Keith Topping

Keith Andrew Topping (born 26 October 1963 in Walker, Tyneside) is an author, journalist and broadcaster. He is best known for his work relating to the BBC Television series Doctor Who and for writing numerous official and unofficial guide books to a wide variety of television and film series, particularly Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

He is also the author of two books of rock music critique. To date, Topping has published more than 40 books.

Early life and background Keith Topping's parents were Thomas Topping (1918–1991) and Lily Lamb (b. 1920) and he has two much older brothers, Terrence John (b. 1944) and Thomas Colin (b. 1948). Topping's family have Irish, Scottish, East Anglian (Snape, Suffolk, Great Yarmouth) and Cumbrian (Crosby-on-Eden) roots as well as North Eastern. He is a distant relative of the Morpeth landscape artist Thomas Bowman Garvie (1859–1944). Topping's great-great-uncle was the Tyneside journalist and columnist Albert Elliott.

He worked for the Civil Service as an Administrative Officer in the, then, Department of Employment between 1983 and 2001 when he left to pursue a full-time freelance writing career.

Work Topping's first published fiction was the BBC Books "Past Doctor Adventure" The Devil Goblins from Neptune in 1997. The novel was co-written with his friend and frequent collaborator Martin Day.

The pair quickly followed this up with the acclaimed novel The Hollow Men in 1998.

Following Day's move into TV scripting, Topping wrote the novels The King of Terror (2000) and Byzantium! (2001) solo. The latter novel is the only BBC Books Past Doctor Adventure to be set entirely within one episode of the television series Doctor Who — 1965's The Romans by Dennis Spooner.

Topping also wrote the Telos Doctor Who novella Ghost Ship which was published in 2002 and reissued as a paperback in 2003.

As well as writing fiction, Topping has also authored numerous programme guides to television series. These were all published by Virgin Books, and co-written with Martin Day and Paul Cornell.

Cornell, Day and Topping also collaborated on the Doctor Who Discontinuity Guide, published by Virgin Books in 1995 and re-issued, in the US, by MonkeyBrain Books in 2004, a lighthearted guide to the mistakes and incongruities of the television series.

Subsequently, Topping wrote The Complete Slayer: An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Every Episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, amongst others.

On radio, Topping was the Producer/Presenter of the monthly Book Club (2005–2007) and co-presented a daily television review slot, Keith Telly Topping's Top TV Tips, Monday to Friday, on The Simon Logan Show for BBC Newcastle (2006–2012).