Listening to Big Finish audios can be a bit like an episode of that TV programme, Before They Were Famous. So often, BF employed actors not long before they would come to national, if not worldwide, prominence. The most obvious of these is David Tennant who featured in stories such as Medicinal Purposes, Colditz and the original UNIT series. Others include Hayley Atwell and Sheridan Smith and, featuring in the story I’m reviewing here, Benedict Cumberbatch. Before Sherlock and Doctor Strange, Cumberbatch featured in False Gods, the first story in the celebratory anthology release: Forty-Five, as Howard Carter.

As I’m focussing on only one story, I won’t dwell too much on the celebratory or anthology nature of this release. Just to say, though, that the celebratory factor (45 years of Doctor Who) is cursory at best – in False Gods, the number is merely that of the shabti in an artefact discovered by archaeologists exploring an Egyptian tomb.

The TARDIS crew are drawn off course and end up in Egypt around 1902 at an archaeological dig. There, they meet Howard Carter (a few years off discovering Tutankhamun’s tomb) and his associates Jane Templeton and Robert Charles. With this only being a short, 25 minute story, events move at a rapid pace. Robert is killed, Ace and Jane are thrown forward in time and the Doctor, Carter and Hex are attacked by a giant hyena.

This story behaves like a mini ‘celebrity historical’ as the modern series if fond of doing. Carter is thrown into strange events, and even gets to travel in the TARDIS, accepting this assault on his world view with the consummate ease of many a historical celebrity, be it Dickens, Christie, Victoria or HG Wells. Cumberbatch gives a good performance and the rest of the guest cast pass muster too. The historical elements beyond Carter are fairly cursory. The sound design and imagery bring to mind the opening scenes of Pyramid of Mars. Robert is a little ‘jolly hockey sticks’ and Jane has the air of a woman existing in a man’s world. The reveal of Jane’s true identity (a stranded Time Lord) is a decent surprise. Her sacrifice seems a little overwrought (particularly McCoy’s acting of the Doctor’s reaction) but overall it’s a satisfying conclusion (although I’m not sure how her TARDIS is disguised as a tiny shabti).

The sound design is excellent and I particularly enjoyed the futuristic robot. The death scene of Robert is effective and the interior TARDIS sounds evoke the TV Movie (BF having decided to put this team in a version of this TARDIS desktop theme).

McCoy, Aldred and Olivier are all good in their roles and the issues I had previously with Olivier’s Hex (a lack of conviction in the performance) didn’t present themselves in this story. Maybe I’ve just got used to his performance (I listened to Protect and Survive directly after this story and Olivier is really good in that).

For only a 1 episode story this certainly packs it in and it was an enjoyable listen.