Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Paul McGann, Nicola Walker, Hattie Morahan, Caroline Langrishe, David Yelland, John Voce.

Sometimes all a Timelord needs in life is a little mystery, a little horror to stir their blood. It is what makes life that little more spark filled, a little more intriguing and whilst it is only a handful of Timelords hold fast to this ethos, for the everyday, for the ordinary person, it is a staple of life that makes the heart race and pump faster, it is the human factor that makes life so sweet.

In the second episode of the latest Paul McGann box set, Doom Coalition, John Dorney gives the listener a ride in which obsession, of spectral ruin, grips hard with icy fingers and takes the Doctor and his companion Liv Chenka to the very edge of reason and it is the legend of The Red Lady that takes them there.

Doctor Who is arguably never better than when it treads softly into the realms of the horror genre, it is the very essence of many of Tom Baker and Louise Jameson’s adventures during their time in the Tardis and when placed alongside the likes of Horror of Fang Rock or The Brain of Morbius stands firm as an audio drama.

Joining Paul McGann and the excellent Nicola Walker is former Bletchley Circle stalwart Hattie Morohan as a spirited woman fighting against the old boy’s network in 1960s London. It is a part that will bring back many memories of former well written roles for women at the time, those of Diana Rigg and Honor Blackman in The Avengers for example and it is one that Ms. Morohan seems to relish as she is thrust into the Doctor’s search for The Eleven via the terrible spectral form known as The Red Lady.

John Dorney has always given Big Finish listeners a sense of great enjoyment with his marvellously written tales and The Red Lady is no exception. It is a story that when listened to at the wrong time of day can send that extra shiver down the spine and the feeling of creeping obsession, of desiring your own demise, freezing the blood.

The Red Lady is coming, you just have to see her coming.

The Red Lady is available to purchase as part of the Doctor Who: Doom Coalition Box set from Worlds Apart on Lime Street, Liverpool.

Ian D. Hall