Sarah Sutton

Sarah Sutton
Born	12 December 1961 (1961-12-12) (age 49) Basingstoke, Hampshire, England
Children	Hannah

Sarah Sutton (born 12 December 1961) is a British actress best known for her role as Nyssa in the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who. Nyssa was a companion of Tom Baker and Peter Davison's Doctors from 1981 to 1983. She was the youngest female actor to play a companion in the series (Matthew Waterhouse who played Adric being the youngest male actor to have played a companion).

Sutton was born in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England. Sutton studied ballet as a little girl and went on as an actress to be the youngest British actress to have played Alice in a television or sound film production of Alice in Wonderland, Natalie Gregory being the youngest actress to have played Alice in an American television or sound film.

Her final full serial of Doctor Who was Terminus (1983, written by Stephen Gallagher and directed by Mary Ridge), in which, famously, she removed her skirt, effectively playing out the rest of the serial in her undergarments (the scripted reason for this was that she was feeling unwell and feverish; in an interview, Sutton described it as "a parting gesture to [the] fans". Gallagher believes that his script had Nyssa loosening the collar of her original costume, dropping the brooch which closed it for the Doctor to find in a later scene, and that the lost skirt replaced this as a plot device).^[1][2]

After Terminus, she made a brief appearance in Peter Davison's final serial, The Caves of Androzani, but aside from that since leaving Doctor Who she has done very little acting, instead focusing on raising her daughter, Hannah, with her GP husband.^[3] She has made appearances as Sarah Dryden in the BBC's medical soap opera Casualty (the 1989 episode "Charity"), and as Wendy in the serial Unnatural Pursuits (1991, written by Simon Gray and starring Alan Bates).

Sutton reprised the role of Nyssa in 1993, in the Doctor Who Children in Need special Dimensions in Time, and subsequently in several of the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who spin-off audio plays from 1999 onwards.

She has appeared in various other television programmes including Alice Through the Looking Glass (1974) as Alice, The Moon Stallion (1978) as Diana Purwell and The Crucible (1980) as Susannah Walcott.

References

1. ^ "Sarah Sutton". Doctor Who Interview Archive. (Orig. published 1988.) October 3, 2009. Retrieved 18 February 2010.
2. ^ "Women: It's OK to be brainy...". Guardian (G2): p. 8. March 25, 2005. (via Lexis-Nexis).
3. ^ Davies, Barbara. "Who's That Girl?; After The Tardis: We Track Down The Time Lord's Assistants". The Mirror: pp. 22–23. March 24, 2005. (via Lexis-Nexis).

External links

• Sarah Sutton at the Internet Movie Database

Persondata
Name	Sutton, Sarah
Alternative names	Sarah Jane
Short description	English actress
Date of birth	21 September
Place of birth	Basingstoke, Hampshire, England UK
Date of death
Place of death