Doctor Who

Gerry Davis, Alison Bingeman, Peter Purves

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CD standard audio format

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About the book

"Slick and polished...immersive productions of much-loved novelisations...long may we enjoy them." - Doctor Who Magazine

A thrilling novelisation of a classic TV adventure for the First Doctor.

Peter Purves reads this thrilling novelisation of a classic TV adventure for the First Doctor. Somewhere outside space and time there waits the Celestial Toymaker, an enigmatic being who ensnares unwary travellers into his domain to play out his dark and deadly games.

Separated from the security of the TARDIS, the Doctor is forced to play the complex trilogic game with the evil magician. Meanwhile, Dodo and Steven must enter into a series of tests with, among others, the schoolboy Cyril and the King and Queen of Hearts.

If the travellers lose, they are condemned to become the Toymaker's playthings for all eternity. For in the malevolent wonderland that is the Celestial Toyroom, nothing is just for fun...

Peter Purves, who played Steven in the Doctor Who TV series, reads Gerry Davis and Alison Bingeman's novelisation of the 1966 TV adventure by Brian Hayles.

? 2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd © 2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd.

Reading produced by Morrison Ellis. Sound design by David Roocroft. Executive Producer for BBC Audiobooks: Michael Stevens

About the Author

Gerry Davis

Gerry Davis became a BBC story editor in 1965 at the invitation of Head of Serials Donald Wilson, who had been impressed by a course he had written on TV scriptwriting. He had previously been a newspaper reporter, a merchant seaman and a writer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and had studied opera and worked as a cinema translator in Italy. His first BBC assignments were on 199 Park Lane and United! and he was then given the chance to take over from Donald Tosh on Doctor Who. Although he never saw entirely eye to eye with producer Innes Lloyd, he remained in this post for over a year before moving on to edit another show, First Lady. He later returned to freelance writing, his greatest success coming in the early Seventies with the BBC's ecological drama Doomwatch, which he co-created with Kit Pedler. From the mid-Seventies he spent most of his time in Hollywood, writing for American films and TV series and teaching screen-writing courses at the UCLA Film School. He died on 31 August 1991, aged sixty-four.