Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Paul McGann, Nicola Walker, Mark Bonnar, Robert Bathhurst, Caroline Langrishe, Bethan Walker, Ramon Tikaram, John Banks, Sylvester McCoy.

Everybody is susceptible to the crowded thoughts that linger in the mind, after all the brain is a curious mystery, an enigma that is hard enough for one soul to carry across their natural lifespan, let alone a being to whom eleven would be enough to drive even the very best of us completely and utterly mad.

It is madness, the complexity of many lives trapped within the head of one being that is at the very centre of Matt Fitton’s contribution to the latest Big Finish box-set of the Paul McGann era of Doctor Who, the suspenseful and intriguing The Eleven.

It is perhaps surprising a little explored concept within the realms of the long running science fiction programme that the writers and show-runners have never truly gone into depth the issues with having all the same dusty thoughts from one re-generation to the next constantly doing battle for argument supremacy and attention; after all The Doctor himself with the complexity of his own regenerations, the struggles with his own near immortality, certainly has breaking points where the façade of calm repose sometimes fractures and allows peaks at other faces worn, other emotional ties to past companions to be seen.

It is into this allusion that the box-set Doom Coalition weaves its very genesis from and Matt Fitton certainly lets his imagination run riot as both Paul McGann and Nicola Walker are snatched from time and dragged back to Gallifrey by the insistence of Cardinal Padrac and the disillusionment of the Celestial Intervention Authority to aid in the recapture of one of the Timelord’s most dangerous of sons, the renegade only known as The Eleven.

Whilst a single episode in an overall four story arc will always have the listener understanding that a completion is always some time away, the way that a story is written will always have the effect of being seen as being terrific value or a potential waste of material if left in the wrong hands. In the gigantic paws of Matt Fitton, The Eleven is a fitting and even highly thought of endeavour and one in which Mark Bonnar as the title character excels.

Superbly capturing the effect of multiple personality disorder has on a mind, even one as infinite as a Timelords, Matt Fitton’s script and Mark Bonnar’s acting make The Eleven a dynamic start to the latest of Paul McGann’s much admired tales as The Doctor.

The Eleven is available to purchase as part of Doctor Who: Doom Coalition from Worlds Apart on Lime Street, Liverpool.

Ian D. Hall