
Peter Howell
Sound
Biography
Peter Howell (born 1949) is a musician and composer. He is best known for his work on Doctor Who as a member of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Howell's musical career began in the late 1960s working with John Ferdinando in various psychedelic folk bands including Agincourt and Ithaca. Howell and Ferdinando recorded five albums before Howell became a member of the Radiophonic Workshop, with which he would remain associated until 1997. His work on Doctor Who began in 1975 when he provided some accompanying incidental music for Revenge of the Cybermen and special sound for Planet of Evil. When John Nathan-Turner became producer of Doctor Who in 1980, he decided that the music needed to be updated and commissioned Howell to provide a new arrangement of the Doctor Who theme to accompany a new title sequence. Howell's new arrangement first appeared in 1980 on The Leisure Hive, for which Howell had also recorded the incidental score, and was used throughout Tom Baker's final season on the programme as well as Peter Davison's tenure as the Doctor and Colin Baker's first season. Between 1980 and 1985 Howell also provided incidental music for ten stories of Doctor Who. In 1986, Nathan-Turner commissioned a new theme arrangement by Dominic Glynn, ending Howell's association with Doctor Who on television. Since 2013 he has been part of the Radiophonic Workshop Band, touring the UK and abroad with Radiophonic archivist Mark Ayres and other former members of the Workshop. In 2021, Howell published his autobiography Radiophonic Times via Obverse Books.
Known For

The adventures of The Doctor, a time-traveling humanoid alien known as a Time Lord. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, The Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right many wrongs.
Doctor Who

An Informative documentary series about our world.
The Ultimate Guide

Before the Doctor can settle down to married life, he must face one last confrontation with his deadly enemy of certain death - the Master.
Doctor Who: The Curse of Fatal Death

Many incarnations of the Doctors and their old companions are taken out of time and deposited in the Death Zone on Gallifrey. There, they must battle the Master, Daleks, Cybermen and Yeti in order to reach the Dark Tower and discover the Tomb of Rassilon.
Doctor Who: The Five Doctors

This film tells the true-life story of Yuri Nosenko, a top Soviet KGB agent who defected to the West at the height of the Cold War in 1962.
Double Image

From the BBC archives, before their talents were recognised by royal decree, the early work and career defining moments of Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Diana Rigg and Helen Mirren. David Tennant narrates the story of our dames of classic drama, from a golden age of British television drama.
Dames of Classic Drama at the BBC

Doctor Who returns to the Proms to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the popular BBC series. As well as showcasing Murray Gold’s music from the past eight years, the concert also journeys back to the early days of Doctor Who and the groundbreaking work of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Featuring special guests from the series, big screens and a host of monsters ready to invade the Royal Albert Hall, this is not the year to be exterminated!
Doctor Who at the Proms

A look at the subtle (and not so subtle!) links to the show's past and future contained within the story of The Five Doctors.
The Ties That Bind Us

Captured in a time corridor, the Doctor and his companions are forced to land on 20th century Earth, diverted by the Doctor's oldest enemy - the Daleks. It is here the true purpose of the time corridor becomes apparent: after ninety years of imprisonment, Davros, the ruthless creator of the Daleks, is to be liberated to assist in the resurrection of his army. Not even the Daleks foresee the poisonous threat of their creator. Indeed, who would suspect Davros of wanting to destroy his own Daleks - and why? Only the Doctor knows the truth. Will he descend to Davros' level of evil to stop him?
Doctor Who: Resurrection of the Daleks

A five-part series about the origins, history and impact of the computer, a machine that changed the world.
The Dream Machine

A race of giant Gastropods has taken over the planet Jaconda. Their leader, Mestor, now intends to cause an enormous explosion in order to spread his people's eggs throughout the galaxy, and he kidnaps juvenile twin geniuses from Earth to work out the necessary mathematical equations. Space fighters led by Lieutenant Hugo Lang are dispatched to get the twins back, but they come under attack and Lang is the sole survivor when his ship crashes on the asteroid Titan III. A newly regenerated Doctor and Peri become involved and help Jaconda's elderly former ruler Professor Edgeworth, who is really a Time Lord named Azmael, to defeat Mestor and free the planet's bird-like indigenous people from the gastropods' reign of terror. Azmael, however, sacrifices his life in the process.
Doctor Who: The Twin Dilemma

At the Tranquil Repose mortuary, the Doctor and Peri uncover a sinister plot to create a new breed of Daleks under the supervision of the mysterious Great Healer.
Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks

After an encounter with the Master, an airline stewardess named Tegan Jovanka becomes an unwitting stowaway aboard the TARDIS as it travels to the planet Logopolis. There, the Doctor discovers that the Master's interference with the Logopolitans' advanced mathematics has unleashed a wave of entropy which threatens to consume the entire universe.
Doctor Who: Logopolis
Form master Sam Sylvester inspires the proud non-achievers of Hawkwood Comprehensive to compete in a tetrathlon (running, swimming, shooting, riding) against the posh Greycoats School, challenging stereotypes and finding inner strength.
Who, Sir? Me, Sir?

A strange signal from Earth draws the TARDIS to the island of Lanzarote, where Turlough rescues a young American girl, Peri, from drowning. Among her possessions is an artefact bearing an alien symbol - the same triangular mark that Turlough has branded into his arm. The mystery deepens when Kamelion falls under the control of a powerful mind, and the TARDIS travels to the volcanic world of Sarn. As Turlough is forced to face his past, the Fifth Doctor must stop his oldest enemy from harnessing the revitalising powers of Numismaton gas...
Doctor Who: Planet of Fire

The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough arrive in Little Hodcombe, where the townspeople's re-enactments of English Civil War battles are causing a dormant entity, the Malus, to re-awaken.
Doctor Who: The Awakening

The Doctor and his companions arrive at a medieval joust and are surprised to be greeted warmly by King John, who calls them his demons. But when a young nobleman returns, having just left King John in London, the Doctor realises that this king must be an impostor! Then the Master makes an appearance and the Doctor's worst fears are confirmed...
Doctor Who: The King's Demons

The TARDIS lands on the idyllic jungle world of Deva Loka, which is being surveyed for possible Earth colonisation. Deva Loka is already home to a race of apparent savages, however: a mysterious people with strange powers which have mentally unbalanced the members of the expedition. To make matters worse, an ancient enemy of the natives known as the Mara is intent upon revenge, and latches onto Tegan's mind as its bridgehead to victory.
Doctor Who: Kinda

On the planet Alzarius in the alternate universe of E-Space, the Doctor, Romana and K9 find survivors of a crashed starliner, strange creatures lurking in the marshes and a genetic riddle which stretches back centuries.
Doctor Who: Full Circle

Arriving on the barren world of Androzani Minor, the Doctor and Peri find themselves embroiled in a long running, literal underground war. At the heart of the conflict is a substance called Spectrox - both valuable and deadly! The Doctor & Peri wind up being poisoned by the material, which is killing them slowly and painfully unless they can find a cure. As the conflict heats up and the situation gets more desperate, the Doctor realises time is running out - both for Peri and himself...