We love fan audio drama here at Mass Movement. 

We also love to reach out across the vortex to other podcasts and, to coin a phrase, lend them our lugholes. What can we tell you – it’s what non-toxic fandom does.

Which is how we came across the new 13th Doctor audio drama by the groovers behind the Who Corner To Corner podcast, Paul Laville and Geoff Cockwill. The Princess and the Rebel is a labour of love, without any of the tin-foil Dalek vibes that that suggests. It’s properly written, properly produced audio drama, and it’ll draw you in from the very first seconds.

So what do you need to know about The Princess and the Rebel, Episode 1?

First of all, it’s freely available, so go wrap your mind around it once we’re done here – it’s at the podcast’s BuzzSprout account.

Secondly, it’s a Thirteenth Doctor story starring internet and convention sensation (and Actual Actress) Katie Haynes, who delivers a joy-filled and suitably enthusiastic Thirteen at the drop of a Custard Cream, so vocally, you know you’re in hugely safe hands and nose-scrunches right from the off.

Thirdly, for folks (and there are some) who felt the Covid-era series was the high point of Thirteen’s time on the telly, we’re somewhere in mid-Flux here, and the adventure channels that era’s energy and slickness, without treading on any copyright toes by actually mentioning the events of that series. 

Double Duty

Writer Paul Laville takes on the two male lead roles in the piece, both the “Rebel” of the title and the hugely distinctive voice of John Bishop’s Dan. Balls of steel, that lad, right enough, and while Bishop’s voice will always belong exclusively to him, Laville delivers enough of the attitude, the vocal pitch and the idiom to be a perfectly convincing Dan-alike here.

Plotwise, what we have in Episode 1 is an intriguing case of questionable realities, with plenty of action, and running, and deeply creepy metal scuttling murderbots up front right from the off. We love deeply creepy scuttling murderbots, and we have done ever since Nine and Rose encountered something similar in The End of the World. Besides, despite being a very visual idea, deeply creepy scuttling murderbots are surprisingly effective on audio. It’s the scuttling that does it, and you’ll be hard pressed not to take some quick, panicked looks around when you hear them in this episode. Just in case. 

Yaz – MIA

Thirteen has somehow managed to lose Yaz – for which we can only presume there will eventually be hell to pay – and has teamed up with a princess by the name of Lia (Don’t say it. You’re perfectly at liberty to think it, but just take it as an Easter egg, throw a “Help me, Doctor-Wan” into the universe by way of tribute, and move on). Cue the action, and the running, and the deeply creepy metal scuttling murderbots. And then –

Well, then we’re into Matrixy territory, because suddenly, with a wallop, the Doctor’s back with Dan, though still no closer to finding out what happened to Yaz. Meanwhile, Lia (played by Isabelle Hinchcliffe with a solidly Big Finish combination of haughtiness and capability, such as all good action princesses should have) finds herself in the company of “Rebel,” who has his own story and his own take on recent events, about which we’ll tell you nothing, so you have to listen to the episode. 

Fragmenting Reality

The layers of what actually is going on begin to fragment – did Lia and the Doctor really spend time together, and if so, was it in what we would recognise as reality or some computerised, game-like simulation? Where the hell has Yaz disappeared to? Are the deeply creepy scuttling murderbots real or simulated? Are they even actually murderbots, or is something else going on? And whatever is true, how can the scuttlers be in both Lia’s reality and the Doctor’s, as well as wherever the Doctor and Lia were together? Are they products of a machine world, or were they kidnapped, or what the actual hell is going on?

These questions are neatly paced and layered and nothing like as frantic as I’ve made them sound – in fact, the mystery at the heart of at least Episode 1 is built up steadily, while the breathless adventuring fills the foreground, with some effective pauses for solemnity and storytelling along the way. That means by the end of Episode 1, you have a lot of questions banging around in your skull, while you’ve also been taken on a wild rollercoaster ride, with new information around every curve and bend.

A Keen Ear

It would be a mean and easy shot to say that the pacing here is more effective than the Chibnall era offered its Doctor, but certainly, Laville proves himself a writer with a keen ear for the period and the tone of the Doctoring that made the show legions of fresh new fans while Jodie Whittaker was in the Tardis. 

And did we mention, it has Katie Haynes anchoring the whole thing, which not only ensures you get a truly believable Thirteen at the heart of the adventure, but also that the script is lifted by an intelligent quirkiness that plays against the darkness of the situation in which the Doctor finds herself. Y’know… just like Jodie Whittaker delivered.

High energy, layered mystery building across the 33-minute run-time, reality potentially not being what it seems to be, and a central thread that delivers shivers and promises an apocalypse – all for free and written, acted and produced by serious devotees of the period?

Where’s the bad going to be hiding in that little lot?

What’s more, the altogether chunkier 55-minute concluding episode is already available, so if you want to listen ahead, nobody’s going to stop you! 

Review of Episode Two coming soon!  Tony Fyler

If you like what we do and want to help us keep the lights on and the podcasting mics warm, we’d appreciate it if you bought us a cup of coffee