Big Finish Productions Prisoners of London

Written by	Matthew Aterhouse
Format	Compact Disc
Released	2023

Starring Matthew Waterhouse

Synopsis: At last, the TARDIS has got it right! The Doctor, Adric, Nyssa and Tegan have landed in London, 1982! Look over there! Buckingham Palace. Look! There’s Tower Bridge! It’s only a tube journey to Heathrow! Tegan rejoices. And yet...The Palace is home not to a Queen but to an Emperor! The familiar soldiers in busbies are robots. There is not just one Tower Bridge, there are four! There are 1950s police boxes on every street corner. And no-one has heard of Heathrow...

• London, 1982! by Matthew Kresal

London, 1982! by Matthew Kresal 4/11/24

The 1982 season of Doctor Who, introducing Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor, is one that has a soft spot in the hearts of fans of a certain age. A moment between the seeming Golden Age of Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor and before Classic Who's fall from grace later in the decade. A moment in time full of potential and even nostalgia for some. Which makes it all the more interesting that Matthew Waterhouse, who played the companion Adric during the era, would write a novel set during that very season. The result, Prisoners of London, was released as an audiobook in July 2023 by Big Finish Productions, read by the author.

Describing Prisoners of London without spoiling some of twists is a difficult proposition. Set as the Doctor was trying to return Tegan back to Heathrow, the crowded TARDIS lands in London, 1982. Except that, as the blurb alludes to, this isn't the version of 1982 London that they were expecting. Why that is the case is but the first twist that Waterhouse throws at the reader as it unfolds. Waterhouse's plot is one that captures the flavor of the Fifth Doctor era on TV, picking up on many of its themes and preoccupations. The sense of worldbuilding, too, for London, 1982, is solid as well, with its mash-up of fashion, technology and even architecture, with Waterhouse's imagination on display throughout.

There comes a trade-off. Come the later portions of the narrative, the novel feels less like one and more a series of interlinked vignettes. That's especially true when Waterhouse pulls out his major twist for the final act, which leaves the remainder of Prisoners of London feeling like a separate tale altogether. True, Waterhouse emulates the six-parter structure of Classic Who, but it's also what that twist is that causes issues, given that it's something that other eras of Classic Who did better. Though it's plotted well enough, Prisoners of London feels like an uneasy mash-up at times that causes the plot to meander in places.

Truth be told, the real strengths of Waterhouse's writing here lie in the characterizations. Not surprising given he was part of the cast, he wonderfully captures each of the TARDIS crew well. From Davison's Doctor seeking peace and compromise to Tegan's spunk getting her into trouble, from Nyssa's quiet resolve to taking the listener inside Adric's thought processes, it's rare that this foursome been better realized. While Waterhouse doesn't quite solve the conundrum of how to give all four characters enough to do throughout (with Tegan getting sidelined here), the prose also gets a boost from the strength of Waterhoue's reading, as well as the "enhanced audiobook" format allowing for an appropriate pastiche of the early 1980s work of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop sound design and music.

While it may not be the most strongly plotted of the Audio Novels to date, Prisoners of London is worth a listen. For fans of the Fifth Doctor era, Waterhouse, hits so many of the right notes. And in an anniversary year, what more could you ask for than that?