Born: 1953
Episodes Broadcast: 1989

Marc Platt was born in Wimbledon, London and initially trained as a caterer. A fan of Doctor Who from its earliest days, he submitted a story idea called “Fires Of The Starrmind” in late 1975. Although script editor Robert Holmes turned it down, he nonetheless encouraged Platt to continue writing. Platt kept in touch with the Doctor Who production office, and discussed various ideas with script editor Christopher H Bidmead in late 1980. Soon thereafter, Platt began working at the BBC Radio Programme Index. He continued to submit proposals for Doctor Who, including a Sontaran story called “Warmongers” with fellow fan Jeremy Bentham in 1983, and then the surreal “Cat's Cradle” in 1984. Both were rejected by script editor Eric Saward, but Platt later reworked “Cat's Cradle” and offered it to Saward's successor, Andrew Cartmel.

Although Cartmel decided that “Cat's Cradle” was too ambitious for the limited Doctor Who budget, he felt that Platt had considerable potential. Platt worked with Cartmel and writer Ben Aaronovitch to develop “Shrine” in 1987. When it was deemed unusable, Platt instead started on “Lungbarrow”, which Cartmel envisaged as a lynchpin in the new Doctor Who mythology he was devising for Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor. Producer John Nathan-Turner ultimately vetoed “Lungbarrow”, but Platt instead reused some of its elements for 1989's Ghost Light -- the last Doctor Who serial to go into production before the programme's cancellation, and his only television credit. Platt novelised both Ghost Light and Aaronovitch's Battlefield for Target Books. He then recycled “Cat's Cradle” as Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible, the fifth novel in Virgin Publishing's Doctor Who: The New Adventures range, published in 1992.

In 1995, Platt wrote the script for Downtime, an unofficial Doctor Who video drama from Reeltime Pictures; he also novelised it for Virgin's Doctor Who: The Missing Adventures line. Platt contributed to a number of short story anthologies, beginning with Decalog from Virgin in 1994, and scripted a 1992 installment of the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip. In 1997, Platt reworked “Lungbarrow” as the penultimate Doctor Who: The New Adventures novel. He then became a regular writer for various series of audio dramas from Big Finish Productions, starting with the Fifth Doctor story Loups-Garoux in 2001. Another Fifth Doctor narrative, 2002's Spare Parts, told the origin of the Cybermen and inspired elements of the 2006 Doctor Who television adventure Rise Of The Cybermen / The Age Of Steel.