#tree fu tom

Sophie Aldred is a ray of sunshine, isn’t she?

I first met Sophie on a magnificently sunshiney day on the Wirral - and am so grateful for her for letting me know that the trains weren’t running to Liverpool that day!  There are worse places to be stranded, certainly, but still…

(And she will, I hope, forgive for the extreme lateness of this post: it’s amazing how much moving cities, changing jobs, wedding plans, and wrestling with incomprehensible work permit applications does pretty much reduce one’s available blogging time to nearly nil.  The fact that we caught up in Manchester for an impromptu photoshoot and I’ve been living in Oxford since last June tells you just how long I’ve been meaning to write this post!  Apologies.)

But I digress.  Where was I?  Yes, sunshine:

Lovely Sophie has been a beloved presence in the world of Doctor Who since we first met her character Ace McShane - a fiercely cool explosive-building teenager - chucking a milkshake at that snooty customer in Dragonfire.  She travelled with Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor until the end of season 26, and has subsequently reprised the role in many adventures for Big Finish.  As well as Ace, she has in recent years also lent her voice to Dennis the Menace, and the titular character from Tree Fu Tom.

Most recently, she’s also involved in a forthcoming sci-fi comedy audio series, Strangeness in Space, which you can learn all about here.  And she’s on twitter here.  You should be following her.  She’s nice.