Free - yes free!

You can now download for free UNIT: The Coup (26.7 Mb) – my very first audio drama for Big Finish. The story, which stars Nicholas Courtney as Doctor Who's best friend General Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart (the KBE formerly known as “Brigadier”) and old baddies the Silurians.

London, the near future; UNIT is finished. The UK division of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce prepares to cede its authority to a new organisation... But who is attempting to sabotage the hand-over?

Originally given away on the front of Doctor Who Magazine #351 at the end of 2004, it's a prologue to the four-part UNIT series (available this month for a mere £20). UNIT of course first featured in old-skool Doctor Who in 1968, and played a major part in this year's series. The other authors and I were briefed by producer Ian Farrington to update UNIT, and we did so by pinching bits of 24 and The West Wing. Emily Chaudhry is a really quite blatant steal of CJ Cregg.

It's funny listening to it now; there's all sorts of things I'd do differently. But hear my desperate efforts to make it big and epic, and handwaving with stupid jokes to distract from the mountain of exposition. The characters Winnington, French and Ledger were named after people I knew in my teens who shared my love of Doctor Who – back when sniffing glue was more sociably acceptable.

One original plan was to have the Prime Minister turn up at the end, accompanied by the new head of UNIT, Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood – as played by a bloke called David Tennant. He turns up later in the the series.

(If this sort of thing appeals, as well as checking out the UNIT series you might also enjoy Sympathy for the Devil, in which Nicholas Courtney and David Tennant spar with David Warner's Doctor Who. Lethbridge-Stewart is also due to appear in an episode of the Sarah-Jane Adventures later this year.)

Also up on the Big Finish site are details of my latest audio adventure for Big Finish: Doctor Who & the Judgement of Isskar, out in January.

A new adventure in time and space for the Fifth Doctor and his new companion, Amy as they search for the Key to Time.

On a planet where Time stands still, the Doctor meets a woman who is just a few minutes old. She is a Tracer, sent into our Universe by her makers to locate the six segments of the Key to Time. This being without a name wants the Doctor to be her assistant, but she doesn’t tell him the whole truth. Not at first.

Their first port of call is Mars, where a society that one day will become Ice Warriors lives in peace and civility. But the Doctor’s arrival will change all that. The universe is dying, a choice must be made, and the Judgement of Isskar will be declared. The price must be paid - even if it takes centuries…

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Ciara Janson (Amy), Laura Doddington (Zara), Nicholas Briggs (Isskar), Andrew Jones (Harmonious 14 Zink), Raquel Cassidy (Mesca), Jeremy James (Thetris), Heather Wright (Wembik)