Ghost finder Thomas Carnacki deals with many uncanny mysteries that defy explanation. But throughout his life, a stranger keeps appearing. 

Whether he is an ally or a rival remains to be seen, but one thing is certain. When the Doctor and Carnacki cross paths, death and danger are always close… 

Carnacki, created by writer William Hope Hodgson in 1910, is an occult detective – a Sherlock of the supernatural. In all of the original stories, he tells his assembled friends about a haunting he has investigated, and the horrors he encountered. Now, in 2024, the identity of one of Carnacki’s friends can be revealed – the Doctor. 

The upcoming box set The Seventh Doctor Adventures: The Doctor and Carnacki includes three full-cast audio drama tales, in which, at various points in Carnacki’s life, he teams up with the Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) to investigate mysterious goings-on. 

In the first and second of the three episodes, the young Carnacki is played by Joe Jameson – reprising the role from the 2019 Paternoster Gang story The Screaming Ceiling. And throughout the box set, the older Carnacki is played by Dan Starkey, who previously narrated Big Finish’s Carnacki: The Ghost-Finder, a collection of readings of six of the original stories. 

Doctor Who – The Seventh Doctor Adventures: The Doctor and Carnacki is available to pre-order now for just £22.99 (collector’s edition CD box set + download) or £18.99 (download only). The collector’s edition CD box set is strictly limited to 1500 copies and will not be repressed.   

The three chilling cases for the ghost-hunting duo are: 

The Haunter of the Shore by AK Benedict 

1897. Young Carnacki investigates a case at Edgemere Manor where the skeletons of tourists are left on the shore of the lake. Carnacki must discard everything he knows when he discovers that the estate’s hermit is the Doctor, and that time is being manipulated by an unseen force.  

The Doctor and Carnacki must work together if the mystery of Edgemere Manor is to be solved, the house saved, and the haunted residents find peace. 

The House by Georgia Cook 

Awoken in the dead of night to assist his distraught friend Arkright, Carnacki finds himself unexpectedly thrust into a long-buried mystery from his childhood, and face-to-face with a man he hasn’t seen in years: the Doctor. 

But what is ‘The House’? Why does everything Arkright touch transform into the same rotting furnishings and wallpaper? Can a man really be haunted by a building? 

The Institute of Forgotten Souls by Jonathan Barnes 

In the heart of England in 1936 there lies a home for wounded men. It is a strange, shadowed place, full of secrets. 

Terrible beasts prowl the grounds, as if guarding something dreadful. Inmates are disappearing, picked off one by one, while a singular resident – a certain, now retired ghost finder – bravely staves off the darkness. 

Yet tonight is the night when it’s all going to end. For tonight is the night when the Doctor comes to call... 

Script editor Matt Fitton said: “The Seventh Doctor lends himself to those kinds of spooky, eerie stories – things like Ghost Light and Curse of Fenric – and the idea of having him meet Carnacki on a ghost-finding adventure has been brewing in my mind for a while now. 

“We have three stories here all written by writers who have a penchant for the horror genre. It's been great to bring them together and have the two characters bounce off each other all the way throughout Carnacki's life and career, from the beginning to the end.” 

Writer Georgia Cook added: “It was really good fun developing Carnacki. We have a good sense of him as an adult, and we get bits of him as a child throughout the original stories, but we never really get to meet him specifically as a younger man. 

“So it was interesting developing who he might have been into who he is now and the insecurities that he might have had starting out, meeting the impossible and the supernatural for the first time, and the things that he might still carry with him to this day.” 

Big Finish listeners can pre-order The Doctor and Carnacki in a bundle with 2024’s other Seventh Doctor Adventures box set, The Last Day Part 2, for just £44 (collector’s edition CD box set + download) or £36 (download only). 

All the above prices include the special pre-order discount and are subject to change after general release. 

Please note that Big Finish is currently operating a digital-first release schedule. The mail-out of collector’s edition CDs may be delayed due to factors beyond our control, but all purchases of this release unlock a digital copy that can be immediately downloaded or played on the Big Finish app from the release date.