The director Lovett Bickford, who oversaw The Leisure Hive, the opening story of Doctor Who Season 18, has died aged 76.

Bickford’s first brush with Doctor Who came in the 1960s as Assistant Floor Manager on the First Doctor story, The War Machines and the Second Doctor serial, The Moonbase. The Leisure Hive was to be his sole directing credit on the programme but he certainly made his mark, with…