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She might not have a grandson in whom she can confide everything, but Queen Victoria had other tricks up her sleeve.

The long-serving monarch faces a plague of demons and hateful misogyny in the new full-cast audio drama out now from Big Finish.

In this nineteenth century adventure, Rowena Cooper stars as Queen Victoria, the founder of the Torchwood Institute, investigating monstrous entities at the University of Cambridge. 

While an impassioned debate about women’s rights erupts on campus, something evil is squatting in the seat of learning. With demons on the loose and dons bursting into flames, Queen Victoria visits Cambridge on the eve of a historic vote that could change the university forever. She finds the city a den of suspicion and devil worship, a force from beyond reality is hunting down the university’s leading academics. Her Majesty enlists the help of a gifted young mathematician to save not just the university, but the universe itself. 

Una McCormack, writer of Infidel Places, said: “Women students weren’t formally allowed to graduate in the nineteenth century and this kept on, unbelievably, until after the Second World War. The setting for this story is the vote in 1897 which ended in a riot by the young men voting against it. There’s not much glory to be found in this story.”

Script Editor and Producer James Goss said: “TV Torchwood never showed Queen Victoria solving satanic murder mysteries. Are Cambridge dons really being assassinated by demons? Is the universe falling into chaos?  I’m delighted that Rowena Cooper has come back as Queen Victoria in Una McCormack’s witty, vicious, very angry piece of work.” 

The guest cast includes Jon Glover (Mr. Bean: The Animated Series), voicing pompous Vice-Chancellor Sir James Montescue, Jade Gordon (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2) as brilliant mathematician Onora Tapley, Duncan Wisbey (Hard Cell) and Sion Daniel Young (Keeping Faith). 

Torchwood: Infidel Places is now available to own for just £10.99 (collector’s edition CD + download) or £8.99 (digital download only), exclusively from the Big Finish website.