Daniel Mansfield reviews the latest set of Ninth Doctor Adventures

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It’s been quite a while since we heard from the Ninth Doctor, his last boxset of stories having been released way back in August 2023. Fear not, though, because Christopher Eccleston is back for three more audio adventures in Buried Threats.

The buried threats the Doctor encounters in the boxset’s opener, Lisa McMullin‘s A Theatre of Cruelty, come from the mind of celebrated playwright Antonin Artaud, who finds himself caught in a nightmarish dream world. Played here by Alexander Vlahos, Artaud is a character who has long interested me, having both studied him and performed plays in the style of his Theatre of Cruelty in school. Therefore, this story’s slightly-surreal, in-your-face narrative was hugely appealing to me, though I definitely understand why those unacquainted with Artaudian tropes might think this a little noisy or jumbled.

Artaud himself is given some decent exploration here, bolstered by an always-compelling performance from Vlahos. Much of the story focuses on just him and the Doctor, and Eccleston and Vlahos’s chemistry perfectly complements McMullin’s writing. Christopher Eccleston is particularly impressive here, especially in his confrontation with the villain of the piece at the story’s climax, giving us a glimpse of the harsher, rawer Ninth Doctor we saw on TV.

Frenetic and action-packed, but with some surprising moments of pathos, A Theatre of Cruelty isn’t among the greatest of the Ninth Doctor’s adventures, but it’s certainly an entertaining one, and a great introduction to Artaud for whose who have never heard of him.

Next up, Mark Wright takes us to Halifax, West Yorkshire, in The Running Men, a story that feels like a cross between The Woman Who Fell to Earth and Arachnids in the UK from Jodie Whittaker‘s first series, with plucky police officers, corrupt officials hiding a buried secret and, of course, the northern English setting. The Doctor’s assistants for this story are Ambika Desai (Fiona Wade), a police officer who finds herself investigating strange goings-on, and Simon Rouse’s Frank Kelsey, a historian who believes something unscrupulous is being done with one of Halifax’s historical landmarks: the Halifax Gibbet.

While Ambika is positioned as the main companion here, I thought it was Frank who made the most impact – he has far more of a character arc and is more intimately tied to the central storyline. Nevertheless, Wade puts in a good performance and proves her character more than a match for the Doctor.

Like the previous story, The Running Men is quite a pacy tale, though the plotting here is far simpler and the characters more grounded. An example of this is Pooky Quesnel‘s villainous Annalise, who, despite being linked to some alien shenanigans, has very realistic goals and intentions – to make money. This choice to root the story in reality makes The Running Men one of the most authentic Ninth Doctor Adventures so far, even if it’s far from the strongest.

In previous instalments in this series, there has been one story which brings the Doctor into contact with an element from Doctor Who‘s past. In this set, it’s the turn of Professor Bernice Summerfield (Lisa Bowerman) to bump into Doctor number nine and I have to say it’s one of the most successful of the series’s ‘kiss to the past’ episodes so far.

Matt Fitton‘s Ancient History sees the Time Lord bump into his old friend at an archaeological dig, where she is investigating the disappearance of the Korravin, a once-mighty warrior race. Initially Benny doesn’t recognise the Doctor – though nothing is really done with this, as they only interact once before she finds out who he is – but when the team discover the TARDIS buried underground, she realises who he is. But what happens next? Do they talk about the Time War? Is there any meaningful interaction between the two?

Shockingly, yes! I could have punched the air with joy when the Doctor finally started talking about the Time War here. You know, the huge temporal cataclysm that defined this Doctor’s tenure on TV but which has inexplicably been avoided on audio? Sure, what’s here is fairly surface-level, but I’ll take anything after the wishy-washy way things have been addressed in the past. I was hoping Benny would join the Doctor for some more adventures after this, but sadly it was not meant to be. Though (and I may be reading into this too much) is there a little hint that a certain other archaeologist might be cropping up soon?

Overall, despite some good moments between the Doctor and Benny, Ancient History isn’t the classic it could have been, suffering from some fairly perfunctory side characters and quite a standard plot. Nevertheless, this is the strongest story in the boxset.

It’s one step forwards and two steps backwards with this range. The wonderful Callen and Doyle were introduced as new companions, only to be thrown out in the next story in favour of one-and-done characters. We had an epic, well-received two-part finale, only to revert back to endless unconnected stories. The Time War starts to get explored, then the Doctor shrugs it off and acts like it never happened.

Big Finish seem happy to churn out boxset after boxset of middling adventures with a Doctor who sounds like Christopher Eccleston but acts nothing like the Ninth Doctor except a few vague hints about not wanting to travel with a companion, but the truth is it’s becoming boring. Nowhere is that more evident than in Eccleston’s central performance which, despite a couple of standout moments here, is at its most lackadaisical with this set.

There’s nothing egregiously bad about this release, or indeed any of the others in this range. But with the amazing writers, producers and directors Big Finish has on board (just look at the Eleventh Doctor Chronicles!), and one of the UK’s finest actors in Christopher Eccleston, it blows my mind that these releases aren’t better. I can’t in good faith not recommend this boxset, because there are far, far worse ways to spend three hours. But the Ninth Doctor Adventures need a shake-up… badly. Dare I cross my fingers that May’s release will finally be the one to propel this range into greatness?

Buried Threats is available on CD or as a download from http://www.bigfinish.com