Jacqueline Rayner is a bit variable in her Who stories; the ideas are usually good but the execution sometimes wobbly. The Suffering brings Peter Purves and Maureen O'Brien as Steven and Vicki to England, just before the first world war, for an encounter with Piltdown Man and the suffragettes, and a feminist alien. I have to say that the gender politics of the plot, while not quite as skeevy as The Next Doctor, are not really a proof of the proposition that Doctor Who audio plays are an effective means of exploring the power relationship between the sexes. I am largely inclined to forgive it, however, a) because it's not as crashingly bad as Mission to Magnus and b) for the coup of getting Purves and O'Brien together again after 35 years; the story is set immediately after The Time Meddler, recently out on DVD, so fairly accessible. ( )

3,5 ( )