John Leeson 1943-2026

Born in 1943 in Leicester, John Francis Christopher Ducker began his working life as a hospital porter. But his passion, inspired by childhood visits to Leicester’s Little Theatre, was in acting.

He began pursuing this creative career in 1962, when he joined the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, taking on the stage name John Leeson. He performed onstage in the West End and the United States, while his early TV roles include episodes of Crossroads and Dad’s Army, and most notably as Bungle the bear in 50 episodes of Rainbow in 1972.

In 1977, Leeson was cast as the voice of the robotic dog K-9 in the Doctor Who serial The Invisible Enemy. Producer Graham Williams and script editor Robert Holmes liked the character and were impressed by Leeson’s performance, so decided to keep him on as a new companion for Tom Baker’s Doctor.

Leeson voiced K-9 throughout Seasons 15 and 16 (and also played Dugeen in Season 16’s The Power of Kroll, as he was contracted to appear but the K-9 prop wasn’t suitable for the story’s locations). He then declined to work on Season 17, due to concerns about not appearing onscreen himself. However, producer John Nathan-Turner convinced him to return for five serials in Season 18, K-9’s final run of regular appearances. K-9 departed the series, alongside Lalla Ward’s Romana, in 1981 story Warrior’s Gate.

By this point, K-9 had become an iconic part of Doctor Who, with Leeson’s voice an integral part, and so it’s no surprise that he reprised the role several times, including in spin-off shows K-9 and Company, (1981),The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007-2011), and K-9 (2009-2010), as well as the later Doctor Who episodes The Five Doctors (1983), School Reunion (2006) and Journey’s End (2008).

Leeson’s TV credits following his time on Doctor Who include Blake’s 7, Jigsaw, Sorry!, and ’Allo ’Allo!. He also worked as a continuity announcer for Channel 4 in the late 1980s and early ’90s.

He first returned to the role of K-9 on audio for Big Finish Productions in 2003. This was followed by regular appearances in the Gallifrey and Fourth Doctor Adventures series, as well as in other ranges set across the universe of Doctor Who.

Leeson is survived by his wife, Judy Griffiths, who he married in 1969, and their son, the film editor Guy Ducker.

Nicholas Briggs, Big Finish’s creative director, said: “John was a lovely fellow. Always very chipper, kind and entertaining. He was never anything short of totally professional when I was directing his K-9 performance – the definitive K-9 performance! I got to know him a little better when I was on a mini Australasian tour of Doctor Who conventions, along with my wife and son. During those two weeks, we found him to be charming and warm company.”

Gary Russell, who worked with Leeson as the producer and director of the audio series Gallifrey, said: “Once upon a time, I was driving to a Doctor Who convention straight from a Big Finish recording – I think this was 2002ish – and I was taking actress Maggie Stables with me. I told her I’d been asked by the organisers to collect John Leeson en route. ‘Oh, I know John,’ Maggie said. ‘Well, not directly, I know of him. Always wanted to meet him.’

“Now I didn't imagine Maggie was the world's biggest K-9 fan, and it transpired that they moved in other, non-thespian, circles – both were lay magistrates, or Justices of the Peace, and Maggie knew John by reputation as one of the nicest, calmest and reasoned JPs on ‘the circuit’. That fitted with what I knew about John.

“We’d known one another for years, right back from the early 1980s, but as yet I hadn’t got him in to do a Big Finish. On that journey, I outlined to John that we were planning a big story for the show’s fortieth anniversary. I wanted to bring K-9 back and was he up for it. Hooray, he said yes. A few weeks later, he called me up and said he’d been asked to do a new version of Shada for Big Finish, and was that the thing I’d been talking about? I said no, and he was even happier because, as he put it, ‘more ball bearings on the dinner table for K-9 to come!’

“We did Zagreus and then that spun off into the Gallifrey series, in which John gamely threw himself into anything and everything, including voicing two different versions of K-9 – the Mk I that stayed with Leela, and the Mk II that stayed with Romana – in the same scenes. He loved that, providing two different vocal tones and inflections for them. Because he knew instinctively what he was doing.

“But it’s not K-9 that I'll remember John most for – it’s his thesaurus-like mind. He’d look at the scripts – not just K-9’s bits but the story as a whole – and would say, ‘There’s a bit of repetition here, why not use this word instead of repeating that one?’ or his familiar refrain of ‘fewer, not less’. Then there was the friendly rivalry with Lalla Ward as they stood in their recording booths, but rather than say the lines, they’d start checking with one another: ‘Have you got 4 across yet?’ ‘No, I need 2 down first.’ ‘Oh, that's easy,’ and so on, seeing who could complete the crossword first before lunch. Occasionally I’d cough meaningfully into the talkback mic. ‘Apologies, Master’, K-9 would reply, and we’d get on with the scene.

“John was talented and smart, he was kind and considerate, and above all, he was a very genuine and decent human being who got on with everyone, because that was his nature. I'm not going to say ‘I will miss him’ because, frankly, I already am.”

John Leeson, actor, born 16 March 1943; died 1 November 2026.