As revealed at this year’s Bedford Who Charity Con, David Banks has written a memoir about his time playing the Cyber-Leader in Doctor Who.
Man and Cyberman: Memoirs of a Cyber-Leader begins with his origins as an actor, and follows up with his best-known role in Doctor Who — that of the Cyber-Leader in Earthshock, The Five Doctors, Attack of the Cybermen, and Silver Nemesis. Banks also played Karl in the stage production The Ultimate Adventure, and its audio adaptation — and then a version of the Doctor after Jon Pertwee fell ill and was unable to continue.
Here’s the blurb for Man and Cyberman:
David Banks has played many parts, but none so demanding as the Cyberleader [sic]. Despite leading roles in theatre and many appearances on TV, including long stints on Brookside and Canary Wharf, despite the plays he has directed and authored and the books he has written, despite creating a highly successful client management system called AgentFile – despite all this, the Cyber Race will not let him go.
On television as Cyberleader [sic] in BBC TV’s Doctor Who, on stage in The Ultimate Adventure fighting the Cybermen as the mercenary Karl and as the Greenpeace Doctor, as voice artist on The ArcHive Tapes and many other audiobooks and dramas exploring the Cyber world, as author of best-selling sci-fi novel Iceberg and the trailblazing book Doctor Who – Cybermen, he has been pulled back again and again into the Cyber orbit.
In Man and Cyberman David traces the arc of his life: what led him to be an actor, how he first became the Cyberleader and how escape has proved impossible. The recollections are his. They are the memoirs of a Cyberleader.
The book is to be released by Telos as a limited edition hardback, complete with an eight page colour section.
The DWC’s very own Ida Wood interviewed Banks about his Doctor wearing a Greenpeace t-shirt, and David replied:
“Terrance Dicks wrote the play with this growing understanding that we all had that the earth was heading for a disaster. A climate disaster. And this was a strand [explained] in the play.
“Jon Pertwee’s character and costume didn’t really reflect that, and I thought, ‘well if I was going to play the part’ — and I did ask for rehearsals — ‘[I’d need] my own costume’. I was playing the villain in the play itself, Karl [before standing in for Jon]. I thought ‘this [costume] would have to be the distinguishing feature of the Doctor’. Because every Doctor has a distinguishing feature. So that’s why the Greenpeace t-shirt came into it.”
You can read the interview exclusively here on the DWC.
Telos says that they hope Banks will sign as many pre-orders as possible of the book.
Man and Cyberman: Memoirs of a Cyber-Leader is released on 5th September 2026 at the Whooverville event in Derby.
