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Big Finish Productions have released details for the first of Peter Davison’s Doctor Who audio adventures of 2023, featuring a guest appearance by Olivier Award-winning actress, Alice Krige.

The Fifth Doctor Adventures: Conflicts of Interest’s first story is Friendly Fire, the first of two three-part adventures, the Doctor and his TARDIS team must solve a mysterious disappearance on a deserted mining world.

Joining Peter Davison (the Fifth Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan) and Sarah Sutton (Nyssa) in the cast is Star Trek and The OA star, Alice Krige, as Reno, a mean-spirited marshal seeking vengeance.

Friendly Fire by John Dorney 

When the TARDIS needs to reset itself, the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan find themselves having to fill time on a space-hub filled with numerous attractions. This pleases Tegan and Nyssa no end… but the Doctor is more interested in visiting an alien friend of his living on a nearby mining planet and is able to persuade his friends to join him.  But on arrival his friend is nowhere to be found and the locals are more than slightly unwelcoming. With limited options for departure and a hostile populace they may be in a lot of trouble. Sometimes true monsters are found in the strangest places. 

Writer John Dorney said: “I’ve never written a three-parter for Doctor Who before so it was fascinating to look for the right size of story for that format. What I went for was a dark fable, where the stakes are low but personal, the enemies come from an unusual place and I get to ask some big moral questions.”

Producer David Richardson added: “John has written a rich character-based story, and in Reno we have an antagonist who is richly layered. We needed a phenomenal actor for the role, and at the top of the list was Alice Krige, who we have worked with several times before at Big Finish and throws herself into the scripts totally!

“Of course, I pinch myself every time I work with Alice – it’s the Borg Queen from Star Trek! Sybil Gordon from Chariots of Fire! Lady Jessica Atreides from Children of Dune! What a body of work she has – and what a privilege it is to have her in our productions.”

Alice Krige said: “[Reno] has carried hatred and smouldering anger all of her life. It’s obviously twisted her whole personality. Suddenly there’s an opportunity to exact what she perceives as revenge. When you’re consumed with hate, you destroy everything that’s worthwhile about being human.

“For me, the appeal of this production was the joy of working in a group, of interacting — with a script; with the director; with the production team and the whole group of actors. The creative exchange — it’s a sheer delight.”

The Fifth Doctor Adventures: Conflicts of Interest is now available to pre-order for just £19.99 (collector’s edition CD box set + download) or £16.99 (download only), exclusively from the Big Finish website.

Details of the second story in the box set will be revealed in due course.