July 20th
Today is yet another day where no new episodes of Doctor Who have been broadcast throughout the show's history, but it also happens to be the day Roy Seklton was born. Who was Roy Skelton you may ask? Well think of him a bit like the Nicholas Briggs of Classic Doctor Who.
Master of voices, Skelton was born on the day in 1931 and his association with Doctor Who spanned all seven Classic Doctors. Providing the voices for Daleks, Monoids, Krotons and the original Cybermen, Skelton also made an appearance or two in the series himself, playing Norton in Colony In Space being just one example.
Outside of the world of Who, Skelton was most famously known as the voice of Zippy on Rainbow. Hmmm, what happens when you mash his two most famous voices together? I wonder...
Skelton had an uncanny ability to provide Dalek voices in different registers and he could switch between them very quickly, which enabled a variety of characterisation and conversations to be played out in Dalek scenes without the necessity for cutting up and editing the audio.
This ability to quickly switch between voices also served him well on Rainbow, where he was frequently called on to voice quick-fire conversations between his two characters of Zippy & George. Yes, that's right, he voiced them both!
Roy Skelton passed away on June 8th 2011, but my what a legacy he left behind.
Join us again tomorrow for another round-up of the episodes broadcast, the spin-offs, the special events, the birthday's celebrated and anything else of note that went down on this day in Doctor Who history.
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