Colditz (audio drama)

Big Finish Productions audio play
Series	Doctor Who
Release number	25
Featuring	Seventh Doctor Ace
Writer	Steve Lyons
Director	Gary Russell
Producer(s)	Gary Russell Jason Haigh-Ellery
Executive producer(s)	Jacqueline Rayner
Set between	Dust Breeding and The Rapture
Length	1 hr 47 mins
Release date	October 2001

Colditz is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who.

Plot

The Seventh Doctor and Ace are caught intruding in Colditz Castle in October 1944. Will the secrets of Time Travel fall into the hands of the Third Reich?

Cast

• The Doctor — Sylvester McCoy
• Ace — Sophie Aldred
• Feldwebel Kurtz — David Tennant
• Hauptmann Julius Schäfer — Toby Longworth
• Flying Officer Bill Gower — Nicholas Young
• Timothy Wilkins — Peter Rae
• Klein — Tracey Childs

Notes

• This was the first Big Finish Doctor Who adventure in which David Tennant participated; in 2005, he became the tenth actor to play the Doctor in the television series.
• When Ace and the Doctor discover where and when they've landed, Ace says "Nazis again; I can't stand Nazis." Ace previously encountered Nazis in the television serial Silver Nemesis. The television serial The Curse of Fenric, in which Ace also appeared, was set during World War II but did not feature any German characters. Later in her personal timeline, Ace encounters Nazis again in the novel Timewyrm: Exodus.
• Ace mentions having "played the board game" about escaping from Colditz; see Colditz Castle in popular culture for images of several such games.
• The plot of this story centres on a time paradox caused by Ace's CD Walkman. After Ace is killed during a failed escape attempt, the Nazis examine her CD Walkman and discover laser technology. They use this to refine uranium more efficiently than the Americans, winning the atomic race and with it, the war. After escaping from Colditz in the TARDIS, the Doctor realises this and returns to Nazi-occupied Europe in 1953, where he is shot and killed by guards. After regenerating, the Eighth Doctor infiltrates the Nazi Government and manipulates a scientist, Elizabeth Klein, into piloting his TARDIS back to Colditz in 1944, in the mistaken belief that she will ensure her own future by doing so. However, Klein's presence in 1944 alerts the Seventh Doctor to the existence of Klein's alternate timeline and he is able to prevent it from coming to pass.
• Ace mentions that she got her CD Walkman in the 21st century from Paul Tanner, a character in the earlier audio play The Fearmonger.
• Tracey Childs later appeared in the 2008 TV story The Fires of Pompeii.
• Klein returns as the Seventh Doctor's travelling companion in the 2010 audio story A Thousand Tiny Wings. How she ended up meeting the Seventh Doctor at Colditz is explored in the one part story Klein's Story.

External links

• Big Finish Productions - Colditz
• Colditz at the Doctor Who Reference Guide

Reviews

• Colditz reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• Colditz reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide