I love Lucie Miller.  Grand Theft Cosmos is quintessential Lucie Miller.  The Doctor and Lucie become embroiled in a jewel heist in Stockholm, 1898.  A relaxing train ride is interrupted by the appearance of the Headhunter and Karen (from the story, Human Resources) and they find themselves trying to steal a dangerous ‘diamond’ from the King’s vault, before the Headhunter does.

The interview extras for this story place a huge emphasis on this adventure being based around heist and caper movies.  Originally it was going to be set in the modern day but a historical setting was eventually picked.  To be honest, the setting is fairly cursory and, much as with Lucie’s other historical outing in The Beast of Orlock, I didn’t really get much of a sense of time or place.  The interviews also talk about how the production team wanted a sort of ‘Doctor Who does Ocean’s Eleven’ story but that isn’t really what we get.

What we do get is the Doctor and Lucie pitting wits with the Headhunter and Karen to be the first to steal the diamond.  This part of the story is a lot of fun as Lucie poses as Lady Palmer-Tompkinson to gain information from a guard as well as cause distractions whilst the Doctor materialises the TARDIS inside the vault to grab the diamond and some other priceless works of art.  Sheridan Smith is an accomplished comic actress and throws herself into Lucie’s charade with aplomb.  It had me laughing out loud.

The Headhunter, meanwhile, is hypnotising various locals and posing as Elizabeth of Bohemia to gain entrance to the vault herself.
But why, you may be asking yourself, is the Doctor committing grand theft.  The diamond is the work of an infamous 17th century artist, Claudio Tardelli.  The Doctor has, over the years, made it his mission to hide Tardelli’s work from the world.  Why?  Because Tardelli is actually an alien and his artwork has the ability to warp reality.  It further transpires that the Headhunter is well aware of this and is appropriating the diamond for a client who wishes an infinite power source – which it will provide as it actually contains a pocket universe.  Inside this universe is Tardelli is still alive and the Headhunter drags him out to offer him a position as the court artist for an alien king.

The second half of the story, once Tardelli appears, appealed to me less but this was probably more to do with the rather visual turn the story takes.  A statue, also created by Tardelli, turns out to be a golem of sorts – commanded to protect the diamond at all costs.  Attempting to escape aboard a train, the Headhunter and Karen are confronted by the Doctor, Lucie and the golem.  The story here falls into the audio trap of having the describe the action – a train-based ‘fight’ being difficult to realise in a non-visual medium.

But overall, this was a fun story and with the 8th Doctor and Lucie at its centre its hard to criticise it too much.  Paul McGann and Sheridan Smith are one of the best TARDIS teams the series has seen.  The guest cast for this story is also brilliant.  Katarina Olsson and Louise Fullerton as the Headhunter and Karen establish themselves well as returning ‘villains’ and its interesting to see what is essentially a ‘flipside’ to the Doctor and Lucie (considering the revelations about Lucie and Karen in Human Resources).  Michael Maloney (who seems to do a lot of Big Finish audios) is here playing Simonsson, the King’s official art buyer and provides good support to the Doctor and is pleasingly credulous when the Doctor explains his fears about Tardelli’s work (I sometimes find the usual “Doctor convinces the locals he is telling the truth” stuff a little tiresome).  Alongside Maloney we have two stalwarts of the TV series, Colin (Revelation of the Daleks/Rise of the Cybermen) Spaull as Henrik – essentially just a guard, although it is refreshing to have one presented with some actual character; and Christopher Benjamin as Tardelli.  What’s interesting is that this is before Benjamin returned to the role of Henry Gordon Jago in Big Finish’s immensely successful Jago and Litefoot range.  His turn as Tardelli has sprinkles of Jago in the character, but it is still very much a different person and one which shows Benjamin’s ability to do a villain.  The cast is rounded out by Sebastian Armesto as Anders, another guard at the vault but, as with Henrik, one who is actually given a nice slice of character.

Historically, as I say, the time and place are a little difficult to get a handle on.  The characters in the play are fictitious although they are mucking around in the vault of the unseen King Oscar II, who was the reigning monarch of Sweden (and also Norway) in 1898.  He was the last crowned monarch of Sweden and was, as the story implies, a lover of the arts.  The Doctor and Lucie are specifically in Stockholm of this year so the Doctor can ride the newly opened electric railway (which is where the story’s climactic train escapade takes place).  A cursory google hasn’t actually given me any solid information on this, but according to Barnaby Edwards in the interviews, this was a new invention and one of great significance (which was part of the reason they finally settled on an 1898 setting).

Overall, Grand Theft Cosmos is a fun and funny caper with a great TARDIS team and spot-on guest cast.