Peter Howell (born 1949) is a musician and composer.
He is best known for his work on Doctor Who as a member of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Howell's musical career began in the late 1960s working with John Ferdinando in various psychedelic folk bands including Agincourt and Ithaca.
Howell and Ferdinando recorded five albums before Howell became a member of the Radiophonic Workshop, with which he would remain associated until 1997.
His work on Doctor Who began in 1975 when he provided some accompanying incidental music for Revenge of the Cybermen and special sound for Planet of Evil.
When John Nathan-Turner became producer of Doctor Who in 1980, he decided that the music needed to be updated and commissioned Howell to provide a new arrangement of the Doctor Who theme to accompany a new title sequence.
Howell's new arrangement first appeared in 1980 on The Leisure Hive, for which Howell had also recorded the incidental score, and was used throughout Tom Baker's final season on the programme as well as Peter Davison's tenure as the Doctor and Colin Baker's first season.
Between 1980 and 1985 Howell also provided incidental music for ten stories of Doctor Who.
In 1986, Nathan-Turner commissioned a new theme arrangement by Dominic Glynn, ending Howell's association with Doctor Who on television.
Since 2013 he has been part of the Radiophonic Workshop Band, touring the UK and abroad with Radiophonic archivist Mark Ayres and other former members of the Workshop.
In 2021, Howell published his autobiography Radiophonic Times via Obverse Books.
Doctor Who returns to the Proms to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the popular BBC series. As well as showcasing Murray Gold’s music from the past eight years, the concert also journeys back to the early days of Doctor Who and the groundbreaking work of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Featuring special guests from the series, big screens and a host of monsters ready to invade the Royal Albert Hall, this is not the year to be exterminated!
A look at the subtle (and not so subtle!) links to the show's past and future contained within the story of The Five Doctors.
A look at the radical changes made to Doctor Who by John Nathan-Turner for his first story as producer, which opened the programme's eighteenth year on BBC1.
Writer David Fisher and script editor Christopher H Bidmead examine the making of The Leisure Hive from the screenwriter's point of view.
Before the Doctor can settle down to married life, he must face one last confrontation with his deadly enemy of certain death - the Master.
Profile celebrating the centenary of the famous author Agatha Christie’s birth. Looking at her life, her character and the key moments in her childhood that influenced her writing.
The Doctor regenerates in London, 1911, but there's no time to rest. In this fan production she meets her new companion, chimney sweep Carl Evans, and they set off to 1980s Seattle. There, Vietnam war veterans living in an urban park are mysteriously disappearing by the day; what's the cause? And could it be as alien as the Doctor herself?
Many incarnations of the Doctors and their old companions are taken out of time and deposited in the Death Zone on Gallifrey. There, they must battle the Master, Daleks, Cybermen and Yeti in order to reach the Dark Tower and discover the Tomb of Rassilon.
Sarah Jane Smith arrives at the home of her Aunt Lavinia in the cozy village of Moreton Harwood, only to find that Lavinia is nowhere to be found and that the Doctor has left her a parting gift in K·9 Mark III. With the help of K·9 and Lavinia's young ward Brendan Richards, Sarah Jane starts investigating her aunt's disappearance. In the process, they discover that Moreton Harwood is home to a coven worshipping the pagan god Hecate and preparing for a human sacrifice...