Doctor Who: Beware the City of Illusions

The First Doctor Adventures #2.5

by Nicholas Briggs, Stephen Noonan (Narrator )

The British government has a plan to drastically improve environmental conditions, thanks to the Gynt Foundation and its mysterious benefactor, 'Mr Hammond'. But the plan is bold and crucially requires the endorsement of a prominent green campaigner to allay any public fears. When the Doctor's former companion Polly sets off to investigate a fantastic, new, net zero city, nothing goes quite according to plan. For one thing, the Doctor himself unexpectedly appears. And for another, the city contains a terrible secret. With an older Dodo working for the government, the Doctor and Polly must fight a threat that endangers the whole of humanity.

Genres: Doctor Who, Audiobook

Audiobook

First published March 19, 2026

About the author

Nicholas Briggs is a British actor and writer, predominantly associated with the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who and its various spin-offs. Some of Briggs' earliest Doctor Who-related work was as host of The Myth Makers, a series of made-for-video documentaries produced in the 1980s and 1990s by Reeltime Pictures in which Briggs interviews many of the actors and writers involved in the series. When Reeltime expanded into producing original dramas, Briggs wrote some stories and acted in others, beginning with War Time, the first unofficial Doctor Who spin-off, and Myth Runner, a parody of Blade Runner showcasing bloopers from the Myth Makers series built around a loose storyline featuring Briggs as a down on his luck private detective in the near future.

He wrote and appeared in several made-for-video dramas by BBV, including the third of the Stranger stories, In Memory Alone opposite former Doctor Who stars Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant. He also wrote and appeared in a non-Stranger BBV production called The Airzone Solution (1993) and directed a documentary film, Stranger than Fiction (1994).

Briggs has directed many of the Big Finish Productions audio plays, and has provided Dalek, Cybermen, and other alien voices in several of those as well. He has also written and directed the Dalek Empire and Cyberman audio plays for Big Finish. In 2006, Briggs took over from Gary Russell as executive producer of the Big Finish Doctor Who audio range.

Briggs co-wrote a Doctor Who book called The Dalek Survival Guide.

Since Doctor Who returned to television in 2005, Briggs has provided the voices for several monsters, most notably the Daleks and the Cybermen. Briggs also voiced the Nestene Consciousness in the 2005 episode "Rose", and recorded a voice for the Jagrafess in the 2005 episode "The Long Game"; however, this was not used in the final episode because it was too similar to the voice of the Nestene Consciousness. He also provided the voices for the Judoon in both the 2007 and 2008 series. On 9 July 2009, Briggs made his first appearance in the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood in the serial Children of Earth, playing Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary Rick Yates.

Reviews

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve been very pleased with the direction these First Doctor Adventures have taken. The last few installments have not been to my taste, and this one was, at times, pretty bad. The performances are fine, but the story has been intentionally over convoluted to point of almost ridiculousness. This one even has some of the worst dialogue I think I’ve ever heard in a Big Finish production. I would have just gone with one star, but I’m going to give two for the performances. This will likely be the last of First Doctor Adventures I’ll be getting, hopefully the First Doctor Unbound series will continue, I’ve been enjoying those more, even if they aren’t “canon” ( whatever that means when one is discussing Doctor Who).