A lost Doctor Who story by John Lloyd returns

Lost ‘Doctor Who’ adventure ‘The Doomsday Contract’ sees the light of day as a full-cast audio drama!

“John Lloyd is very pleased to see The Doomsday Contract completed at last, and with Tom Baker, with whom he worked on Blackadder. There’s a bit of a fanboy inside him and he’s excited about it seeing the light of day.”

Before he created Spitting Image, Not the Nine O’Clock News and QI, John Lloyd was Douglas Adams’ flatmate. And before he created The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams was script editor of Doctor Who.

And the story commissioned by Adams from Lloyd, The Doomsday Contract, is finally going to see the light of day, with the original lead actors, as a full-cast audio drama.

This story has been adapted for audio by Nev Fountain, whose comedy writing credits include Dead Ringers and Newzoids. He is also a staff writer for Private Eye magazine.

As exclusively revealed in SFX issue #327 (available in shops from 20 May 2020), the next Doctor Who – The Lost Stories release will be John Lloyd’s Fourth Doctor adventure, The Doomsday Contract.

Earth – a small, insignificant planet. Entirely devoid of intelligent life.
At least that’s according to the legal documents. The Doctor, Romana and K9 find themselves at the centre of a most unusual trial.
A intergalactic corporation want to bulldoze the planet for a development project. Only a previous court’s preservation document is standing in their way. The Doctor has been summoned as an expert witness. If he can prove Earth contains intelligent life, the whole world will be saved.
But with a fortune at stake… it was never going to be that simple.

John Leeson and Tom Baker.

Tom Baker, Lalla Ward and John Leeson reprise their roles as the Doctor, Romana and K-9 in a story which was originally intended for production as a Doctor Who television adventure during the show’s seventeenth season. At the time, Douglas Adams (of later Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy fame) was the series’ script editor and flat-mate of John Lloyd. This adaptation (by comedy writer Nev Fountain) is based on Lloyd’s original pitch document featuring extensive notes from Adams himself.

Director Nicholas Briggs said: “The Doomsday Contract is a tremendous example of the best kind of story from that era of Doctor Who where the brief was to veer from overt violence and threat to wit and fun. When I was a teenager, I was far too serious for this sort of thing. But what we have in this story is a tremendously witty script by Nev Fountain that made me laugh out loud when I read it. But it’s not simply a comedy. It’s loaded with threat and adventure and brilliant characters all mixed up in a really special story. I loved it.”

Nev Fountain added: “John Lloyd is very pleased to see The Doomsday Contract completed at last, and with Tom Baker, with whom he worked on Blackadder. There’s a bit of a fanboy inside him and he’s excited about it seeing the light of day.”

Doctor Who – Lost Stories: The Doomsday Contract

Duration: 120 minutes approx.
Released: March 2021, exclusively from the Big Finish website.
Director: Nicholas Briggs
Producer: David Richardson
Script Editor: John Dorney
Written by: John Lloyd
Adapted by: Nev Fountain
Executive Producers: Nicholas Briggs, Jason Haigh-Ellery

‘The Doomsday Contract’ is now available for pre-order as a collector’s edition 2-disc box set or download from just £12.99, exclusively at the Big Finish website. Pre-order: £14.99 (collector’s edition CD) £12.99 (download) from www.bigfinish.com


 News source: Big Finish Productions.

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2 Comments

  1. Nev Fountain, “The initial treatment is incredibly vague and goes against everything you’d nowadays put in a pitch”. Is a couple of vague treatments now considered a lost story? If that’s the criteria BF are now using, this range will be endless…

  2. I mis-spoke. The treatment is incredibly detailed. Certain aspects of the plot were not fully explained and had to be addressed.

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