Shirley Bingham

Played by Ruth Madeley

 "I've read the files. I'm going to get a bonus just for meeting you."

UNIT Scientific Advisor number 56 – Shirley Anne Bingham shows she’s more than a match to step into the Doctor’s shoes! Joining a long line of scientists working with UNIT, such as Liz Shaw, Osgood and many more, Shirley encounters the Fourteenth Doctor at the crash site of the Meep’s shuttle - and proves she is more than capable of holding her own against the organisation's former Scientific Advisor!

Character Bio

Shirley first meets a Doctor with a very familiar face in a factory with a crashed spaceship, and soon after finds herself on the adventure of a lifetime. Shirley avoids the Meep’s mind control and holds the fort against her former colleagues. When the Doctor and the Nobles are captured by the Meep... enter Shirley! Disabling the UNIT operatives and providing the Doctor with a path to stop the Meep, Shirley has proven herself an invaluable asset to UNIT. She is also on hand to guide humanity when the Toymaker strikes with his hypnotic Giggle; and also witnesses the Doctor’s first bi-generation, and splitting of the TARDIS.

Returning to active duty in 2025, Shirley mobilises with a UNIT team when Ruby Sunday reports the appearance of a Shreek, while on a weekend away with her boyfriend Conrad Clark.  

When this incursion turns out to be a trap set by Conrad’s activism group Think Tank, Shirley works with Ruby and Kate Lethbridge-Stewart to closely monitor the reaction online and mitigate the damage to UNIT’s reputation – until a publicly broadcast confrontation between Conrad and the real Shreek sets the record straight!

In Conrad’s Wish World devised by the Rani, Shirley lives in a homeless camp with other disabled and dispossessed people who don’t fit into Conrad’s narrative. Their place in the Wish World gives Shirley and the others more insight on the inconsistencies before them; and with the help of Ruby Sunday, Shirley and her allies devise a plan to take Conrad down. Eventually fully re-awakened by her UNIT bio-chip, Shirley returns to UNIT Tower to aid Kate, Ibrahim and the Doctor in defending the building from an onslaught of Bone Beasts.