Manning struck up an immediate rapport with her co-stars, Pertwee, Nicholas Courtney (the Brigadier), John Levene (Sergeant Benton), Richard Franklin (Captain Yates) and Roger Delgado (the Master). Fans of Doctor Who often refer to these characters as the UNIT family (UNIT being the fictional United Nations squad that the Doctor worked for) and Katy has very fond memories of this period of her life.

In 1975, she married Raynor Burton, but that marriage lasted only two months. She gave birth to twins in 1978 with Dean Harris.

Katy Manning poses nude with a Dalek

In 1977, she posed nude with an original Dalek prop for the glamour magazine Girl Illustrated. She laughed the furor off, stating, "You'd have to pretty well put me under a microscope to see anything!" Upon being informed of the photos, Jon Pertwee was quoted as saying, "Typical Katy!" In a later interview, she stated that the nude pictorial "went over like a cup of cold sick."

Katy Manning appeared on stage in Australia when she appeared in the play Run For Your Wife, during 1987-1988. The production toured the country. Other members of the cast were Jack Smethurst, David McCallum and Eric Sykes. Manning also appeared as herself in the documentary "Where on Earth is Katy Manning ... Because She'd Really Like to Know!"

Katy Manning in an Iris Wildthyme costume with Paul Magrs at a 2012 convention.

Katy's connection with Doctor Who has continued in recent years; she is also the voice of Iris Wildthyme in several of the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who Audio Dramas and the star of same company's Iris Wildthyme series. Katy's portayal of Iris has since appeared in over 90 short stories published by Obverse Books and on the covers of most of their Iris Wildthyme anthologies.

She has also reprised the role of Jo Grant for Big Finish's The Companion Chronicles series. In Find and Replace and The Elixir of Doom, she played the dual roles of Jo Grant and Iris Wildthyme, and in Ghost in the Machine, Manning voiced the Third Doctor when he and Jo switch bodies. She also read several Short Trips, voiced Magistrix Borusa in Gallifrey audio story Annihilation and appeared in the last The Lost Stories audio.

Elisabeth Sladen and Katy Manning for Death of the Doctor

Manning performed the role of Jo Grant for the first time on television since 1973 in Death of the Doctor, an episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures, alongside fellow former Third Doctor companion Elisabeth Sladen playing Sarah Jane Smith and Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor.

In 2013 she appeared in the 50th anniversary story The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot, voiced Gilda Fairbanks in the Bafflegab Productions audio story Vince Cosmos: Glam Rock Detective, and also contributed to the charity reference book Behind the Sofa: Celebrity Memories of Doctor Who.

In 2015 she voiced Jo Grant in The Defectors alongside Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor and in The Third Doctor Adventures featuring Tim Treloar as the Third Doctor.

Writing

Though most of her experience with the DWU has been as an actor, she's had a limited amount of writing experience in the franchise. In 2001, she wrote the foreword for the Telos novella, Nightdreamers and, in 2009, she contributed an introduction to the short story collection Iris Wildthyme and the Celestial Omnibus from Obverse Books.

Credits

Television

Doctor Who

• Terror of the Autons
• The Mind of Evil
• The Claws of Axos
• Colony in Space
• The Dæmons
• Day of the Daleks
• The Curse of Peladon
• The Sea Devils
• The Mutants
• The Time Monster
• The Three Doctors
• Carnival of Monsters
• Frontier in Space
• Planet of the Daleks
• The Green Death

The Sarah Jane Adventures

• Death of the Doctor

Other

• The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot

Audio dramas

Big Finish Monthly Range

• Invaders from Mars as a reception guest
• The Wormery as Iris Wildthyme
• The Defectors
• Muse of Fire as Iris Wildthyme

Big Finish Special Releases

• Excelis Dawns as Iris Wildthyme

The Lost Stories

• The Mega

Third Doctor Adventures

• Prisoners of the Lake
• The Havoc of Empires
• The Transcendence of Ephros
• The Hidden Realm
• The Conquest of Far
• Storm of the Horofax

Companion Chronicles

• The Doll of Death
• The Mists of Time
• Find and Replace (also as Iris Wildthyme)
• Tales from the Vault
• The Many Deaths of Jo Grant
• The Scorchies
• Ghost in the Machine
• The Elixir of Doom (also as Iris Wildthyme)

Short Trips

• A True Gentleman
• Walls of Confinement
• Pop-Up
• Lost in the Wakefield Triangle
• Time Tunnel
• The Other Woman

UNIT: The New Series

• Assembled
  • Tidal Wave
  • United

Iris Wildthyme

As Iris Wildthyme

• Wildthyme at Large
• The Devil in Ms. Wildthyme
• The Sound of Fear
• The Land of Wonder
• The Two Irises
• The Panda Invasion
• Iris Wildthyme and the Claws of Santa
• The Iris Wildthyme Appreciation Society
• Iris Rides Out
• Midwinter Murders
• Whatever Happened to Iris Wildthyme?
• Iris at the Oche
• A Lift in Time
• Comeback of the Scorchies
• Dark Side
• Oracle of the Supermarket
• Murder at the Abbey
• The Slots of Giza
• High Spirits
• An Extraterrestrial Werewolf in Belgium
• Looking for a Friend

Bernice Summerfield

• The Plague Herds of Excelis as Iris Wildthyme
• Many Happy Returns as Iris Wildthyme
• The Winning Side as Yokel Child

The Worlds of Big Finish

• The Adventure of the Bloomsbury Bomber as Mrs Waters
• Kronos Vad's History of Earth Vol. 36,379 as Iris Wildthyme

Gallifrey

• Annihilation as Magistrix Borusa

The Lives of Captain Jack

• One Enchanted Evening as Mother Nothing

Vince Cosmos

• Vince Cosmos: Glam Rock Detective as Gilda Fairbanks

Audiobook readings

• Doctor Who and the Green Death
• The Three Doctors
• Doctor Who and the Carnival of Monsters
• Horrors of War

Documentary

• Where on Earth Is... Katy Manning Because She'd Really Like to Know!
• Lust in Space
• Doctor Who: A New Dimension
• The World of Who
• Weird Science
• Why on Earth?
• I Get a Side-Kick Out of You
• Bringing Back the Doctor
• Hello Sailor!
• The Rumble in the Jungle
• Destroy All Monsters!
• My Sarah Jane: A Tribute to Elisabeth Sladen
• The Doctor's Moriarty
• Life on Earth
• The UNIT Family
• Blasting the Past
• IMC Needs You!
• Happy Birthday to Who
• Girls! Girls! Girls!
• The Devil Rides Out
• Axon Stations!
• A Dandy and a Clown
• The One with the Maggots
• Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor
• Doctor Who Live: The Afterparty

External links

• Katy Manning at the Internet Movie Database
• Official website
• Official Twitter account