Doctor Who Audio Review: Visitors In The Attic

Doctor Who - The Companion Chronicles: Upstairs — *Upstairs* is a Doctor Who audio drama released by Big Finish Productions and is an episode from the range known as *The Companions Chronicles.* This particular piece was written by Mat Coward and stars Maureen O’ Brien and Peter Purves. O’Brien reprises her role as Vicki and serves as the narrator. Purves just plays the ever stalwart Steven Taylor and continues to do a fine job with that. If William Hartnell was still living and performing, this episode would feature his version of the Doctor. not surprisingly, Lisa Bowerman brings everything together serving as director.

The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Steven, and Vicki to an attic in which they find themselves unable to leave. The attic ends up being a labyrinth affected by some sort of time distortion. with alien fungi being at the center of the problem. They are also surprised to find that they at 10 Downing Street in London, the headquarters of the Prime Minister.

There was rather a curious decision made to have O’Brien perform the Doctor’s dialogue as opposed to Peter Purves who does often provide a passable impression of Hartnell. O’Brien actually does a pretty decent job with it. The story is fairly interesting. The sound effects are convincing. I like that it was a somewhat claustrophobic setting. Purves and O’Brien continue to perform well together.

This episode is fairly entertaining. In spite of the rather unusual story premise, it didn’t quite enthrall me as much as I hoped. It didn’t really frustrate me either, so that’s an accomplishment of sorts. I will likely listen to it again, however it may take a while.

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