• Interviewee

  Barbara Clegg

• Position

  Writer for Doctor Who, 1983

Barbara Clegg started out as a theatre actress then won the role of Nurse Jo Buckley in the long-running ATV soap Emergency Ward 10 (1957-67). She also appeared in the 1963 Tommy Steele movie The Dream Maker.

She moved on to writing, contributing seven episodes of the long-running soap Coronation Street. She wrote for Waggoner's Walk and Mrs Dale's Diary on the radio and for Crossroads and Together on TV. Her dramatisation of John Wyndham's The Chrysalids was broadcast on radio in 1981.

When Barbara Clegg was commissioned by Eric Saward to write Enlightenment, she became the first woman to write for Doctor Who. She later adapted her script for Target books, becoming the first female author on the series.

In this Myth Makers, we talk to Barbara about her career and writing for Doctor Who… and find out about the story ideas she submitted that were never made…