When Big Finish asked me to play Sarah Jane for this story, I was very nervous. I didn’t want to create a performance from someone else’s.

So I tried to approach it as I would with any other role. I’ve tried to find my own piece of Sarah - the part of my mum that’s in me. But I have had a quick look on YouTube for Sarah Jane Smith screams, because I wasn’t quite sure how she would want me to do those. Other than that I just tried to keep it as separate in my mind as possible from the original.

The fans of Doctor Who have always been so kind and generous to me and to my family. It was always a part of my life growing up, I was never not aware of it. People have always been very kind in letting us come along for the ride really, through conventions and now things like Big Finish and, after mum passed away, the outpouring of love for her has been lovely.

How do you recast Sarah Jane Smith? Would you even want to? Those were the questions that bothered us - we love the character. We loved Lis Sladen. We worried it might be too soon and too difficult to go there. But then we realised that part of Lis lives on in Sadie, and Sadie has beautifully brought that to the role of Sarah - we all approached this carefully, and respectfully, and with love and I couldn’t be happier with Sadie’s performance. She’s done her mum proud.

Tom has actually worked many times before with Christopher Naylor, who’s played guest roles throughout different series of the Fourth Doctor Adventures. Chris is a very versatile actor, so we can cast him in so many things. But, we realised, he’s also the perfect Harry. Again, it’s very hard to follow Ian Marter, but Chris has managed to do that and Tom was full of praise for what both Sadie and Chris have done. I wonder where they could pop up next?”

I’d known of Return of the Cybermen for many years, but it was only relatively recently that I was able to source Gerry Davis’s script thanks to some great detective work by archivist Richard Bignell! John Dorney’s adaptation stays true to the original script and the era, though there have been some very minor changes to bring it in line with the kind of amends we believe Robert Holmes would have asked for. Little things that make it sit comfortably in season 12.

It’s rather different in tone to Revenge of the Cybermen - darker, scarier and more reminiscent of claustrophobic 1960s Cybermen tales like The Moonbase and The Invasion.

It was interesting working with Tom on this, because he noticed the difference in style immediately. This is Doctor Who as Gerry Davis imagined it in 1974, and it’s very much like he wrote Doctor Who in the mid-1960s. So the script didn’t quite have the same levels of emotional sophistication and wit that was present either in what Robert Holmes eventually crafted into Revenge of the Cybermen, or certainly the more recent Fourth Doctor Adventures we’ve made on audio.

I imagined what it would have been like, back in the day, if Tom had been presented with this script to rehearse and record. If you look at the script book of the first Tom Baker season, you can see masses of line changes that were added by the cast or director during rehearsals and shooting in all those stories. Some of them are the best, most memorable moments, so I reasoned that it would be a faithful process to take on board Tom’s suggestions for this production of Return of the Cybermen.

We had loads of fun, as usual, with Tom finding it particularly amusing when I was directing him with a Cyberman voice effect. At one point, he asked, 'Is he talking to me?' which made us all laugh out loud!

The children of Gallifrey are being recalled to fight in the Time War, and the Doctor’s granddaughter knows her moment has come. A new, full-cast audio drama, Susan’s War, is released today.

Intelligence. Intuition. Empathy. The requirements of a perfect agent to catch a spy. And, in Susan Campbell (Carole Ann Ford), the Time Lords have found all the attributes they need to give their work a veneer of respectability.

In the 2017 Big Finish Short Trip, All Hands on Deck, the Eighth Doctor tried to prevent Susan being recruited by the Time Lords on Gallifrey and dragged into the Time War. But his efforts were in vain, and now we find out what happens next...

Listen to the Introduction

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Time War: Susan's War
Starring Carole Ann Ford as Susan
With Paul McGann as the Doctor and William Russell as Ian Chesterton
Featuring Beth Chalmers as Veklin, Damain Lynch as Rasmus and Nicholas Briggs as the Daleks

Gallifrey needs every Time Lord to fight the Time War. A summons has been issued across the universe to its prodigals. Whatever their skills, the war effort can use them.

Susan’s call-up papers have arrived, and, unlike her grandfather, she is willing to join her people’s battle and finally return home.

Because Susan knows the Daleks, and she will do her duty...

Sphere of Influence by Eddie Robson
Susan’s first mission is one of diplomacy. The Sense-Sphere could prove a valuable ally to Gallifrey. But she is not the only one who knows the Sensorites of old. Susan will have the support of an old friend. Ian Chesterton is about to rejoin the adventure he left a lifetime ago!

The Uncertain Shore by Simon Guerrier
Susan and Commander Veklin are on the trail of a spy. Under cover on a ravaged world, they find a weary population, trapped, and waiting for the inevitable. But one among them is a traitor. The Time War is coming to Florana, and Susan will face a struggle to simply survive...

Assets of War by Lou Morgan
Cardinal Rasmus believes that Susan’s special abilities will help him assess a new weapons project. On a secret military base, creatures from the vortex are being bred for war. Gallifrey’s scientists think they can be used as assets against the Daleks. But the Orrovix are not easily tamed...

The Shoreditch Intervention by Alan Barnes
When Susan’s TARDIS is intercepted, she is given a highly classified mission. Earth, 1963 is a nexus point in the Time War, but the timelines must be negotiated carefully. Mods and rockers are not the only dangers on the streets of Shoreditch. In Susan’s past, the Daleks are waiting. But so is the Doctor!

Although she doesn't sometimes give the impression that she is, Susan is actually quite brave. She's been attacked by all sorts of weird and wonderful things, and she's quite happy to go launching herself off into time and space.

I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't playing a younger Susan. Otherwise she just comes leaping back. It's difficult to eradicate. It's difficult too for the writers as they have no experience of the older Susan being portrayed anywhere.

I had an image of Susan from the special TV episode, The Five Doctors, in that trenchcoat which makes me think of her as a spy! So here we have her on diplomatic and espionage missions rather than military operations, to show another aspect of how special ops are going on behind-the-scenes in the Time War.

The Doctor suffers a bit from ‘species guilt’ in this one. The Time Lords have been responsible for the initial problem that created the rift in space they're trying to close. It always adds a layer of interest to a story when we go back to the ghastly Time Lords, who arguably could be seen as the biggest villains of the whole lot.

The Doctor is recruited by Leela for a vital mission on behalf of the Time Lords. Together, they must track down and destroy two god-like beings whose extraordinary powers now threaten all of space and time. Their names are Abby and Zara...

The characters Abby and Zara were created by pan-dimensional beings the Grace to assist – and sometimes hinder – the Doctor in the Key2Time Trilogy, and then went on to their own time-spanning adventures in the spin-off series, Graceless. After centuries of their own wanderings through time and space, Abby and Zara are about to meet the Time Lord again...

It’s been ten years since we first took Abby and Zara off on their own adventures, and it’s fun to get the team that’s worked on every episode of Graceless together every couple of years.

Simon Guerrier’s scripts always take us into unexpected territory, and Ciara Janson and Laura Doddington bring something new to their performances each time Abby and Zara are back together. As it’s been a decade since the first series of Graceless, we thought it was time to bring things full circle and take the sisters back to where it all began – with the Fifth Doctor.

It’s been a thrill to write for the Fifth Doctor and Leela, and put them up against Abby and Zara. You don’t need to know anything about Graceless - that was part of the brief from my masters - but they’re sisters with extraordinary powers that threaten all of time and space.”

They’re very different from the women the Doctor first met all those years ago when we did the Key2Time series. Back then, he wasn't required to kill them...

The three days we had in studio just before Christmas were the highlight of my working year. A dream cast, a lot of laughter, and Lisa Bowerman ably marshalling everyone as we faced the collapse of the universe.

There was a scene I cut I really liked. I’m trying to find it. Cliffhanger.

At 5pm on Friday #DoctorWho costume designer Ray Holman will be revealing the secrets and processes behind the Eleventh Doctor's outfit! Join him on Twitter for a live Q&A and celebration of the Doctor's tweed! (Did you know? 3 April is also National Tweed Day!)

Hello! We’re living through some strange times right now.

With people staying home, and families stuck together, I thought maybe a few little presents from Doctor Who might help. Something to read, together or alone. New treats, from the people who make Doctor Who.

We’ll try and post things here once or twice a week. Tomorrow, we’ll have a never-before-published piece written by Russell T Davies.

To start us off, I’ve written a few words about what went through the Thirteenth Doctor’s head, immediately after she regenerated and was thrown out her TARDIS.

Stay safe.
Chris x