This is a Christmas tale, originally written as part of the Short Trips: Companions collection (the story very much focusses on Sara Kingdom).

It also ties rather nicely into the 2017 Christmas special, Twice Upon a Time which featured the same historical event which forms part of this story – the Christmas Day 1914 truce between the British and German forces and the resultant football match.

The Little Drummer Boy is set in the ‘gap’ between episodes 7 and 8 of The Dalek’s Masterplan which Big Finish have exploited as an opportunity to give Jean Marsh’s Sara Kingdom a new life as a ‘proper’ companion.  The trilogy of Companion Chronicles featuring her are excellent and this early Short Trip is just as good.  I know a few fans have issues with adventures being squeezed into tiny gaps of the TV series’ narrative (such as all the stuff with 5th Doctor, Peri and Erimem being slotted in between Planet of Fire and The Caves of Androzani) but for me, it’s one of the wonders of Doctor Who – that we can have fun with the TV narrative to explore characters and give us more adventures to enjoy (and Twice Upon a Time continues this tradition by creating a whole new adventure for the 1st Doctor between individual scenes of a TV story).

The story actually flits between a few time zones but the one afforded the most time is the WW1 battlefield where fighting has stopped and the men sing carols and play football.  Steven joins in the game whilst the Doctor enjoys some time pretending to be a minister from the War Office.  Sara, meanwhile, talks to the eponymous drummer boy, Robert, who it soon becomes apparent is travelling in time.

The way he is doing this is slowly revealed and, at one point, I assumed it was going to be a human TARDIS like Compassion.  It turns out, however, to be other technology from another race.  The tale ends in a rather bittersweet way with the boy being returned to his own time.

This audio version is one of the Short Trips Rarities which are basically releases which were, originally, exclusive to subscribers but have now been put on general release.  It’s a lovely reading by Beth Chalmers (although her Steven is inexplicably more Cockney than Peter Purves ever was).