The Roof of the World (audio story)

From a narrative standpoint, it was one of the earlier adventures with Erimem. It explored, in part, her ability to cope with time travel and her burgeoning relationship with Peri Brown. It continued Big Finish Productions' tradition of giving narrative relevance to the Fifth Doctor's love of cricket, something that was mostly unexplored on television. It was also one of the few Doctor Who stories to be set in South Asia during the British Raj.

Publisher's summary[[edit] | [edit source]]

Tibet, 1917.

It's a time of great exploration, with intrepid teams of adventurers heading blindly into uncharted territory, determined to beat inexplicable odds and overcome any challenge they encounter...

But some things are not necessarily that easy to defeat...

An ancient evil, perhaps older than time itself, is stirring deep within the heart of the Himalayas... It has always known it will return and finish off what it started so many centuries before...

But the time has to be right...

As the TARDIS materialises, with the Doctor determined to take full advantage of an invite to a cricket match, the catalyst that the dark forces need unwittingly arrives...

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]

Crew[[edit] | [edit source]]

Cover Art - Lee Binding
Director - Gary Russell
Executive Producer - Jacqueline Rayner
Music - Russell Stone
Producer - Gary Russell and Jason Haigh-Ellery
Sound Design - Gareth Jenkins and Andy Hardwick
Writer - Adrian Rigelsford

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

Peri has used liquid nitrogen on the TARDIS swimming pool to make a skating rink.
The Doctor uses jelly babies as a bribe to get some Sherpas to transport his TARDIS by yak.

Gallery[[edit] | [edit source]]

Original CD cover art
Textless cover art
Illustrated preview from DWM 346

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

This is Adrian Rigelsford's first script for Big Finish. He previously wrote the (unproduced) thirtieth anniversary story The Dark Dimension.
The Roof of the World was released in 2004, a few days after Adrian Rigelsford was convicted of stealing thousands of photographs from the Daily Mail and reselling them for personal profit. He was sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment.^[1] Thus, as of 2023 this story is the only licensed Doctor Who story to have been released while its author was serving a sentence for a criminal offence.
This audio drama was recorded on 19 and 20 January 2004 at the Moat Studios.
An illustrated preview for this story appeared in DWM 346 with artwork by Martin Geraghty.
This story shares its name with the first episode of Marco Polo.
This story is set between Planet of Fire and The Caves of Androzani.