March 19th, 2026 no comments

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Big Finish The First Doctor Adventures Beware the City of Illusions

A Paradise City for the First Doctor

Stephen Noonan, Anneke Wills and Lauren Cornelius star in The First Doctor Adventures: Beware the City of Illusions, a full-cast audio drama from Big Finish Productions, available now.

The audio adventures of Doctor Who’s first Time Lord (voiced by Stephen Noonan) continue today and, after previous stories have seen him reunite with Steven and Vicki, he’s once again encountering a former companion – Polly (Anneke Wills). This time though, from his perspective, he hasn’t actually met her yet.

In the twenty-first century, long after leaving life in the TARDIS, Polly Wright has become an environmental activist, and is investigating an impressive new net zero city, sure that there must be a catch underneath its perfect exterior.

Here, she’s reunited with the Doctor but, with him not recognising her, they’ll have to overcome an awkward introduction before they can work together to stop a deadly threat to planet Earth. And why is another old friend of the Doctor’s – Dodo (Lauren Cornelius) – working for the politician behind this all?

Doctor Who – The First Doctor Adventures: Beware the City of Illusions is written and directed by Nicholas Briggs and is now available to purchase for just £19.99 (download to own) or £24.99 (download to own + collector’s edition CD box set), exclusively from www.bigfinish.com. Please note: the collector’s edition CD box set is strictly limited to 1,500 copies and will not be re-pressed.

The British government has a plan to drastically improve environmental conditions, thanks to the Gynt Foundation and its mysterious benefactor, ‘Mr Hammond’. But the plan is bold and crucially requires the endorsement of a prominent green campaigner to allay any public fears.

When the Doctor’s former companion Polly sets off to investigate a fantastic new net-zero city, nothing goes quite according to plan. For one thing, the Doctor himself unexpectedly appears. And for another, the city contains a terrible secret.

With an older Dodo working for the government, the Doctor and Polly must fight a threat that endangers the whole of humanity.

Lead actor Stephen Noonan said: “I think, without any word of a lie, this is the one I’ve enjoyed the most, the most successful of the stories, although some of the others have been absolutely terrific too. Nick really knows how to write the First Doctor, the duologue scenes between the Doctor and Polly are just sublimely written, it’s a really good story and very, very topical.”

And Anneke Wills, returning to the role she originally played on TV from 1966 to 1967, added: “When Nick called me up and explained the story, I laughed so much, I fell off the sofa. It’s brilliant. I read the script and I thought, absolutely blooming brilliant, because it has everything. It has every quality that you want from Polly’s story – the compassion that Polly has, and lovely scenes with the Doctor, meeting him again after all that time. It’s been so exciting working on it.”

Praise for the previous First Doctor Adventures release, The Living Darkness:

“A very emotional coda for this era.” – Big Blue Box Podcast

“One of the most successful of this series so far, [writer Jacqueline] Rayner skilfully marrying these nods to the past with fresh ideas and rich character work.” – Who Review

“A terrific time capsule.” – Doctor Who Magazine

Big Finish listeners can save money by purchasing Beware the City of Illusions in a multibuy bundle with August 2026’s Second Doctor Adventures box set (title TBC) for just £38 (download to own) or £47 (download to own + collector’s edition CD box set).

Alternatively, listeners can buy this series as part of a bundle of all 15 Classic Doctor Who box sets released in 2026 for just £285 (download to own) or £352.50 (download to own + collector’s edition CD box set).

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Categorised under: Big Finish, CD, Monthy Series