Biography

Returned to Doctor Who after a gap of 43 years to voice again the character of Alpha Centauri in the episode Empress of Mars.

Daughter of the actor Andrew Churchman and actress Gladys Dale

Played Grace Archer in the BBC radio soap "The Archers", and the character famously died in a fire on 30th September 1955 - which just happened to be the opening night of ITV.

After being written out of The Archers, ostensibly because the BBC wanted to do something dramatic on the day that rival channel ITV launched, she made a good living out of doing voiceovers for commercials on ITV.

There are two main reasons given for her character Grace Archer being written out of The Archers. Firstly, there is the well-known one that it was a ruse to deny rival channel ITV the publicity of its opening night, which had been decided at a secret script conference. But also Ysanne Churchman revealed another reason 60 years later: the programme's editor at the time had branded her a troublemaker because she demanded equal pay with the male cast members and encouraged lower-paid amateur actors to join the actors' union Equity. These events were included in a radio play "Dead Girls Tell No Tales" about the death of her character and her sacking, produced in 2015 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the event.