Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper, Will Chitty, Indigo Griffiths, Dan Starkey, Sophie Thompson.

A return of a foe thought defeated is always an occasion in which the listener of the Big Finish audios finds intriguing. There is after all always the need to delve further into the relationship between aggressor and the complex mind of the Doctor, and never more so when it one that is fought with the unshakable terror of what can be seen as the myth or the fairytale given corporeal form.

In the Ninth Doctor Adventures Story Thirteen O’ Clock, starring Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper, and written by Robert Valentine, the sense of other is palpable, the Powell Estate is under siege by a malevolent power, most of the people have disappeared, erased, dead, and all but a handful are cowering under the evil that is Mrs Crook and the return of the antagonist Grimminy-Grue, a being so warped in its desire to see the Doctor reveal all, his name, his desires, that it places Rose Tyler, and the welcome return of Saffron Windrose, played by Indigo Griffiths, in the most unimaginable danger possible.

Whilst the feeling of entrapment and claustrophobia is one of immense audio pressure, the listener undergoing the sense of psychological confinement as the force of evil intent closes around the three friends, what comes across is a relief of joy at the storyline itself. Whilst cloaked in darkness, there is the enormity of the writer having fun with the word play, with the use of injecting a casual underline of jealousy that burst forth from Rose as she senses an interloper into the guarded relationship, the fog of a trespasser into her own time with the Doctor, and both Billie Piper and Ms, Griffiths perform the emotion, both with suspicion and open eyed respect with great charm.

Atmosphere is paramount in any audio drama, all the finest tales have that in common, and when the story is placed within a confine of flats, where behind closed doors and thin walls the pain of existence is intense and often physical, what is on offer is a tale of substance, of one that adds just a measure of ill-boding to the experience.

Thirteen O’ Clock is a reminder that some of the best audio dramas to listen to are those that strike at the heart of the inner self, the use of language as means to confound and destroy, using childish means of communication, and having a character that defies description facing the Doctor on equal terms.

Ian D. Hall