Sylvester McCoy and the Doctor Who superfans keeping the show alive

Tom FordyWed, August 26, 2026 at 8:26 AM UTC

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Sylvester McCoy has been recording Doctor Who audio dramas with Big Finish since 1999 - Heathcliff O'Malley/Telegraph

The Seventh Doctor and his companion Ace – the classic 1980s Doctor Who duo played by Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred – are still saving the universe. Not in the Tardis, but in a recording studio in Acton, west London, where they’re providing voices for the latest Doctor Who audio play from Big Finish Productions.

In this new adventure, part of an upcoming Christmas boxset, they’re up against the dreaded Cybermen, who at one point capture Ace. Aldred mimes the struggle as she delivers her lines in the recording booth. “Very nice being-captured-by-a-Cyberman acting,” says Jonathan S Powell, the writer/director. “Thanks, I’m an old hand,” she replies with an ironic sigh.

McCoy and Aldred’s TV tenure ended in 1989, when the BBC shelved the original series. But as diehard fans will know, the duo have continued their adventures across time and space via Big Finish for 25 years-plus. As have Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Paul McGann – the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Doctors, respectively – along with the actors who played their companions. And like McCoy, they’ve won more devotees and have taken their Doctors to places that go far beyond the parameters of their TV appearances.

“There are fans who love it better than the telly,” McCoy says during a break in recording. “They tell you that.”

Big Finish’s Doctor Who adventures began in 1999 with monthly CD releases. Until 2005, when Doctor Who returned to TV with Christopher Eccleston, the company was crucial to the fandom. “It kept Doctor Who alive,” says McCoy, who’s now 83 and feels very much like a real-life Doctor with big spectacles on a chain, a waistcoat, and a goatee beard. “Big Finish was started by fans. The fans saved Doctor Who.”

Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor and Sophie Aldred’s Ace being menaced by Cybermen (and a cake) in 1988 - Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo

And Doctor Who is now off BBC television again – in a process of regeneration, you could say – after Ncuti Gatwa’s divisive run. He left the role last year and then the BBC pulled the 2026 Christmas special, announcing that the show is out to tender. Arguably, that means McCoy is the incumbent Doctor once more, having appeared in a skit at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. “I am the current Doctor,” he agrees. “No one else has been on [TV] recently.”

But the fate of the series on screen remains a mystery even to him. “I have no idea what’s happening,” McCoy says. “It’s just stopped.” But, as before, he’s optimistic about its return. “It’s buried deep in our psyche now and in our hearts. They’ll find another way to bring it back.” Aldred agrees. “Doctor Who never goes away,” she says. “That’s one thing we know. It’s bigger than any actor, any script, any producer. It would be a foolish thing to get rid of it forever.”

Until then, Big Finish is once again the place for new adventures, with a roster that now also includes modern-era Doctors – Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant and Jodie Whittaker – and the mighty Tom Baker. We’ll get to him shortly.

Executive producer and actor Nicholas Briggs, 64, is one of the founding members of Big Finish – a longtime Doctor Who fan, as described by McCoy, and now the voice of the Daleks and Cybermen on television. Briggs says that for some fans, during the show’s first exile from the screen, “Big Finish started to feel like the only Doctor Who there was ever going to be and the closest thing to a TV show.”

When I visit the studio to watch how it comes together, there are four actors in the booth, including supporting cast members Django Bevan and Elisabeth Snegir. There’s a lot of wild hand gesticulating and exaggerated facial expressions, bringing the story to life as much as possible. The actors have radio-ready voices, delivering crisp, immaculately enunciated lines – the kind of lines that could only belong to Doctor Who (“The time leak!”).

Aldred in Big Finish’s recording studio in West London - Heathcliff O'Malley for The Telegraph

“With audio you can go anywhere in space in time,” says Aldred, whose voice, at the age of 64, sounds exactly the same as it did when she first played the plucky Ace some 39 years ago. “The TV show is slightly constrained by budget and sets,” she adds. “With Big Finish you can go as big as you like – multiple locations and characters. It’s all in the imagination.”

Audio has long been part of Who fandom. In the 1970s, during the days before home video recorders, devotees would make audio tapes of Doctor Who serials as they aired, then listen back repeatedly. In the 1980s, Briggs was among a group who went on to produce their own original unofficial audio stories. “Just for fun,” he says. “I played the Doctor! And the Cybermen! And the Daleks!”

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In the 1990s, Briggs’s fellow fan Gary Russell teamed up with businessman Jason Haigh-Ellery and put a proposal to the BBC to make licensed Doctor Who audios. Although they were initially declined (the corporation was expecting a new TV series to follow after Paul McGann’s one-off TV movie in 1996), they were eventually given the green light.

Peter Davison – who played the fifth Doctor – was one of the original TV cast to come on board when Big Finish launched - Australian /Alamy Stock Photo

Briggs wrote Big Finish’s debut Doctor Who drama, The Sirens of Time. Released in July 1999, it was a multi-Doctor story with Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy. “We sort of knew them from conventions,” says Briggs. “Bless them, they got on board.” An early attempt at sending scripts to Tom Baker – arguably the most popular Doctor of them all – fell flat. “He never replied, but he responded publicly, saying the scripts had fallen off his lap and into the bin, or something,” recalls Briggs, laughing. “Which was hilariously funny to everyone except us.”

McCoy, however, recalls that he was “delighted” to return to the role for Big Finish. “I always knew Doctor Who would come back, because of the fans,” he says. Having the TV show axed under him in 1989 had remained a point of irritation. McCoy had originally signed up for three series on TV, but the BBC persuaded him to commit to a fourth that was then never made, but which prevented him from committing to theatre work because of clashing schedules. “They twisted my arm,” he says. “So, I was doubly annoyed.”

Even when Doctor Who was axed in the 1980s, McCoy says: ‘I always knew it would come back, because of the fans’ - Heathcliff O'Malley/Telegraph

The cancellation hung heavily over the Seventh Doctor and Ace, the original run’s last custodians. “There was always a sort of ache in my heart for Doctor Who,” admits Aldred.

When the series finally returned to TV in 2005, rather than boosting Big Finish’s sales, they took a dip. Briggs admits that their releases aren’t quite as successful when Doctor Who is on television. Does the current status quo mean they’ll see an up-tick in popularity? “I suppose it does feel like it could present an opportunity for us to reach more people,” he says.

Briggs became Big Finish’s executive producer in 2006, overseeing “an explosion of content”, exploring every conceivable corner of the Whoniverse. But, arguably dwarfing all of that, his main aim had been to secure Tom Baker, who finally joined Big Finish in 2012. Briggs recalls talking to Louise Jameson and Elisabeth Sladen, who played Leela and Sarah Jane Smith, both companions to Baker’s Fourth Doctor, who had continued in their roles with the company. Sladen told Briggs, “If he’s ever going to do it, it’s now. I’ve detected a change in his attitude.”

Tom Baker with Big Finish’s executive producer, Nicholas Briggs: ‘Tom and I had long, weird email exchanges’ - Big Finish

“So, Tom and I started having weird long email exchanges,” says Briggs. “He would just email and tell me he’d had a long walk with the dog and met an interesting man and things like that.”

Eventually, Baker invited Briggs for lunch and was “extremely enthusiastic” about it. “He didn’t just want to do one,” recalls Briggs. “He said something like, ‘I want to do three series, let’s be serious about this, let’s get on with it!’” Baker, now 92, has since made 15 seasons.

Bringing a new old Doctor on board always proves popular with Big Finish’s customer base. “We’re all looking for something new, aren’t we?” reasons Briggs. “Though Doctor Who fans are a special case: we’re looking for something new that’s kind of the same as it was before. It has to feel authentic.”

One of the many hundreds of Doctor Who audios released by Big Finish - Big Finish

But is it just pure nostalgia, or what’s cynically called “fan service”? “I don’t know what that means,” says Briggs. “I think it’s our job to give the fans what they want. And also a soupçon of what they didn’t know they wanted, but might like.” That could arguably include their recent addition of Thirteenth Doctor Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill, who played companion Yaz. Debuting on audio last year, they’ve proved a popular addition to Big Finish, despite the split reaction to Whittaker’s TV run.

“Jodie and Mandip are just the dynamic duo,” says Briggs. “All the Doctors are enthusiastic, but they took it to another level. They said, ‘Why didn’t you ask us to do this earlier? We would have come straight out of the TV series and into this studio!’” There’s no word on Gatwa – but Briggs would be happy to have him. “He’s a Doctor and we want as many Doctors as possible.”

And so while the BBC currently doesn’t seem to know what to do with the Doctor, the character’s adventures still continue across time and space – via Acton, west London.

Big Finish’s Doctor Who audio adventures are available through their website, www.bigfinish.com

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