In collaboration with Penguin Random House, today Big Finish release two hardcover novel adaptations of fan-favourite Doctor Who audio dramas, with both stories reimagined by their original author, Robert Shearman. 

The two newly available Doctor Who novels are: 

Jubilee  

"The Doctor and the Daleks. Have you never thought they are really both the exact same thing?"  

It is time to celebrate! Let all the citizens of the glorious English Empire come together and give thanks to that mysterious soldier in time and space known only as the Doctor. For 100 years ago he destroyed a Dalek invasion force without mercy, and became the saviour of us all.  

We have just one real Dalek left. Kept alive in the Tower of London, all these years our prisoner. And tomorrow we are going to blow it up, just for you! So put up your Dalek bunting and raise a glass of Dalek Juice. Who knows, there may be a special guest in attendance – the Doctor himself! Oh, you lucky people! Time to get this party started…  

The Chimes of Midnight  

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house not a creature was stirring...  

But something must be stirring. Something hidden in the shadows. Something which kills the servants of an old Edwardian mansion in the most brutal and macabre manner possible. Exactly on the chiming of the hour, every hour, as the grandfather clock ticks on towards midnight.  

Trapped and afraid, the Doctor and his companion, Charley, are forced to play detective to murders with no motive, where even the victims don't stay dead. Time is running out.  

And time itself might well be the killer... 

The Chimes of Midnight and Jubilee are both now available in hardback format for £22 each. Big Finish listeners can save money by purchasing both in a multibuy bundle for just £40. 

Shearman spoke to us about his memories of writing the two audio dramas and returning to them almost a quarter of a century later. Here is an extract from the interview, which is also available as a PDF download here. 

Take us back twenty-five years, to when you wrote The Chimes of Midnight. 

“I’d written my first story for Big Finish, The Holy Terror, and I really thought that would be my one and only Who story. We recorded it in the summer of 2000, and in the studio Gary Russell asked me if I would want to come back for another. 

“At the time, I was also commissioned to write a play for Alan Ayckbourn – my career back then was mostly writing comedies for the theatre. So I felt really up against the clock. But there was no way I was going to turn down a second chance to write Doctor Who, and especially not the Eighth Doctor. 

“I adore writing about Christmas – I love all the heightened emotions and all the little games and rituals. I love A Christmas Carol, which is at once a frightening ghost story full of real shocks and scares, and also a tremendously redemptive heart-warming piece of sentiment. That’s what I was trying to capture. All the scares, all the heart.” 

And a year later, Jubilee was released. It’s a very different approach to the typical Dalek adventure. Tell us about this story and the inspirations behind it.  

“Ah, Jubilee was very different. It’s a rather angry piece of work. I was alarmed by the growing acceptance of far-right politics, although in retrospect, 2002 seems like such an innocent time now! 

“I was very conscious that this was a story for Doctor Who’s 40th anniversary, and that’s where the jubilee came from – all the dangers of nostalgia, which is so inherently conservative. And the way that Daleks were being treated in popular media at the time, as funny jokes with sink plungers, spoofed on comedy shows like Victor Lewis-Smith and used to advertise Kit-Kats. 

“It was so easy to forget that these cute little pepperpots had in the 1960s been used to represent Nazis. I wanted to examine that way we take all that we’ve fought against and make it silly and safe – and what the dangers of that might be.” 

What do you remember from the recording days?  

“We recorded Chimes in Bristol in early January. So for a couple of days, the cast got to live through Christmas again – I bet they were sick of it! That was a very happy time. Barnaby Edwards was directing, he’d put together a terrific cast, and there did seem to be magic in the air – I was very proud! 

“And I co-directed Jubilee with Nicholas Briggs. Nick and I had become very good friends by this point. I’d wanted to write a really meaty part for him in Jubilee, and allow him to give a much more complex Dalek performance than he was usually required to. That meant it was helpful for him to have someone else to bounce off as he acted, so Nick would direct the scenes he wasn’t in, and I would direct Nick. Lots of fun.” 

You’ve now returned to these stories to adapt them into novels – how did this come about?  

“It was the strangest thing, really. I’d novelised my TV script Dalek for BBC Books a few years before, and that had been such a great experience. I never thought for a moment they would ever ask me to adapt any of my Big Finish work, but I received an email asking if I’d be interested in tackling Jubilee. 

“I was very excited, but felt duty bound to point out that Jubilee is quite strong meat, and that the target audience might not find it suitable. I suggested that The Chimes of Midnight might be a better fit. They wrote back and said they still wanted Jubilee, but perhaps they could have Chimes too! Which, of course, massively appealed to my ego.” 

How does writing these adventures in novel form differ from writing an audio script?  

“Well, prose is so much more a visual medium than audio. Both Jubilee and Chimes convey their drama through conversation rather than action, largely involving people talking to each other in a room. 

“I felt that the job of both books was to open them up a lot more. In Jubilee, that means you get to see more of the English Empire and its people outside the confines of the Tower of London. Chimes depends upon the claustrophobia of the house to work, but now I could make the imagery a lot weirder and wilder. 

“It’s funny – my instincts on adapting Jubilee were to take the horror down a notch, to lose some of its cartoon grand guignol, and make it more subtle and real. And with Chimes, I went the other way, and I’ve upped the scares!” 

The Chimes of Midnight and Jubilee are both now available in hardback format for £22 each. Big Finish listeners can save money by purchasing both in a multibuy bundle for just £40. 

Click here to access a longer version of the above interview, in which Robert Shearman talks in detail about his memories of writing these two acclaimed stories.