Peter Davison

Peter Malcolm Gordon Moffett (born 13 April 1951), known professionally as Peter Davison, is an English actor with many credits in television dramas and sitcoms.

In the mid-1970s, during a lull in his acting career, Davison spent 18 months working in a tax office in Twickenham.

He made his television acting debut in 1975 and became famous in 1978 as Tristan Farnon in the BBC's television adaptation of James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small stories.

In 1976, he was offered a prominent role in the 13-part TV series Love for Lydia opposite Jeremy Irons; the series was broadcast on ITV the following year.

His first television work was a 1975 episode of the children's science fiction television programme The Tomorrow People, alongside American actress Sandra Dickinson, whom he married on 26 December 1978.

Davison portrayed an alien named Elmer, who arrives on Earth along with his sister (played by Dickinson) and his mother, known as "the Mama" (played by Margaret Burton).

In 1978, Davison's performance as the youthfully mischievous Tristan Farnon in All Creatures Great and Small made him a household name.

"I don't know how much it changed my life. It creeps up on you really. You become used to it quickly, I think. I wasn't aware of it suddenly changing my life, although I had a bit more money to spend on rubbish. I bought a house, but the money was rubbish because I was a BBC newcomer, though nobody's money was very good, except probably Robert Hardy's. I remember after the third series I bought a car, which was a Renault 18. I thought it was pretty flash, and I went to this garage to fill up with petrol, and the guy said, 'Aren't you that bloke off the vet series?' I said yes I was, and he said, 'Why are you driving that piece of shit?'"

Davison was absent for 24 episodes in the second run of the series, including the majority of series 5 and 6, due to other acting commitments; Alison Lewis, who played Rosie Herriot in the final series, revealed: "I never met Peter Davison because I didn't have any scenes with him."

Davison's subsequent starring roles included the sitcoms Holding the Fort (1980–1982) and Sink or Swim (1980–1982), the fifth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who (1981–1984), Dr. Stephen Daker in A Very Peculiar Practice (1986–1988) and Albert Campion in Campion (1989–1990).

In 1980, Davison signed a contract to play the fifth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who for three years, succeeding Tom Baker (the Fourth Doctor) and, at age 29, was at the time the youngest actor to have played the lead role, a record he retained for nearly thirty years until Matt Smith (the Eleventh Doctor) took the role in 2009 at age 26.

Attracting such a high-profile actor as Davison was as much of a coup for the programme as getting the role was for him, but he did not renew his contract because he feared being typecast.

Patrick Troughton (who had played the Second Doctor and whom Davison had watched on the programme as a teenager) recommended to Davison that he leave the role after three years, and Davison followed his advice.

The Fifth Doctor encountered many of the Doctor's best-known adversaries, including the Cybermen in Earthshock (1982) and the Daleks and Davros in Resurrection of the Daleks (1984).

In the 1983 serial Arc of Infinity, in addition to portraying the Fifth Doctor, Davison portrayed the human form of Omega, sharing the role with Ian Collier.

Since leaving Doctor Who, Davison has returned to the franchise several times.

"I can't remember when the idea of making another series of the show came up, but it was probably long before anyone mentioned it to the actors. Not that we raised too many eyebrows; I felt I had done enough other work to prove to myself that Tristan hadn't hindered my prospects. Quite the reverse, as Doctor Who had proved: Tristan was a stepping stone to other parts. By the end of 1986, it was agreed that the original cast, minus Carol Drinkwater, would re-assemble to film another series," continued Davison.

"The date was set for the spring of the following year, dangerously close to the date set for a second series of A Very Peculiar Practice."

He presented the special videotape documentary release Daleks – The Early Years (1993), showcasing selected episodes of missing Dalek stories from both the First and Second Doctor's eras.

Davison returned to play the Fifth Doctor in the 1993 multi-doctor charity special Dimensions in Time and in the 1997 video game Destiny of the Doctors.

Since 1999, he has reprised his role as the Fifth Doctor in numerous Doctor Who audio dramas for Big Finish Productions; he also reprised the role of Omega in an audio drama of the same name, again sharing the role with Collier.

He also played David Braithwaite in At Home with the Braithwaites (2000–2003), "Dangerous" Davies in The Last Detective (2003–2007) and Henry Sharpe in Law & Order: UK (2011–2014).

Davison was born to Claude and Sheila Moffett in Streatham, London.

Claude was from British Guiana (now Guyana), and worked as a radio engineer before opening a grocer's shop, whilst Sheila worked in intelligence during World War II before becoming a housewife.

Davison had three sisters: Shirley, Pamela and Barbara.

Whilst in Streatham, he attended Granton Primary School.

The family then moved to Knaphill in Surrey.

During this time, Davison was a member of an amateur theatre company called the Byfleet Players.

Before becoming an actor, he gained one O-level in English Language at Winston Churchill School, St John's, Woking, Surrey, and then had several odd jobs, including a stint as a mortuary attendant and a Hoffman Press operator.

Early aspirations at a teacher-training college or his father's plan for a job at a building society vanished.

Davison studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

His first job was as an actor and assistant stage manager at the Nottingham Playhouse.

He chose the stage name Peter Davison to avoid confusion with the actor and director Peter Moffatt, with whom Davison later worked.

He only uses Davison professionally.

He returned to the TV series in "Time Crash", a special episode written by Steven Moffat for Children in Need; in the episode, which aired on 16 November 2007, the Fifth Doctor met the Tenth Doctor, played by Davison's future son-in-law David Tennant.

Tennant later presented a documentary, Come in Number Five, which examined Davison's tenure in some detail, and which was included as a special feature on the 2011 DVD re-release of Resurrection of the Daleks.

It is one of many DVD releases of his serials in which Davison has appeared as an in-vision interviewee or in DVD commentary recordings.

"I didn't ever want to leave the series, it's just that other programmes came up and I wanted to do them," he explained in 2016.

"I'd miss the second half of series 5 because of A Very Peculiar Practice and series 6 I missed because I was doing Campion. I was incredibly lucky to move onto the things I did. There was no plan to it; it's just good fortune, being in the right place at the right time. But in the end, when I'd finished Campion and A Very Peculiar Practice, All Creatures was still going and I never had any problem coming back."

"Only days after finishing A Very Peculiar Practice, I was back in Yorkshire to film a second All Creatures Christmas Special," remembered Davison.