Big Finish’s audio adventures have always highlighted a diverse range of perspectives on the universe, including characters from across the LGBTQ+ community. As February is LGBT History Month, it’s a good time for us to look back through our catalogue and highlight some LGBTQ+ characters worthy of attention from the worlds of Doctor Who, Torchwood, and other Big Finish ranges.  

Tania Bell 

The Eighth Doctor Adventures arc Stranded made headlines in 2020 when it introduced Tania Bell, Doctor Who’s first transgender companion, played by Rebecca Root (also seen in Heartstopper, The Queen’s Gambit, and Boy Meets Girl). 

When the Doctor and his companions moved in to 107 Baker Street, Tania became one of their housemates. She soon fell for Liv Chenka (Nicola Walker), and the two began a relationship. But Tania was keeping quiet about her affiliation with Torchwood, and there was the tricky matter of a paradox changing the future of humanity.   

After Tania’s debut in Stranded 1 met with a positive response, Rebecca said: “I am delighted by the great comments about her – I feel so embraced by devotees of the show. Her relationship with Liv is lovely too. It’s just about two people, and whatever their backgrounds are it doesn’t matter. Two people connecting – that’s all we want, isn’t it?” 

Norton Folgate 

Torchwood has featured a plethora of characters from across the LGBTQ+ community, but few of them leave as much of an impression as Norton Folgate (Samuel Barnett, known for Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and Penny Dreadful). 

A key member of Torchwood One in the 1950s and a slippery, morally dubious character, Norton is the heart of the Torchwood Soho range. Throughout the box sets, he struggles with the period’s repressed attitudes to homosexuality, while developing an on-off relationship with the journalist Gideon Lyme (Joe Shire).  

Writer James Goss described Folgate as “the ultimate demon twink”, while Samuel Barnett said: “Norton Folgate is a difficult man to pin down. He is gay, so obviously in the 1950s he had to be very much undercover, but because he works undercover anyway, he works behind the scenes in a murky way, he gets to hide behind that bit of power.” 

Dorian Gray 

Oscar Wilde’s classic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is well known for its queer subtext, which is explored and expanded upon in The Confessions of Dorian Gray, an audio series imagining a world where Wilde got his inspiration from a real Dorian. 

Played by Alexander Vlahos (Merlin, Versailles), Dorian Gray is a bisexual and hedonistic Victorian gentleman cursed with immortality. Across the series, he has many adventures and many lovers. A particular highlight is The Heart That Lives Alone, which begins a story arc about Dorian’s doomed relationship with vampire Tobias Matthews (W1A’s Hugh Skinner). 

Reflecting on that episode in a 2016 interview, writer and producer Scott Handcock said: “I’m genuinely surprised at the reaction it receives. It’s a love story between two men without being sexual, and it cheers me that people engaged with it the way they have, regardless of their own age, gender or sexuality. Even now, I still get messages from people telling me how much it’s affected them.” 

Valarie Lockwood 

While she may be more LGBT future than history, it would be wrong not to include this fan-favourite character. A bisexual cyberneticist from the 54th century, Valarie (Safiyya Ingar) travelled in the TARDIS throughout 14 episodes of The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles. 

Valarie began dating Roanna (Mia Tomlinson), who she met on the planet Medrüth. As tends to happen with friends of the Eleventh Doctor, this relationship became complicated, especially after a very odd date to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, but the pair’s love persisted even through the invasion of the New Dalek Paradigm. 

This romantic story arc met with positive response. Reviewing Victory of the Doctor, The Review Lab said: “Safiyya and Mia as Valarie and Roanna have been such an emotional core of the entire series. We have rooted for them through thick and thin… Valarie Lockwood has been the companion that we have truly fallen in love with over four box sets.” 

Oliver Harper 

From the Doctor’s point of view, Oliver Harper is chronologically his first LGBTQ+ travelling companion. This gay city trader from 1966 London, voiced by comedian Tom Allen, travelled with the First Doctor and Steven Taylor for three stories in The Companion Chronicles range. 

After their first adventure together, Oliver joined the TARDIS crew, hoping to escape the persecution he was facing for his sexuality. He tried to hide this motivation from the Doctor and Steven, but when they learned the truth, he found them both more accepting than he’d expected. 

On playing the character, Tom Allen said: “It’s been part of Doctor Who all along, really, this idea of embracing the outsider. And the 1960s is a very interesting era to explore, this cusp between the old world and the new. Oliver is caught between the two.” 

Anna Swift and Daisy Bailey 

The Big Finish Originals series The Human Frontier is a sprawling sci-fi epic following two colony ships dispatched from Earth to the distant planet ND492. At the heart of the story are exographer Anna Swift (Pepter Lunkuse) and Commander Daisy Bailey (Genevieve Gaunt, known for Knightfall and The Royals). 

Across their journey, Anna and Daisy fall in love, but love is never easy when you’re also dealing with the burden of exploring the uncharted cosmos! The original The Human Frontier box set was released in May 2020, and a second series is due to begin later this year. 

Actor Pepter Lunkuse said: “Anna goes on a really epic journey from a girl just falling in love to losing her lover, from having to save the world to understanding what it means to be human. And I got to wear a spacesuit!” 

Mr Colchester 

Another fan-favourite character in the Torchwood range is St John Colchester-Price (Paul Clayton). Usually known simply as Mr Colchester, he debuted in the Aliens Among Us story arc, in which he helped rebuild Torchwood Three. 

The character was originally pitched by Russell T Davies, who suggested the addition of an older gay man as a counterpart to Torchwood’s younger characters. Mr Colchester brings decades of experience to the roster; he was an army veteran, honourably discharged after the Falklands War, before later marrying his partner Colin and joining Torchwood. In recent years, he has teamed up with Ace (Sophie Aldred) in a number of Torchwood adventures. 

Review site Winter is Coming paid tribute to him, saying: “While I enjoy many of the new characters from the fifth season of Torchwood, Mr Colchester is definitely my favourite of the lot. He’s dry, witty, funny, and an incredibly lovable character who’s in some ways a true romantic.” 

Vastra and Jenny 

Created by Steven Moffat for the 2011 Doctor Who episode A Good Man Goes to War, Silurian detective Vastra (Neve McIntosh) and her human wife Jenny (Catrin Stewart) – plus their Sontaran butler Strax (Dan Starkey), with whom they form the crime-fighting Paternoster Gang – would make many appearances throughout the TV series. 

Vastra and Jenny made their Big Finish debut in 2019’s The Eighth of March, before The Paternoster Gang’s own range of audio adventures began. The couple have faced numerous challenges since, including most recently a shapeshifter infiltrating their relationship – in a story arc concluded with March 2025’s Trespassers - Last Stand.  

Writer and director Helen Goldwyn said: “There’s no other series that has a trio like this. I love the forward thinking of Vastra and Jenny, and the fact that they are strong women. We see a lot of strong female leads nowadays, but Vastra and Jenny have a real vulnerability about them too because of their love and how they care about what’s right and what’s wrong, and that makes them much more interesting.” 

Chevalier d’Eon 

A real-life historical figure, the Chevalier d’Eon was a French diplomat and spy active in the late eighteenth century. Though the terminology wasn’t used at the time, D’Eon would be recognised today as a transgender woman, and was officially recognised as female by King Louis XVI. 

The Tenth Doctor and Rose met D’Eon (voiced by Nickolas Grace) in the 2017 Tenth Doctor Adventures release The Sword of the Chevalier. This encounter took place in 1791, where the trio faced off against the sinister Consortium of the Obsidian Asp. 

Director Nicholas Briggs said: “The Sword of the Chevalier was a lovely story pitched to us by Guy Adams. The idea of the importance-stroke-unimportance of gender identity – not to be prejudicial against people and for people to define themselves in any way they want to – is a really important message that comes through in that script, amidst a rollicking good yarn with two ghastly aliens.” 

MB and Cole Smith 

Big Finish’s revival of Irwin Allen’s The Time Tunnel stays true to the adventurous spirit of the cult classic TV series while introducing a new set of young protagonists, with two LGBTQ+ characters front and centre. 

MB (Safiyya Ingar) is a non-binary hacker from the north of England, and Cole Smith (Jay Reum) is a gay dark web operative. When they find themselves in a changed timeline, they’re disappointed to find it’s even less positive towards queer people than the previous one. The series follows their adventures as they travel through history, hoping to set things back on course. The first volume of The Time Tunnel is available now, with a second due in November 2025. 

Safiyya Ingar said: “I'm a sucker for the found family trope! Misfits who get together who, in any other reality or timeline, would never have met or had anything to do with each other. But here they are. How do they make it work? And you know they're going to become unexpected friends.”