Think you know what happened when Ian and Barbara returned to London 1965?

Think again.

Jamie Glover – who’s now been playing Ian for heading for a decade – gives a strong performance in Paul Magrs’ latest Beyond the Doctor tale picks up from the end of The Chase, but this isn’t the “they all lived happily ever after” story that I suspect most people will expect, based on the various mentions in the New Adventures. Class, The Sarah Jane Adventures and elsewhere. The reality of life when you’ve disappeared for two years comes home to both of them in very different ways, with everything from job prospects to rent arrears taking on more relevance in lives that only a few weeks earlier were involved with battling the Daleks!

The various plotlines from the Bessie tale start to an extent here but I wouldn’t put it past Magrs to throw considerably more wrenches in the system before the quartet of stories is over. There’s a wonderful hinterland evoked not simply for Ian and Barbara but also the world of the 1960s as hinted in some of the other Doctor Who stories of the time – not just ones from the TV but also the whole extended universe. There are plenty of Easter eggs for the SF community of the time (particularly at a party that our heroes attend) and, as with Bessie, the story rewards a second listen.

Verdict: A surprising take on a part of Doctor Who mythology that you probably thought you knew. 9/10

Paul Simpson

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