If you subscribe to the main range of Big Finish Doctor Who stories, please don’t forget to check for the free Subscriber Short Trips. If your subscription includes An Alien Werewolf in London, you can (by way of example) also listen to the Max Curtis story, Still Life.

Still Life

Read by Stephen Critchlow, Still Life, is a Third Doctor story centring on the life of Jo Grant. It’s all about family, loved ones and having no regrets. I don’t know Max, but I can only assume this story is drawn from something in his personal life. Whatever his story is, as a father myself, I found this moving and very well written.

I sometimes listen to Big Finish stories and wonder if they could have been told using a different pairing. Modern Doctor Who has often touched on the family life of companions (Ryan,Yaz, Graham, Bill, Clara, Donna, Martha and Rose all have parents in the show), but go back then consider this: could you tell Still Life with (ignoring gender) many of the earlier companions? Perhaps Dodo, Ben, Polly or Sarah Jane, but for others we already know certain things about their family or I can’t see the story working. There’s something about both Jo and her relationship to the Third Doctor that really suits Still Life.

Enough of me, go away and listen and make up your own minds!