Doctor Who and his unwilling companions, the Mortimer family, find themselves far from home…

To put it mildly, it’s something of a jump to go from Big Finish’s fifth season of Early Adventures, in which Peter Purves reprises the role of Steven Taylor alongside Maureen O’Brien’s Vicki in stories that feel authentic to the period, to this weird and wonderful version of the Doctor (or rather, Doctor Who) in World Distributors’ special. There are few officially published pieces of Doctor Who fiction that I’ve not read at some point across the 55 years the show has been on air but this is one, so, unlike the audio versions of the Annuals where certain memories were triggered, this was completely new.

Purves does a great job not just creating this off-kilter version of Hartnell’s Doctor but also those around him in this story – and the 1967 Annual’s Ten Fathom Pirates which accompanies it on this double CD.

Invasion from Space features a Doctor who’s nearly but not quite Hartnell (if I was being ultrageeky, this could be the Hurndall Doctor from The Five Doctors, nearly but not quite there). There’s an assumption that the Doctor is human and that Tardis is unique – both points that the TV show had adequately countered even by this point – and his attitude towards his travelling companions derives from possibly the very first episode of the show (which aired 55 years ago to the minute as I type this review), rather than the much mellower version audiences were used to by then.

Verdict: Go into both stories forgetting all you know about Doctor Who and revel in a very different take on concept and star. 8/10

Paul Simpson