Producer David Richardson said: "How brilliant to have Matthew Jacobs return to the series to write Puccini and the Doctor - a man so dedicated that he woke up at 4am in Los Angeles to listen in to our studio recordings! He's given us a lovely and imaginative tale, which feels very much in the spirit of the Eighth Doctor TV movie."

Matthew Jacobs said: "This is the first time I've written a Doctor Who adventure since 1996. The Doctor is such an integral part of my life, so it's been fascinating over the years to see it grow and grow. Paul has kept the Doctor alive at Big Finish in a marvellous way and he has become so much more sophisticated as a character than when we were starting.

"I was over the moon when script editor Matt Fitton asked me to put together a story. We discussed that this version of Paul's Doctor is a bit closer to the TV movie Doctor - inquisitive, not as embittered as he gets through the Time War.

"The idea that stuck out was one where I got to deal with some unfinished business from the TV movie. In the movie, the Doctor says how sad it was that Puccini never got to finish Turandot, and it was the bane of his life towards the end. I wanted to tell a story to do with the nature of how we use music and how we search for love."

Producer David Richardson added: "We've been wanting to bring the Mara back to Doctor Who for a while now, and I thought it would be interesting to see how they would work in the context of a different TARDIS team. Every previous TV and audio tale has focused on the fantastic Fifth Doctor team, but it's good to shake things up and here it's the Eighth Doctor and his friends who face their malign influence."

The Gloaming co-writer Lauren Mooney said: "What's rich about this TARDIS team setup is that Charlie has a long history with the Doctor but Audacity is relatively new. There's an insecurity that can arise from being a new part of a team, and with the Mara, that opens up."

And co-writer Stewart Pringle said: "It's been so exciting to dive back into Kinda and Snakedance, two incredible stories, and also into the world and the mythology that Christopher Bailey wrote for the Mara, which is this incredibly deep and very literate conceptual world, heavily influenced by modernist poetry, TS Eliot in particular. We wanted to lean deeper into that and the idea of the Mara as a creature that emerges at the death of an empire."

Paul McGann said: "It's really working well, having Charlie and Audacity together. Chemistry is never guaranteed, but they rub along well. They’re believable companions. I think it’s because they're both Earthlings, but they're from different eras, so they're differently-mannered."

India Fisher added: “It feels like we’ve been together a very long time. It’s a really nice dynamic, although I sometimes wonder whether the Doctor likes it quite as much as Charley and Audacity. There’s quite a lot of ganging up on him but in a kind way – sometimes he’s a bit pompous and needs a little bit of flicking!”

Paul McGann, Jaye Griffiths, India Fisher

Jaye Griffiths, India Fisher, Paul McGann

Jaye Griffiths, India Fisher, Abigail McKern, Paul McGann, Homer Todiwala, Graham Seed

Kate Terence, Molly Harris, Paul McGann, George Watkins, Jaye Griffiths, Will Huggins, India Fisher