Eccleston and Piper's Doctor Who audio False Friends out; The Rag Man trailer released

Centre · 1Big Finish has released Doctor Who – The Ninth Doctor Adventures: False Friends, an audio drama that again reunites Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor with Billie Piper as Rose Tyler. 1 Centre · 1It is the eighth of 12 new audio adventures for the Ninth Doctor and Rose, and costs £9.99 as a download or £11.99 as a download plus collector's edition CD, exclusively from Big Finish. 1 Centre · 1Máiréad Tyers and Joe Pitts play Minnie and Gary, two citizens of what seems to be London who both start to believe their home isn't quite real; Glen McCready and Nicole Davis also star. According to the synopsis, the Doctor and Rose help them investigate this "false Earth" and find that the power behind it is one familiar to the Doctor. 1

Centre · 1Eccleston called False Friends "a tremendously fun episode" in which the Doctor is "very engaged by the puzzle", and said the story shows how quickly Rose learns. He said the two younger actors made him "feel very old" but played their roles brilliantly. 1 Centre · 1Radio Times also reported that Eccleston and Carole Ann Ford, who plays Susan Foreman, are teaming up for a festive audio adventure called The Wash. 1 Centre · 2The following day, Big Finish unveiled a first-look trailer and cover for the next story, The Ninth Doctor Adventures: The Rag Man, the ninth of 12 planned instalments, due in December 2026. 2 3

Centre · 2In the story, the Doctor and Rose return to London's Powell Estate to find a Victorian rag and bone cart. Rose's mother Jackie (Camille Coduri) recognises its cloaked owner as the Rag Man, a figure from a cautionary tale she told young Rose, who is now real and feeding on "the lost and lonely". His target is a paranoid woman, Mrs Bickerton, played by Birds of a Feather's Lesley Joseph, who has never appeared in Doctor Who before. 2 3 Centre · 2Writer Stewart Pringle said the team wanted to lean into horror, in the manner of Steven Moffat's The Empty Child and the other creepy episodes of the mid-2000s. Digital Spy lists the script as by Pringle and Lauren Mooney, directed by Helen Goldwyn, with Amerjit Deu also in the cast. 3 2 Centre · 1The Rag Man is available to pre-order at the same prices as False Friends, with a limited collector's edition CD. 2