Jonathan Gibbs

Jonathan Gibbs is a British composer. Between 1983 and 1986 he worked at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. His work at the workshop included providing the scores for the Doctor Who stories The King's Demons, Warriors of the Deep, Vengeance on Varos and The Mark of the Rani.

Richard Attree

Richard Attree is a British TV and Film composer. He attended Highgate School, and then studied electronic music at the Royal College of Music following a degree in computer science. Whilst completing these studies he played as a keyboard player with various bands. He also worked as a freelance composer, producing music for dance and theatre productions at the London Contemporary Dance Theatre and Royal National Theatre.

In 1987, he became the last composer to be recruited at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, where he remained until the department's closure. During his time at the BBC, he received two Sony Awards, in 1986 and 1989, for "the Most Creative Use of Radio". Following his departure from the BBC, he returned to freelance work.

Attree's credits include music for Horizon, Wildlife on One, Timewatch, Hardware, Watt on Earth, and the first three series of The Demon Headmaster. He has also produced music for various BBC idents and promos.

Mark Ayres

Mark Ayres is a television composer who is best known for his work on Doctor Who.

Ayres's work on broadcast Doctor Who was during Sylvester McCoy's era as the Seventh Doctor, comprising The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, Ghost Light, and The Curse of Fenric.

Ayres was hired after he sent producer John Nathan-Turner a demonstration video containing music he had written to accompany Remembrance of the Daleks.

Ayres principally used digital synthesisers and samplers to create his music.

Ayres was also involved in the last days of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, cataloguing and archiving their recordings for future use. As part of the BBC's unofficial Doctor Who Restoration Team, Ayres has also done much of the audio restoration work for the later VHS Doctor Who releases, as well as many of the DVD releases, and all of the "Missing Soundtrack" CD releases since 1999. Additionally, he edited the "Special Edition" of The Curse of Fenric, which restored much footage which was originally cut for time, along with some new special effects and a complete remix of the soundtrack. It is available along with the original on the BBC DVD release.

Ray White

"I had several attachments to the Workshop," says Ray, "They interviewed me a few times for a permanent job, but I was very bad at interviews. Desmond Briscoe really wanted me to stay, so eventually he just fiddled it! We had a 'rehearsal' for the interview and sure enough, next time I passed."

Ray spent most of his BBC career as an engineer in the Radiophonic Workshop, fixing, building and modifying anything electronic. Arriving in the early '70s, he stayed for 20 years. "In the early days it was almost like a club," he says. "It was great fun, going to work. If they thought you were right, the management would welcome you in — then recommend that you join the Union! That would just not happen nowadays."

Ray is proud of his association with the Radiophonic Workshop but points out that not all the music produced there was good. "There was some awful dross came out of the place at times," he says, "and no-one mentions that. I think it was at its most successful when it combined electronic innovation with something more traditional. Like a tune The Doctor Who theme is the best example. Could you imagine anything like that ever coming out of, say IRCAM in Paris? They've produced so much stuff in that place that is clever, and pushes the limits of music technology, but it all sounds horrible! You wouldn't want to listen to that in your lounge, would you?"

In 1993 Ray decided to take early retirement. "As soon as Birt was appointed, I could see what was to come," he says, "The Workshop had gone as far as it could and it had served its purpose. Looking back, it was so difficult for those early pioneers to achieve what they did." Ray cites film composer Tristram Cary: "He was making electronic music in his home studio in the '50s - building his own gear too. He'd get stuck halfway through a composition, then have to get out his soldering iron and build some new machine, just so he could finish the track! By comparison, it's so easy to make electronic music today. But that means it's even easier to produce rubbish!"

Ray White's web site contains the most detailed account of the Radiophonic Workshop and its equipment: http://whitefiles.org/rws/index.htm.