‘Doctor Who’ Projects Alex Kingston Has Been Involved With Outside Of The Show

June Supa-Star Alex Kingston has had a long and varied career, starring in roles ranging from the beloved Dr. Elizabeth Corday in classic medical drama E.R to seasoned witch Sarah Bishop in A Discovery of Witches. Today, she is perhaps best known for her recurring role as River Song, rebellious time travelling archaeologist and wife of The Doctor in Doctor Who.

While actors sometimes resent becoming so tied to a specific character to the exclusion of their other work, Kingston fully embraces the Whovian fandom and her role as River, expressing willingness to reprise the character at any opportunity, even for Doctor Who related projects outside of the show itself.

Ahead of her appearances at Supanova in Sydney (21-22 June) and Perth (28-29 June), let’s take a look at a few other Doctor Who related projects Alex Kingston has been involved in.

THE ANGEL’S KISS: A MELODY MALONE MYSTERY

Many Whovians would probably prefer to forget the heartbreaking events of the episode The Angels Take Manhattan, which saw beloved companions Amy Pond and Rory Williams depart the show. The episode prominently features The Angel’s Kiss, a novel written by River Song under the pseudonym of Detective Melody Malone.

Around a month after The Angels Take Manhattan aired, BBC Books released The Angel’s Kiss in e-book form, as a prequel to the episode’s events. Alex Kingston, in character as River/Melody, recorded an audiobook version of the novella, which many fans saw as a precursor to the actress reprising the role of River for Big Finish’s line of popular Doctor Who audio dramas.

THE DIARY OF RIVER SONG 

Beginning in 2015, Alex Kingston reprised her role as River in a series of audio dramas for Big Finish productions. One of the first new audio series commissioned when Big Finish were granted a license to produce content for the Doctor Who revival, The Diary of River Song follows River on the many solo adventures she undertakes when away from ‘her’ Doctor, The Eleventh.

Occasionally, these adventures bring her into contact with allies or enemies of her husband, or even past incarnations of The Doctor, to whom she must avoid revealing spoilers. Kingston also performs River during guest appearances in other characters’ stories.

While The Diary of River Song series came to a close in 2023, The Death and Life of River Song, a sequel focusing on River’s data ghost after the death of her physical body in the TV episode Forest of the Dead, began in 2024, and is still ongoing.

DOCTOR WHO: THE ETERNITY CLOCK

Over the years, many video games based on the Doctor Who franchise have been released, to varying degrees of success. 2012 saw the release of Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock on PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and eventually PC. The game featured Alex Kingston voicing River Song, alongside Matt Smith reprising his role as The Eleventh Doctor, following the pair as they try to gather the scattered pieces of the mysterious Eternity Clock and close a series of unwanted time corridors through which Daleks, Cybermen, and other enemies of The Doctor are mounting invasions.

Initially intended as the beginning of a trilogy of games, Eternity Clock unfortunately failed to reach the sales needed to warrant a continuation. As a consequence, the game ends on a cliffhanger that will likely remain unresolved.

DOCTOR WHO: TIME FRACTURE

As a part of the multi-platform Time Lord Victorious storyline, which spread across audio, comics, and novels, the BBC commissioned the Immersive Everywhere production company to create Doctor Who: Time Fracture, an immersive, interactive theatre experience. Delayed from a 2020 to 2021 opening due to Covid, the show casts the audience as civilians volunteering with UNIT to repair a growing number of cracks in reality.

Many Doctor Who cast members participated in pre-recorded video segments for Time Fracture, but there comes a point in the show where the ‘volunteers’ are split into two separate teams for different missions. These missions are altered further by decisions each group makes, so not every audience member will get the same experience, or see the same content. Audience members who embarked upon the left path during the show had a chance to collect a USB containing a message from Alex Kingston as River Song, offering advice on their next move.

 

THE RUBY’S CURSE, A RIVER SONG/MELODY MALONE MYSTERY

In 2021, BBC Books released The Ruby’s Curse, a new novel centered around River Song. After the unexpected success of The Angel’s Kiss with readers in the 1930s, River Song is encouraged to write another novel starring her alter-ego, Detective Melody Malone. Unfortunately, her creative efforts become complicated when the supposed-to-be fictional events of the book begin to bleed into River’s real life.

While The Doctor does not appear in the book in person, many reviewers praised the novel for expanding the lore around The Doctor and River’s relationship when River, in a difficult moment, psychically reaches out to The Doctor for comfort. She is heavily implied to connect with Thirteen, an incarnation of The Doctor who River never physically met, but whose presence soothes her anyway, proving River’s love for The Doctor no matter his or her face.

The Ruby’s Curse was written by River Song herself, Alex Kingston. As with The Angel’s Kiss, Kingston also recorded The Ruby’s Curse audiobook. She has not ruled out writing further stories for her character in the future.

THE NINTH DOCTOR ADVENTURES: STAR-CROSSED

In 2024, after The Diary of River Song series came to an end, Big Finish announced that River Song was to appear in a three-story anthology alongside Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor. When the unlikely pair unexpectedly find themselves investigating the same mysterious and possibly evil Dating App on the planet Crell, they immediately get off on the wrong foot. The Ninth Doctor finds River infuriating, leaving River stuck with a version of her future husband even less inclined to trust her than usual.

As The Death and Life of River Song had not yet been announced, some fans wondered whether Star-Crossed might become Alex Kingston’s Big Finish swansong. While this was ultimately not the case, it would have been a fitting end if so, as the anthology became very popular, largely due to the unexpectedly crackling chemistry in Kingston and Eccleston’s performances.

Lucky fans will get a chance to ask Alex Kingston about any future plans for River, onscreen or elsewhere, when she visits Supanova in Sydney (21-22 June) and Perth (28-29 June).