The Doctor and Nyssa become caught up in a fowl trial.

No, that’s not a typo in the description – as the cover of this Short Trip makes clear, Carrie Thompson’s story centres around the trial of a chicken. (And not the one on Commander Maxil’s head in Arc of Infinity… although that’s not a bad idea!) It’s a story that gives Sarah Sutton loads of different voices to perform, and she switches effortlessly between them. There’s some interesting choices in the sound design – the impression is that this is a small village, yet the cheers of the crowd are, shall we say, rather ample.

Doctor Who’s treatment of history is always a little on the sketchy side – anachronisms abound, setting aside the presence of a certain Police Box and the technology that the Doctor and his companions bring with them – but there’s quite a bit in this that doesn’t quite ring true to the period (not the vocabulary, which is explained but just to give one example – the method of hanging described is about 500 years too early). This may be nitpicking, but it’s the sort of thing that can and should be picked up at the editing stage, and is easily worked around.

Verdict: A good production of a weak script. 4/10

Paul Simpson