Miriam Margolyes will be joining the 60th-anniversary celebrations of Doctor Who following confirmation that the 81-year-old actress would voice the cute-but-deadly Beep the Meep, a creature with long ties to the sci-fi series (H/T The Radio Times).
Otherwise known for her role as Professor Sprout in Harry Potter and a BAFTA winning performance in Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence, Margolyes said she was “relieved” at the opportunity to work on Doctor Who “before I died. With sci-fi, you never know. Thank you for making an old woman very happy.”
Beep the Meep is the leader of the Meeps and considered an intergalactic criminal hunted by the Wrarth Warriors. Once deemed a happy and content race, dangerous radiation from an alien sun transformed the Meeps into savage conquerors.
The first of the three episodes in the upcoming 60th anniversary specials is believed to be an adaptation of the original The Star Beast comic strip, first printed between February and April 1980. The comic strip featured the Fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker and K.9.
Margolyes will be joining David Tennant and Catherine, who return for the 60th anniversary celebrations, before Ncuti Gatwa takes over the series as the Fifteenth Doctor – which is scheduled to air at Christmas.
Russell T Davies, who returns as showrunner after an absence of more than a decade, was recently praised by producer Julie Gardner for writing “amongst his best-ever work” for the fourteenth series, calling his scripts “big and extremely ambitious.”
Doctor Who can be streamed via the BBC iPlayer, with classic episodes on Britbox. What are you most excited to see from the future of the series? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
