The first season of Big Finish’s Early Adventures had a selection of stories set across the First Doctor’s three seasons. This story, An Ordinary Life, builds on the ‘gap’ carved into the middle of The Dalek’s Masterplan by a trilogy of Companion Chronicles featuring Sara Kingdom. Here we have an, almost, full cast story set in this gap with the Doctor, Steven and Sara on the run from the Daleks with the taranium core. The TARDIS is forced down to Earth in 1953 and, when the Doctor and the TARDIS go missing, Steven and Sara are forced to live ‘an ordinary life’ in London.

The first two episodes focus mainly on Steven and Sara adjusting to life in 1950s London. They have been taken in by a black family, two of whom – Michael and Audrey Newman – have only just arrived from Jamaica. Audrey’s uncle, Joseph, is the nominal head of the family and it is he who brings the Doctor, Steven and Sara off the cold, winter street into their home.

The Newmans, and Joseph, are unsurprisingly the target of blatant racism. This is something Steven and Sara find difficult to get their head around and the script does a good job of showing how normalised it is in society. There’s a sobering line about a local landlord not allowing black people to rent rooms (like the Newman’s landlord does) not because she is racist, but because her neighbours are.

Although the focus is on Steven and Sara adapting to their new lives, there is an element of strangeness given via the character of Michael, who is clearly behaving in an odd way. Even though he manages to get Steven a job alongside him at the docks, it is clear Audrey and Joseph both think he is behaving oddly.

As the story progresses, and it moves into episodes three and four, his oddness is explained by the fact he is not the real Michael, but a ‘changeling’ grown from a strange anemone creature the real Michael made contact with on his trip over from Jamaica. Here the story becomes a more straightforward ‘invasion of the bodysnatchers’ affair although it is no less engaging and exciting because of it.

This is a great story for Sara, in particular (and I am writing this review only a couple of days after the sad passing of Jean Marsh). She gets fun scenes such as trying to cook alongside Steven and attempting to get a job at the local police station and getting locked up for her troubles. Later, she gets her fair share of action scenes, protecting Josetta, Audrey and Michael’s daughter, and facing off against changeling copies of Michael, Audrey and Steven. Jean Marsh, although sounding quite obviously older than her time in the show, tackles the script with energy and grit.

One thing that really struck me listening to this was how brilliant Peter Purves is as the Doctor. There was a scene between the Doctor and Sara later in the story when I realised I had completely forgotten Purves was performing the role, so engrossed in the scene was I and so convinced I was listening to the 1st Doctor and Sara having a conversation.

Although the ‘aliens’ aspect of this story may be a fairly well-trod road, this is a great story populated by great characters played by an excellent cast. Ram John Holder (Porkpie from the classic sitcom, Desmonds) plays Joseph with defiant aplomb and Damian Lynch (who has done a lot of work for Big Finish) and Sara Powell (who played Mary Seacole in War of the Sontarans) are brilliant as Michael and Audrey. Steven Critchlow plays the rest of the supporting cast – which does lead to some of them sounding a bit too similar but he does well as the less savoury characters.

Definitely recommended.