The Doctor and Ace visit a planet with the aim of stopping a conflict – but things don’t quite go according to plan…

Roland Moore is showing an acuity for getting inside the heads of many different eras of Doctor Who – from the black and white right up to date – and he adds the manipulative Seventh Doctor to his portfolio with this well-observed tale of the relationship between this Time Lord and his companion being put to the test. This was recorded back in November 2018, long before Sophie Aldred was working on her novel At Childhood’s End, but it taps into the same fundamental problem in the Doctor and Ace – the deserved lack of trust. Ace – and the listener – starts to have some very nasty suspicions about what’s really going on here… and you could easily see how such an event could lead to the backstory of the novel.

Aldred gets a chance to roll her r’s in her Sylvester McCoy presentation, and Moore wisely doesn’t present all of the Doctor’s dialogue verbatim. I wonder if at any stage this had been planned to be a first person story – it certainly could have held up as that and added another layer to the tale. Lisa Bowerman’s direction and Richard Fox’s sound design and music ensure that the listener feels the passage of time, and how that wears on Ace.

Verdict: You’re never quite sure where you are with the Seventh Doctor, and this story encapsulates why. 9/10

Paul Simpson

Click here to order Dead Woman Walking from Big Finish