No Place [AUDIO/2019.5.16]

★★★★☆

  All these years, I've been yearning for someone to write their own version of Century House, the unproduced Series 4 episode about a ghosthunter TV show investigating a haunted house with the Doctor. As it turns out, James Goss did just that in 2019 — and the end result is as fantastic as I thought it would be.

  As well as the excellent sound design and the usual riveting performances (as to be expected from such a meaty premise as a flippin' haunted house), this is where Russell T Davies' focus on family really pays off. Sylvia Noble and Wilfred Mott are wonderful characters, feeling very much like people you'd see on the street and the most entertaining and heartwarming set of characters at the same time (well, in the latter case it was mainly Wilf for Series 4, wasn't it...), and they provide different perspectives on the Doctor and their daughter/granddaughter's involvement in his dangerous life. This conflict compounds with the pains of Joel Fry's Justin, a man with a fractured and forgotten past that continues to haunt him wherever he and his television crew go. The scariest ghosts, they say, are inside us, and this adventure portrays that thought in such a beautifully delicate way. Like all the popular atmospheric horror stories, No Place carefully places scares throughout the story to drop clues, and also to frighten listeners... and this story frghtens to great effect!

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ  

  The Tenth Doctor and Donna, plus Sylvia and Wilfred and a ghosthunting TV crew — how could I resist? With a shining David Tennant and an equally brilliant Catherine Tate, this is one audio adventure you're not likely to forget for a while.