By Cavan Scott, read by Dan Starkey

BBC Audio, out now

The Doctor, Brandon and Alex arrive in the late 16th century – but things don’t work out quite as any of them expect…

For reasons that become clear in track 17-19 of this audio, this is a tour de force by Dan Starkey, who has far more thrown at him than just playing the Doctor, his companions, John Dee and other denizens of late Elizabethan England in Cavan Scott’s taut script. Apart from a slight oddity regarding the words above the door of the TARDIS, Scott hardly puts a foot wrong in his creation of a story that fits neatly inbetween the last two Christmas specials, with the 12th Doctor accompanied by two young Americans.

It helps to have listened to the previous two stories in the sequence, but it does effectively stand alone. It’s good to have John Dee finally appear in a main audio story (he’s turned up in a short story featuring audio companion Evelyn Smythe, and in the Unbound Doctor series) – he’s a fascinating character, and a sequel could be on the cards – and Scott also plays with expectations with regard to Sir Francis Drake. There’s some pithy continuity Easter eggs in here, and elements that remind me of one of my favourite early Marvel UK comic strips.

Verdict: An excellent performance of a strong story. 9/10

Paul Simpson