Sarah Sutton

Early life

Sutton was born in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England. Sutton studied ballet as a little girl and was only 11 when she became the youngest British actress to have played Alice on screen, in a 1973 television film of Alice Through The Looking Glass.

She began acting at the age of nine.

Besides her performance as Alice, Sutton appeared in a number of television programmes before Doctor Who, including The Moon Stallion (1978) as Diana Purwell and The Crucible (1980) as Susannah Walcott.

Before and during her time on Doctor Who, Sarah Sutton was a student at the Guildhall School Of Music And Drama.

Career

After joining the Fourth Doctor in 1981 in the story The Keeper of Traken, her final full Doctor Who serial was with the Fifth Doctor, in 1983's Terminus. Sutton removed her skirt for Terminus, effectively playing out the rest of the serial in her undergarments—the scripted reason being that she was feeling unwell and feverish as well as leaving a clue for the Doctor, though Sutton described it later as "a parting gesture to all those fans who wanted to see the real Nyssa".

Sutton took a break from acting after Doctor Who, focusing for a number of years on raising her daughter, Hannah, with her GP husband, Mike. She made a brief appearance in Peter Davison's final Doctor Who serial, The Caves of Androzani (1984), played Sarah Dryden in a 1989 episode of the BBC medical drama series Casualty and Wendy in a 1991 episode of Unnatural Pursuits.

Sutton reprised the role of Nyssa in the 1993 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. In November 2013 she appeared in the one-off 50th anniversary comedy homage The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot.

Sutton also appeared in several episodes of MJTV's original audio sci-fi CD series 'Soldiers of Love' as Colonel Franklyn. She also played Sharon in the Take 1 Productions educational video drama 'TravelWise' (2000).