The Paul Spragg Winner of 2024 brings the Twelfth Doctor face to face with the Time War… on stage. 

For the last nine years, Doctor Who audio producers Big Finish have run a Script Opportunity for new writers. The competition commemorates their late colleague, Paul Spragg.

Entrants are invited to submit a synopsis and script extract for a Doctor Who Short Trip tale, with the chosen writer invited to complete their story. It’s then recorded, produced and released to download for free.

2024’s entrants were given the theme of the Time War, the devastating conflict between the Doctor’s own people and the Daleks. Forming the backstory to the modern series on television, it came into sharp focus during the show’s 50th Anniversary Special.

With the choice of any Doctor, winner Patrick Ross chose the Twelfth and Bill Potts for his story.

War Stories

Patrick Ross’s tale brings the Doctor and Bill to the Intergalactic Fringe Festival. With a whole planet full of live performances to choose from, tickets are allocated through an electronic system. The Mobile Audience Services Kiosk, or MASK, facilitates reviews and even evicts low rated performers.

It’s through this system that the Doctor discovers that his actions in concluding the Last Great Time War have been dramatized by one Cymbeline Sharpe, a remarkably prolific playwright, in her latest work “Gallifrey Falls No More”. However, his destruction and subsequent saving of Gallifrey constitute a paradox and need to remain secret, for the safety of the universe…

The story is told from Bill’s perspective, allowing us fresh eyes on the planet-encompassing festival. Ross paints his setting with wit and charm – it’s an attractive world that we want to visit. There’s plenty of fun, from colourful theatrical vernacular like the “nosebleed seats” to the bizarre range of acts. He also sprinkles in namechecks to various eras of the show, as well as deftly seeding the story’s resolution.

Reader Alan Cox performs the story, giving us a dour Doctor and Bill’s awkwardness, especially through a romantic subplot. There’s also a quite wonderful piece of prose for which he recreates the voice of John Hurt remarkably well.

Smart and engaging, War Stories is a treat and well worth a listen.

Doctor Who – Short Trips: War Stories was released for free on December 29th, 2024. The writer’s original proposal and studio script also comes with the download.

Previous Paul Spragg Winners

Check out our reviews of Forever Fallen, Landbound, The Last Day at Work, The Best-Laid Plans, Free Speech, The Lichyrwick Abomination, The World Tree and The Hoxteth Time Capsule. They’re all still available to download for free from Big Finish.