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Imogen Stubbs guest stars in the second batch of The Sixth Doctor Adventures for 2022. The Sixth Doctor, Mel and Hebe – played by Colin Baker, Bonnie Langford and Ruth Madeley –  travel to the Steel City in Purity Undreamed, the full-cast audio dramas, due for release in August 2022 from Big Finish .

When the TARDIS receives multiple distress calls from the same destination, there’s only one thing for it. The crew materialise in Sheffield to locate Hebe’s friend, Elise (Cherylee Houston), and investigate.

Imogen Stubbs (Jack & Sarah, Sense and Sensibility) will play Professor Patricia McBride, a brilliant anthropologist on the verge of a great revelation…

Stubbs said: “With Professor McBride, the Sixth Doctor is meeting someone who can challenge him on an intellectual level, which I think they both enjoy – even if they don’t always agree. While she is able to take aliens in her stride, the wider implications of time and space travel take a while to sink in!”

Also joining the cast are comedian and Big Finish regular, Toby Hadoke (Coronation Street), and Paul Herzberg (The Honourable Woman, My Week with Marilyn).

The Sixth Doctor heads back to Earth with Mel and Hebe in tow, little dreaming what lies ahead. Accompanied by their new friend, Professor Patricia McBride, alien threats abound, dangers lurk, and the cost of meddling with time is more than anyone is prepared to pay. 

The three  stories in the box set are as follows:

The Mindless Ones by Paul Magrs 

The Doctor, Mel and Hebe visit Sheffield at the behest of Hebe’s best friend, Elise, but Elise has undergone a disturbing transformation. The mysterious Mindless Facility claims to be able to change you for the better – but who decides what that is? Joining forces with anthropologist Professor Patricia McBride, can the Doctor and his friends save Britain from an insidious alien threat?

Reverse Engineering by Jonathan Morris 

When Patricia is invited to a secretive Swedish clinic by an old colleague, she tips off the Doctor, Mel and Hebe, who go undercover to investigate. Charismatic geneticist Killian Holm offers to restore youth to his wealthy patients, but the truth of his work is far more radical – and far more dangerous! As an ancient horror reforms beneath the clinic, the Doctor must race to save humanity from an unspeakable temporal disaster.

Chronomancer by Robert Valentine 

The Doctor, Mel and Hebe take Patricia to see 26th century Sheffield, but their trip is cut unexpectedly short. Caught in the crossfire between time-criminal, Khavûl, and dashing ‘chronomancer’, Tannus Vallon, the TARDIS crash-lands back in the present. With a dimensionally transcendental artefact lost somewhere in the city, the Doctor and his friends must find it before Khavûl can… but with resentments and prejudices finally unmasked, is an even bigger threat about to engulf the world?

Script Editor Robert Valentine said: “Having given Hebe a whistle-stop tour of the cosmos, the Doctor and Mel now return with her to Sheffield for a fresh series of adventures on her home turf. Alien conspiracies and scientific meddling threaten the planet — not to mention Hebe’s best friend, Elise, and her husband, Ron — but fortunately the Doctor and co are on hand to investigate. However, our TARDIS team is going to need some additional help this time, and their new friend, Professor Patricia McBride, is very keen to assist them in saving humanity.”

Producer Jacqueline Rayner said: “With Hebe now being very much a member of the TARDIS team, we decided it would be nice to give her an extended family too! Our ‘UNIT-esque’ family of Hebe’s best friend, her best friend’s husband and her best friend’s husband’s ex-wife was such fun both on the page and in the studio!

“And we managed to assemble an absolute dream team of the wonderful Cherylee Houston, acting royalty in the form of Imogen Stubbs, and that splendid fellow, Doctor Who’s own Toby Hadoke. But just because we were going for a family vibe, don’t assume that this is a cosy teatime series. As the title hints, what lies ahead is something even the Doctor never dreamed of…”

Doctor Who – The Sixth Doctor Adventures: Purity Undreamed is now available to pre-order for just £19.99 (collector’s edition CD box set+ download) or £16.99 (download only) from the Big Finish website.