John Leeson, the Voice of Doctor Who’s K9, Dies Aged 83

Evening News · Monday 2 November 2026

John Leeson, who gave Doctor Who’s robot dog K9 his voice for almost fifty years, has died aged 83. Also tonight: the Ahsoka cast promise a lot more Thrawn in season two, Jack Lowden finally speaks about the James Bond talk, Danny Robins’ ghost story The Witch Farm gets its BBC One date, and Curry Barker says a longer cut of Obsession exists.

The News That Matters

John Leeson, the voice of Doctor Who’s K9, dies aged 83

• What happened: John Leeson died on Sunday afternoon after “a summer of illness”, his son Guy Ducker announced on Facebook. “The end was peaceful,” he wrote, adding a line from Hamlet: “Good night sweet prince: And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!” In a second post he thanked “the Whovian community for the love they showed to my father over the decades”, The Guardian reported
• The role: Leeson first voiced K9 in the 1977 Tom Baker story The Invisible Enemy. The robot dog was meant to appear in only that one serial, but stayed aboard the TARDIS until 1981, and “Affirmative, Master” became a playground catchphrase. He returned for K-9 and Company, the 20th anniversary special, the 1993 anniversary, David Tennant’s School Reunion in 2006 and The Sarah Jane Adventures
• The tributes: Russell T Davies, who brought K9 back in 2006, said: “There was no question that we’d ask John to provide the voice.” He called the performance “a posh dog, uppity, haughty, wry, but somehow innocent too, and so funny”, adding: “A true gent, and a great loss.” Lisa Bowerman remembered “a truly iconic voice”
• Beyond the TARDIS: Born John Ducker in Leicester in 1943, he worked as a hospital porter before training at RADA. He played Bungle in Rainbow, appeared in Dad’s Army, Crown Court, Sorry!, The Bill and Blake’s 7, and was a Channel 4 continuity announcer. He was still voicing K9 for Big Finish last year
• UK availability: Classic and modern Doctor Who, including School Reunion, stream on BBC iPlayer in the UK

K9 was the kind of idea that could have sunk under its own silliness, and it was Leeson’s voice, prim, clipped and quietly loyal, that made a cardboard-and-metal dog one of the best-loved companions in the show’s history. Only last month we reported that he had reunited with Tom Baker for a Sherlock Holmes audio drama, and his K9 has a place in our Two Pillars of British Entertainment feature. This morning’s Morning News covered the row over an AI recreation of Sarah Jane Smith, the companion K9 served so faithfully.

Ahsoka season two will give fans “a lot more time” with Thrawn

• What happened: Rosario Dawson, Natasha Liu Bordizzo and Eman Esfandi, who play Ahsoka, Sabine and Ezra, dropped hints about season two at a Los Angeles Comic Con panel at the weekend, Polygon and GamesRadar reported, citing Star Wars News Net
• Thrawn: “We’re gonna get a lot more time with a very specific war criminal… that everybody really loves to see,” Esfandi said, pointing to Lars Mikkelsen’s Grand Admiral Thrawn. He added that “we get a lot of Chopper”, the cantankerous droid from Star Wars Rebels, and “a lot of other well-beloved characters”
• Out of the Volume: Dawson said much more of the season was shot outdoors rather than on the LED stage known as The Volume: “It was great to feel it… it really just gave it another kind of epic grandeur.” Bordizzo said she liked “really being outside, not pretending to be outside”
• What it sets up: Dawson said the season raises “really interesting questions and ideas about what the future holds” for Star Wars
• UK availability: Season two streams on Disney+ in the UK from 20 January 2027

Watch the trailer

Moving off the Volume is welcome news: the first season’s planets often looked alike, and Dave Filoni’s Rebels sequel deserves real skies. The new Ahsoka comic, dated for the same day as the series, was in our Star Wars News last week.

Jack Lowden won’t “add to the noise” on Bond, as Ben Whishaw calls for a reinvention

• What he said: In his first interview since Deadline and Variety reported that he was among the actors given final screen tests for 007, Lowden told British GQ: “It’s all very flattering. It’s nice to be mentioned – for any role – and I’m just not really going to add to the noise.” Of his Slow Horses co-star Gary Oldman, who said in September he hoped Lowden would get the part, he said: “Gary’s a sweetheart… But I don’t really listen to it”
• On being linked: “As a young male actor, generally, the minute you’re not playing a zany artist type, the minute you’re in a suit, people fling it at you,” he added, The Independent reported
• Where the search stands: Amazon MGM Studios has not announced the new Bond. Deadline and Variety reported that Lowden, Callum Turner and Josh O’Connor were among at least four actors invited to final screen tests in late October; none of them has been confirmed. Denis Villeneuve directs from a script by Steven Knight, with Amy Pascal and David Heyman producing, and a decision is widely expected before the end of the year
• Q’s verdict: Ben Whishaw, Q in the Daniel Craig films, told The Sunday Times the series “needs to be reinvented completely” because the world has changed since No Time to Die, while stressing that it is not his decision, The Independent and The Telegraph reported
• UK availability: No title or release date yet for the next Bond film; UK date not yet confirmed

Lowden’s answer is a polished non-answer, which is exactly what you would expect from someone bound by a screen test, so it tells us nothing either way. Until Amazon MGM speaks, every name is speculation. In the meantime, you can see him as Mr Darcy in Netflix’s Pride and Prejudice.

Danny Robins’ ghost story The Witch Farm comes to BBC One on 22 November

• What happened: The BBC has dated The Witch Farm, a four-part ghost story and mystery from Uncanny and 2:22 – A Ghost Story creator Danny Robins, and released its first clip
• The story: In South Wales in 1989, Bill (Michael Socha), Liz (Gabrielle Creevy) and their teenage son Jonathan (Lewin Lloyd) leave London for Heol Fanog, a remote farmhouse in the foothills of the Brecon Beacons. Frightening, inexplicable things start to happen, and a strange figure begins to appear
• Who’s in it: Sian Gibson, Robert Pugh, Jeremy Swift, Edward Holcroft, Suzanne Packer and Roger Evans also star. Stacey Gregg directs, for Mammoth Screen
• From the airwaves: It began life as Robins’ BBC Radio 4 podcast, made by Bafflegab and Uncanny Media
• UK availability: Episodes one and two land on BBC iPlayer at 6am on Sunday 22 November, with episode one at 9pm that night on BBC One and BBC One Wales and episode two at 9pm on Monday 23 November. Episodes three and four follow on iPlayer on Sunday 29 November

Watch the first look

Robins has made the modern British ghost story his own, and a 1980s Welsh haunting on Sunday nights in late November is perfect timing. It joins a busy month in our What Is Coming Next: November 2026 guide.

Curry Barker says there is a longer cut of Obsession

• What he said: The director of the year’s sleeper horror hit told Rolling Stone that the cinema version is his director’s cut, but that “there’s a longer version of the movie that I would love to release, for sure” — “probably like 20 minutes longer”, Bloody Disgusting reported
• No regrets: “There’s things I would reshoot, but there’s not things I would change with the footage that I have,” Barker said. “I did whatever I wanted for the most part”
• The film: Michael Johnston plays a young man who uses a supernatural toy, the One Wish Willow, to make a friend (Inde Navarrette) fall for him, with violent consequences. Made for about $750,000, it has taken more than $400 million worldwide, and Navarrette hosted Saturday Night Live’s Halloween show at the weekend
• UK availability: Available to rent or buy digitally in the UK, including on Prime Video and Apple TV. It reaches Netflix in the US on 17 November; UK streaming date not yet confirmed. No extended cut has been announced

Watch the trailer

Twenty more minutes of the One Wish Willow would be an easy sell to the fans who turned a $750,000 film into a phenomenon. Creator-led horror is booming, as we noted in our Evening News on Barker’s next projects.

Missed this morning’s edition? The Morning News has the Sarah Jane AI row, Zach Cregger on Resident Evil and more. What is your favourite K9 moment? Tell us below.

Back tomorrow with What to Watch Tonight at 7:30am and the Morning News at 8am.