As Tegan and Turlough wait in the TARDIS, the Doctor is lost in a strange world…

Stephen Gallagher’s proposed Doctor Who script from the 1980s was apparently not taken up by script editor Eric Saward because it would be too expensive to realise properly on a Doctor Who budget – the paucity of budget would overshadow the wealth of ideas at its heart. But audio of course is only limited by the power of the listener’s imagination, and Gallagher has form for taking aural audiences out of their comfort zone.

Rather than concentrate purely on the Doctor’s amnesiac plight (something that we’ve had quite a bit over the years), Gallagher tells us pretty much straight up front what’s going on, with scenes between the Doctor in the titular country counterpointed by what his companions are learning about the Engineers, as they wait in the TARDIS. The script is strong in many ways, but notably for the way in which it uses both Tegan and Turlough – with Ken Bentley eliciting one of Mark Strickson’s best recreations of his character in recent time.

Andy Hardwick’s sound design and music feel very much of the period – shades of Paddy Kingsland in a number of places – and there’s a real sense of the period it should have been made. If only Season 21 had had a bigger budget…

Verdict: An enjoyable step back 35+ years. 8/10

Paul Simpson