Biography

Joseph Lidster is an English playwright and screenwriter, best known for his work on the Doctor Who spin-off series Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. He started his career writing Doctor Who audio plays for Big Finish Productions in 2002.Numerous further audio plays and prose short stories followed for Big Finish, for their Doctor Who line, spin-offs and other series (Sapphire & Steel and The Tomorrow People).

In 2005, he started working for the BBC, writing tie-in material for the new Doctor Who television series. He made his television writing debut in 2008 on the second series of Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood and subsequently wrote three two-part stories for The Sarah Jane Adventures and two two-part stories for Wizards vs Aliens. Lidster wrote for the 2014 CBBC sitcom Millie Inbetween.

Lidster writes the content for the tie-in websites relating to the fictional world of the television series, Sherlock. The websites were designed as "a way of expanding the story". In 2017 he was the writer of #SherlockLive, an online game which played out on Twitter. The event won the People's Voice Award at the 2017 Webby Awards.Alongside co-producer James Goss, he has produced Big Finish Productions' dramatic reading range of Dark Shadows audio dramas since 2011. In 2011, he script-edited the short film Cleaning Up written by Simon Guerrier and starring Mark Gatiss and Louise Jameson.In 2012, he won the 'Audience Award for Favourite Playwright' for his first play Nice Sally in The Off Cut Festival. His short film, Wasted, reached the finals of the Balham Film Festival and was selected to be screened as part of the London Short Film Festival.In July 2022, it was announced that he would be returning to the world of The Sarah Jane Adventures as a contributor to a series of audio dramas focussing on the character of Rani Chandra.