Guests For 2019
Please note that all guests are subject to availability on the day.
TV, Film & Authors
Doug Cockle
Doug Cockle is an American actor, director and acting teacher living in the United Kingdom. For over 20 years he has worked in theatre, film, television, radio, video games and corporate video. Doug was also the Course Leader for the BA (Hons) Acting degree at the Arts University Bournemouth from 2005 to 2017.
Doug has worked extensively in the video games industry and is primarily known for his work as Geralt of Rivia in the Witcher video game series. Doug has been the voice of Geralt since the series began in 2007 and has been nominated for several awards for his work with this character
Toby Philpott
Toby Philpott came from a family of performers and teachers. His father was an eminent puppeteer and teacher; his mother moved from performing as an actress and singer to teaching voice. Toby started performing when travelling in his youth. Seven years of work as a comedy juggler, acrobat, and magician led to working on animatronic puppets with Jim Henson on The Dark Crystal, and several other feature films, over the following seven year period. He then got involved with developing and encouraging circus/theatre by helping open and run circus schools, writing and performing with a travelling group - NoFit State Circus.
Jessica Martin
Jessica first came to prominence in the 1980s as a comedy impressionist in shows such as Spitting Image, Copy Cats and Bobby Davro’s TV Weekly. She went on to star in the West End hit show Me and My Girl and to play many leading musical roles including Mabel in the 1996 production of Mack and Mabel at the Piccadilly Theatre, Nellie Forbush in South Pacific, Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd and Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. She played the Lady of the Lake in the national tour of Spamalot in 2011, Lottie Ames in the award-winning production of Mack and Mabel and Lottie Lacey in the revival of William Inge’s Dark at the Top of the Stairs.
1988 Jessica was cast as the werewolf Mags in the Seventh Doctor story, The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, she returned to the series in 2007, providing the voice of the Queen in the Christmas special Voyage of the Damned.
In recent years, Jessica has developed a second career as a comics writer. Her first published work was a story illustrated by her ‘mentor’ Mark Buckingham, leading artist on Vertigo’s “Fables” series which was included in the Thought Bubble Anthology 2013. Her first comic written and drawn by herself was “It Girl” about silent film superstar Clara Bow. It was self-published in November 2013 and was selected as one of the “Ten Must Own Comics 2013″ by Broken Frontier’s Small Press website.
Her first graphic novel Elsie Harris Picture Palace set in the 1930s British film industry was short listed in the Myriad First Graphic Novel Prize 2014. It was published in Spring 2015.
Jessica has gone onto star in Elf the Musical (which has been shown recently on TV), working on her autobiography A Life in Lights, released an exclusive artwork book at Birmingham’s Ice Convention in September of 2017 called A Star is Drawn and most recently news that came out of 2018’s Gallifrey One that not only is her character Mags the Werewolf from the Greatest Show in the Galaxy will be appearing in Titan Comics: Seventh Doctor Volume One penned by Twelfth Doctor writer Richard Dinnick. But Jessica is to sketch the artwork for the strip, a first time in who history that an actress who not only played the role is returning to bring the character to life again but in a new way by sketching the sequel story to The Greatest Show in the Galaxy for it. Also you can watch a documentary about Jessica, who was interview by fellow Doctor Who star Sophie Aldred in the Myth Makers range.
Christopher Ryan
Born in Bayswater, London on January 25, 1950, Christopher Papazoglou, later known as Christopher Ryan, trained at East 15 Acting School for three years before going to perform at the Glasgow Citizens' Theatre.
Even though he portrayed a few minor roles in various television shows, It wasn't until 1982 that he was cast in The Young Ones (1982) as Mike 'The Cool Person', which got him recognition through out all of Britain. Since then he has starred in many films such as Santa Claus: The Movie (1985), Dirty Weekend (1993) and well known television shows like Bottom (1991), Absolutely Fabulous (1992) and Doctor Who (2005).
He also appeared in two episodes of One Foot In The Grave in the 1990s.
