Doctor Who: House of Plastic

BBC's New Doctor Who Audio Originals #27

by Mike Tucker, Terry Molloy (Narrator)

Terry Molloy reads this original adventure for the Seventh Doctor and Ace, featuring a rematch with the Autons.

When a new state-of-the-art recycling plant opens in North-East London, pensioner Roger Turner is all for doing his bit. In return for donations of unwanted plastic, he and his friends get to see AN-X Recycling’s exhibition of life-size human and animal mannequins. The Doctor and Ace are also visiting the plant, but their unauthorized snooping doesn’t go down well with AN-X’s strangely impassive operations managers and their boiler-suited staff, keen to protect the secret that lurks at the heart of the factory floor. When Roger is attacked by a terrifying human exhibit, he finds himself joining forces with the strange Doctor and his friend. Soon they’re all fighting for their lives – and for the future of planet Earth. Terry Molloy, who played Davros and other characters in the BBC TV series, reads this tense thriller from Mike Tucker.

Genres: Doctor Who

Audible Audio

First published January 2, 2025

About the author

Mike Tucker is a special effects expert who worked for many years at the BBC Television Visual Effects Department, and now works as an Effects Supervisor for his own company, The Model Unit. He is also the author of a number of original tv tie-in Doctor Who novels (some co-written with Robert Perry), and three books based on episodes of the television series Merlin. He co-wrote the factual books Ace! The Inside Story of the End of an Era with Sophie Aldred in 1996, and BBC VFX - The Story of the BBC Visual Effects Department with Mat Irvine in 2010.

Reviews

[Stavroula · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating 3.5

A decent novella length story featuring the seventh doctor and ace investigating a new company that recycled plastic in London. The setting is near future , next year ish.

The aliens changing their tactics and using mankind’s awareness of pollution and the desire of some to collect plastic from the environment for reuse I thought worked very well. Surprised that the tv series hasn’t done this self same story although obviously with a different doctor-companion combination.

The reading is by Terry Molloy who I thought was very good as well. The only down point for me was his seventh doctor voice. In his reading of ‘remembrance of the Daleks’ I found him spot on, this time around slightly off for me.
Probably down to the passing of time.

Overall though solid story and a definite recommendation

[Pietro Rossi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The problem with listening to a story, as I have here, is that the narrator has to be as good as the author to make the story fly. The narrator here wasn't engaging. 

Nevertheless, this is a clever story, pitting the Seventh Doctor and Ace against the Autons, and using the science of today, eg. Biodegradable recyclable plastics. 

The story is short and gets straight to the point. A worthy addition to the Seventh Doctor's canon. 7/10

[Finlay O'Riordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I respect it for trying something new with the Autons, and also it fits very well in the modern day setting (something so obvious that you can basically already predict where this story is going before reading it).

However, the plot itself is fairly uninspired. While I'm glad we finally have a story which does something new with the Autons in a world full of plastics and microplastics, it still amounts to the same old 'Giant alien thing wants to take over the world' end goal, which slightly undermines the experimental route taken here.

I also find, and no disrespect to him at all, Terry Molloy to not be the best choice for impersonating Sylvester McCoy. His Scottish accent was, to be frank, laughable. With an audiobook, I get it's hard to perfectly capture characters, but I almost wish he just hadn't done the accent, and the same with Ace, a lot of her enthusiasm as a character is really lost on his voice.

But still, I think it's a fair listen. Slightly pricey, but worth your time if you have any to spare.

[Lori S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars
Very short story very much in the flavor of the season after Dragonfire, though a few clues suggest the story is supposed to take place after Survival. There's not much time for character development, just enough to give us interesting viewpoint characters, and not much else. In other words, a pretty traditional Doctor Who story.

I was entertained for about two hours while doing yard work, so the story did the job. I do think Terry Malloy shouldn't've tried for a Scotts accent, though.

[Steven Shinder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Given that this features Autons, I suspect this was meant to celebrate the 55th anniversary of their debut. Also a nice coincidence that it came out the same week as reader Terry Molloy's birthday. I think the idea of Autons being tied to microplastics is a neat one, and I've even seen the argument that it's what should've happened for the episode "Praxeus." I think I'd like to see this idea tried again in longer full cast audio. The bits about missing pets did bum me out.