Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart

Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, played by Nicholas Courtney. He worked for UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce), an international organisation that defends the Earth from alien threats. He was one of UNIT's founders and head of British operations, and generally referred to simply as the Brigadier or "the Brig".

Other appearances

The Brigadier and his family have made several appearances in the spin-off media. The spin-off UNIT videos Downtime and Dæmos Rising feature Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, the Brigadier's daughter from his first marriage.

Related Topics:
Spin-off - Downtime

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The novels also gave Lethbridge-Stewart another offspring. While on duty in Sierra Leone as a young lieutenant, Lethbridge-Stewart met and was intimate with a local girl named Mariatu, the daughter of a village chief, and unknown to Lethbridge-Stewart, she had a son. This was first hinted at in Ben Aaronovitch's novelisation of his 1988 serial Remembrance of the Daleks, which featured quotes from a fictional history of UNIT (The Zen Military) written by a Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart (Mariatu's granddaughter) in 2006. In the 1992 New Adventures novel Transit (also by Aaronovitch, and set in the 22nd Century), the Seventh Doctor meets the adopted daughter of General Yembe Lethbridge-Stewart, one of Mariatu's descendants. This daughter, also named Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart, went on to become a recurring character in the New Adventures.

Related Topics:
Sierra Leone - Ben Aaronovitch - 1988 - Remembrance of the Daleks - 2006 - 1992 - New Adventures - Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart

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The Past Doctor Adventures novel The Wages of Sin by David A. McIntee established that the Brigadier had an ancestor named Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart who worked for the British Government in 1916.

Related Topics:
Past Doctor Adventures - David A. McIntee - 1916

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In the novels, Lethbridge-Stewart emerged from retirement again during the events of the last New Adventure, The Dying Days by Lance Parkin, where he dealt with an invasion of Ice Warriors from Mars in 1997. At the end of that novel he was promoted to General. Lethbridge-Stewart was subsequently rejuvenated with alien technology in Happy Endings by Paul Cornell, taking place in 2010. The rejuvenated Lethbridge-Stewart, widowed but back with the military, next appeared in the BBC Books novel The Shadows of Avalon, also by Cornell, where he still held the rank of General but preferred to be called "the Brigadier". According to The King of Terror by Keith Topping, Lethbridge-Stewart eventually passes away in the early 2050s.

Related Topics:
Lance Parkin - Ice Warrior - Mars - 1997 - General - Paul Cornell - 2010 - BBC Books

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The character also appeares briefly in a cameo role at the end of writer Paul Cornell's novelisation of the 1997 ITV science-fiction serial The Uninvited. Although the character is not named in the book, the description is that of Lethbridge-Stewart and Cornell later admitted that this was indeed his intention.

Related Topics:
Paul Cornell - Novelisation - 1997 - ITV - The Uninvited

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Courtney played the Brigadier in two BBC Radio 4 Doctor Who plays, The Paradise of Death (1993) and The Ghosts of N-Space (1996), alongside Pertwee and Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, set during the Third Doctor's era. He also played an alternate universe version of the Brigadier in the Big Finish Doctor Who Unbound play Sympathy for the Devil, opposite David Warner as the Doctor. Courtney will also play the same character in its sequel, The Dark Palace, to be released in November 2005.

Related Topics:
BBC Radio 4 - 1993 - 1996 - Elisabeth Sladen - Sarah Jane Smith - Sympathy for the Devil - David Warner - The Dark Palace - November 2005

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Courtney also voiced the Brigadier in the 2001 webcast Death Comes to Time.

Related Topics:
2001 - Webcast - Death Comes to Time

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In December 2004, Big Finish released the first of a series of UNIT-based audio plays, where General Sir Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart acted as a consultant to a new generation of officers. As this version of Lethbridge-Stewart does not seem to be rejuvenated, these plays would seem to take place between the events of The Dying Days and Happy Endings. It should be noted, however, that the continuities of the audio plays and the novels may not match up, and their canonicity is debatable.

Related Topics:
December 2004 - Canonicity

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