Doctor Who: The Celestial Toymaker

By: Brian Hayles, Donald Tosh

Narrated by: William Hartnell, full cast

William Hartnell stars as the first Doctor in this classic four-episode story from 1966, which pits the TARDIS crew against one of the most powerful enemies they have ever encountered.

The travellers arrive in the dangerous domain of the Toymaker, where their failure to win at a series of games could result in them becoming his playthings for eternity. Apparently innocuous nursery characters reveal deadly intent, and for companions Steven and Dodo the stakes are raised with every game of blind man's buff and musical chairs. The Doctor, meanwhile, is rendered invisible and given the challenge of completing the fiendishly difficult Trilogic game.

This fondly-remembered story, only one episode of which survives in the television archives, is narrated by Peter Purves who also played Steven in the story. Michael Gough is the Toymaker and Jackie Lane is Dodo, whilst Carmen Silvera adopts a number of roles.

Don't miss any of the Doctor Who episodes.©2001 BBC Worldwide Ltd (P)2001 BBC Worldwide Ltd

Deadly games.

The Doctor and crew vs the toymaker in series of games to win back the Tardis. The Toymaker is a lot like Q from Star Trek. He all powerful and mischievous. This story is very strange and is a great story. Good stuff.

Listening to Dr. Who

It is awesome to be able to listen to old Dr. Who episodes that were thought to lost.

The Celestial Toymaker and his Originality of games

I Like the originality Musical chairs, Blind man's buff, hunt the thimble, the dancing floor, TARDIS Hopscotch and The Trilogic game it was great.

Just doesn’t work in audio

This may have been a brilliant episode in the original series, but it just doesn’t work in audio, at least for me, even with the generally excellent linking narration. My eyes glazed over as I tried to visualize the games. My overall rating should not be taken as an opinion of the writing or the acting, as shown in my separate ratings of those aspects. This is the only one of the classic Who audios I’ve had this reaction to.