Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper are returning as the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler, respectively, in a brand-new series of full-cast Doctor Who audio dramas from Big Finish.
20 years after they brought Doctor Who back to screens, the trip of a lifetime continues, as they’re set to star in a brand-new series of twelve, hour-long, full-cast audio adventures, due to be released from August 2025.
The news was announced to a packed hall at the world’s premier Doctor Who convention, Gallifrey One in Los Angeles.
Christopher Eccleston said:
“I am so happy to be back recording more adventures for the Ninth Doctor with Billie. I don’t think my Doctor exists without Rose. He’s a ‘one man, one companion’ kind of alien. We’ve explored him on his own at Big Finish, as a loner. But there’s resilience bravery and a deep empathy for Billie as Rose, that’s why I do this. They complete each other.”
Billie Piper added:
“I can’t think of a better time for Rose to reunite with her first Doctor than now. Twenty years after she first ran into the TARDIS and towards adventure, here we are again, me and Chris, ready to have fun facing the universe – and the monsters – together.”
Producer Matt Fitton said:
“Twenty years after the Ninth Doctor and Rose burst onto our screens, Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper are back with that brilliant dynamic – the Doctor showing Rose the universe, and Rose showing him the best of humanity.
“Across 12 episodes, slotting neatly into that 2005 series, we have more Jackie Tyler, more Powell Estate, plus friends and enemies old and new through time and space. Our writers have done an amazing job recapturing the spirit of that very special season, and Chris and Billie have embraced these scripts with delight and gusto. They’re having a blast, back on that trip of a lifetime – and they sound fantastic!”
Back in 2021, the DWC interviewed the wonderful Christopher Eccleston, and he said:
“I was trained in the Seventies and Eighties by absorbing the very high standard of television writing for British television, and then I went to drama school and I trained myself on Shakespeare and [Henrik] Ibsen and [Johan August] Strindberg, and a central thing of my training is honouring the writer, protecting the writer.
“And what I find with writers is, unlike some directors, they have huge respect for the intelligence of their audience: they know that an audience is highly sophisticated, far brighter than us television programme makers, and they never write down; they always write up,” he continues. “And I feel like within the [Big Finish] module, there’s a great deal of conversation between – there’s the central hub, the team, and they draw the writers together, so there’s a consistency in the writing of the Ninth Doctor’s voice. But there’s also that great thing that you get from episode to episode where he’s stretched somewhat by the individual writer that keeps it fresh – both in the television series and in the audios – for the actor playing it. Because he is every one of us, I think. He belongs to everybody within that creative process. And that shape-shifting element to his persona is lovely.”
You can now pre-order The Ninth Doctor Adventures, starting at £9.99 per story (download) or £11.99 (download and collector’s edition CD) exclusively from bigfinish.com. The collector’s edition CDs are strictly limited to 1,500 copies each and will not be repressed. A complete series multibuy bundle of all twelve releases is also available to pre-order at the discounted price of £102 (download) or £126 (download and collectors edition CD), also exclusive to the Big Finish website.
