Wendy Padbury is back in action as the Second Doctor’s genius companion – coming soon to our Monthly Short Trips range!

Zoe will return in Ian Potter’s Doctor Who: The British Invasion, available as part of Big Finish’s download-exclusive Doctor Who Short Trips range!

A huge metal dome sits by the side of the river Thames, within it is a device that might change the entire future of humanity. The Doctor, Zoe and Jamie embark on a small act of kindness but the TARDIS seems oddly unwilling to help. It’s as if it knows the truth. There is something waiting here, something adaptable and cunning, gathering its strength to conquer the stars…

Range producer Ian Atkins explains: ‘I’ve been looking to make the Short Trips range nicely varied across its three years in writers, eras and readers, and so having had the wonderfulFrazer Hines read the last couple of Second Doctor Short Trips, it felt only fair to welcome another of Patrick Troughton’s colleagues in. Wendy had happily agreed to read a story for us, and I’d asked writer Ian Potter for some ideas. He came back with an astonishing amount of research, both in the setting and the nature of the story’s villain, and things fell into place very quickly. As ever, it’s been a delight sitting in the booth listening to a Doctor Who actor bringing their era back to such affectionate and accurate life, and Ian’s given the piece a very authentic historical feel.’

Big Finish can also confirm that Wendy Padbury is the final name to be added to the forthcoming Doctor Who – The Companion Chronicles: The Second Doctor Volume 1, acting and narrating as Zoe in David Bartlett’s The Integral, alongside Frazer Hines.

‘I’d hoped with this release, in celebration of 50 years of Patrick Troughton as the Doctor on screen, to gather together all of the Second Doctor’s companion actors together,’ says Ian. ‘Wendy, Frazer, Deborah Watling and Anneke Wills couldn’t have been more accommodating. They deservedly have a lot of pride for this era, and as much affection for it as we do.’

‘David’s script takes some established Second Doctor aspects, and invites you to look at them in a different way, as well as presenting a modern day argument through the prism of a 1960s tone of story. Wendy and Frazer got what we were doing, and it benefits massively from that. And the script’s description of the horrific Integral was exhaustive enough that artistSimon Holub was able to realise them beautifully for the cover of the set.’

Doctor Who – The Companion Chronicles: The Second Doctor Volume 1 is released in June and can be pre-ordered today at a special pre-order price.