Ian Chesterton wakes up one night, years after he stopped travelling with the Doctor. Only he’s back in Coal Hill School, in his chemistry lab, and an alien named Pendolin is asking him about his life. Apparently, he’s on display in the Ian Chesterton Exhibition of the Time Museum.

The Time Museum is the latest of Big Finish’s generally strong First Doctor Companion Chronicles. I don’t know what it is about them, but they’re guaranteed buys for me. There’s definitely a reason that when you look at the shelf where I keep my Companion Chronicles, you see seven little pictures of William Hartnell in a row on the spines (that’s The Perpetual Bond, The Cold Equations, The Rocket Men, The First Wave, The Anachronauts, and The Time Museum, for your information).

The aesthetic of The Time Museum is great. The cover looks fabulous — surely one of the best that Alex Mallinson has done in a range of excellent covers. Richard Fox and Lauren Yason do their normally strong job on sound design, too, endlessly evoking a number of different settings as Ian and Pendolin move through his life. And of course there’s good old William Russell as Ian. It doesn’t need saying any more, but the man is pure class and his performance is as fantastic as always.

Read the rest of this review at Unreality SF.