Doctor Who likes to visit significant periods of history, as we know, and The Mouthless Dead takes as its seed an event that happened a full two years after the ceasefire that brought WW1 to an end on the 11th November 1918.  While Indiana Jones may have returned to a country forging forward in the worlds of entertainment, The Mouthless Dead takes us to a nation still mourning its dead and seemingly unable to shake the cloud of grief caused by the loss of so many loved ones.

The Doctor, Polly, Ben and Jamie arrive at a deserted train station in 1920 and find that is soon to have an important train pass through – the train that is carrying the Unknown Warrior from France to London.  This nameless soldier’s body is to be buried at Westminster Cathedral in a full state funeral and is symbolic of the nation’s grief and the many, many dead soldiers who would not be returning to their families.

At other stations along the route, people are standing, waiting to pay their respects but at the station the TARDIS crew have arrived at there is only one lone signalman, one grieving woman and, it turns out, one presumed-dead soldier.

A combination of the nation’s grief, and Frances, the grieving woman’s in particular, and the TARDIS’s telepathic capabilities are causing a manifestation of the dead to haunt the railway line the train is due to pass through.  These ghosts have the ability to kill the living and appear to each character as something related to their own memories – Jamie’s sees highland warriors whereas Ben sees sailors from his uncle’s ship.  The signalman sees contemporary soldiers, as does the other soldier.  The Doctor carefully avoids revealing what it is that he sees.

It is the reveal that the soldier is in fact Frances’s presumed-dead fiancee that ‘reverses’ the process and dissipates the ghosts.  Her outpouring of relief and love banishes them back to wherever they came from.

The whole production has an incredibly sombre, melancholic tone and is superbly acted by the whole cast.  Although this is a Companion Chronicle, it almost feels like an Early Adventure, particularly at the start (even Lisa Bowerman, the director, comments on the blurring of formats in the interviews).  With Frazer Hines playing both Jamie and the Doctor, Anneke Wills playing Polly and Elliot Chapman (whose real name is apparently Rob – who knew?) as Ben and the Signalman.  There are only two other characters, Frances and her fiancee, Michael Thomas.  Wills reports Frances’s speech and Hines does Michael and it is only in the latter part of the play when there is more focus on the couple that it becomes more like a Companion Chronicle’s ‘narrated story’ than the first part’s practically full cast drama (or ‘in situ’ dialogue as Bowerman refers to in the extras).

The imagery in the script is brought to life by Big Finish’s always excellent sound design and the whole rather funereal atmosphere is brilliantly conveyed.  It has more than a sniff of Sapphire and Steel about it as well (specifically the train station-set second ‘adventure’), something I thing many a reviewer of this story has noted.

I also think the title is very clever.  The dead of World War One have no voice and, in a way, neither do the loved ones they have left behind.  The Unknown Warrior is providing a conduit for the grief – in the same way the TARDIS provides a conduit for the ghosts.  They have no mouth, no voice without the Warrior or the TARDIS.  I’m not always struck by titles but this one, combined with the story’s palpable atmosphere really struck me.

I haven’t listened to the rest of the box set that forms this ‘Volume 1’ of the Second Doctor Companion Chronicles and I think it’s rather a shame that The Mouthless Dead isn’t available separately as it is yet another superb release which, rather than costing you less than a tenner, is going to cost considerably more than that.  I’ve never been sure how I feel about the change of release format for the Companion Chronicles (or for that matter the proliferation of box sets for characters such as the 8th and War Doctors or the UNIT or recent 4th Doctor sets).  It makes it difficult, for me, to justify the expense (even though I’m sure that, overall, it costs less than four individual releases).

This is a touching memorial to those who lost their lives and a great story effortlessly performed by an excellent cast.  Highly recommended.