This is a very sweet little story. Both the concept and execution are quite simple, but it works really well. The narration is fantastic, as can be expected from Lisa Bowerman. She breathes life into Nora and really elevates her character.

Lisa Bowerman captures the energy and emotional resonance of The Eleventh Hour, evoking the dynamic between Matt Smith’s Doctor and Amelia Pond but transposed to an elderly woman in a remote house, a character whose mind is starting to slip away.

As an allegory for memory loss, it’s devastatingly effective. The woman is caught in a loop, reliving the same day repeatedly, accompanied by an alien tree and the Doctor. The sci-fi premise works beautifully as a metaphor.

The writing is incredibly tactful and charged with genuine feeling, managing to stay true to the tone and emotional generosity of the Matt Smith era.

I was very impressed by The World Tree. Though it takes a little while to get going, once we get a sense of what this story is, and what it is going for, I found it a very meaningful discussion of aging, coated in a suitable amount of science fiction content.

The content of an audio like this in the context of it being part of the Paul Spragg memorial feels entirely appropriate and quite a thoughtful way of remembering the writer. Nick Slawicz does an excellent job at humanizing Nora and making her the emotional core of The World Tree. His choice to have this be the Eleventh Doctor also feels like a very good one. Given the nature of this Doctor, his youth, and his own eventual fate all feel like he was the perfect choice of any existing incarnation.

Lisa Bowerman provide excellent narration, proving to be an engaging actor as always and even doing a good job giving a bit of a voice to Eleven.