The Lions of Trafalgar is the first story from Big Finish’s audio Short Trips range to feature in my marathon.  I have listened to the first release of this short lived series but this story comes from the fourth, and final, release.  As a 5th Doctor story it is read by Peter Davison and is quite a fun listen, if incredibly short!


As some of you are aware, the short story form is something I am not a massive fan of.  Doctor Who short stories have a habit of frustrating me as I often get the impression the writer is trying to be clever and just annoying me in the process.  Stories where things are left far too vague or that don’t seem to have a beginning, a middle or and end, just irritate me.  Particularly in the case of Doctor Who stories where the writer is clearly linking it to something from the show’s enormous backstory but prefers to drop vague hints and implicit clues. 


Of course, you may think I’m just being lazy and that as a reader I should be doing some of the work and I agree with you.  But, often in Doctor Who short stories I work very hard to understand and still come unstuck and ultimately unsatisfied with the story.


Fortunately, The Lions of Trafalgar is a straightforward adventure with a beginning, middle and end.  Unfortunately, the brevity of the story means it is all over a little too quickly leaving the listener hungry for a little more, like a ‘slightly less filling than you had hoped’ snack!


The 5th Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan arrive in Trafalgar Square in 1843 to find something not quite right with Nelson’s Column.  At top the column is a platform with a dining table and 2 men and around the base are 4 lions.  Unusually it isn’t the dining table atop Nelson’s Column that is the anomaly, but the lions which were not added to the base of the column until much later than 1843.  The dining table is historical fact in that the contractors and the labourers involved in the building of Nelson’s Column did indeed celebrate its completion by dining on a platform at the top, although as the Doctor points out, there are not enough people sitting at the table. 

On investigation, the Doctor discovers that aliens, the Sevakrill, have possessed the two contractors, Samuel Morton Peto and Thomas Grissell and they have eaten the labourers and have fitted the column with a missile set to destroy the Earth in the future, as part of their race’s war effort.  Nyssa and Tegan, meanwhile, are having to contend with stone lions which have come to life at the will of the aliens.  The problem is, only Nyssa and Tegan can see them and the panicking residents of old London Town can just see innocent people being crushed by terrible invisible forces.  When the Doctor manages to get Samuel and Thomas to repel their alien possessors, the lions return to their plinths and the Doctor manages to bury the missile.


Davison reads the story well and the sound design is as good as you would expect from Big Finish.  The plot of the story being based around a fairly unusual historical event – the contractors and labourers enjoying a steak dinner atop the column (before installation of the statue of Nelson) – is a fun touch and is given a nasty twist with the true nature of the steak…


Nyssa and Tegan don’t do a huge amount except run away from stone lions but some of the visual images of people being crushed by, to them, invisible forces are quite gruesome.

Historically, we have the presence of Peto and Grissell, two famous contractors from Victorian times responsible for buildings such as the Lyceum Theatre, the Reform Club, the London Brick Sewer and a number of railways.  It is always enjoyable when Doctor Who features less well known historical figures, fulfilling the series’ original remit to educate as well as entertain.


The audio Short Trips releases are a mixed bag but this is a fun story and my difficulty with the short story genre is lessened slightly when its being read by a good performer.