I did think about labelling some information here with a spoiler alert, for those fans who had yet to get around to listening to the Eighth Doctor box set Audacity – which introduced the wonderful and brilliantly monikered Lady Audacity Montague as a new companion.

Yet is there any point, when the classic Eighth Doctor companion whose presence is a big surprise in the Audacity set – India Fisher’s Charley Pollard – appears so prominently on the cover of In The Bleak Midwinter?

So yes, the cat is out of the bag: Charley’s back!

Though this is pretty cool – India Fisher, in the adventures I’ve listened to at least, has always been a welcome companion to Paul McGann’s Doctor – I did wonder at the logic of this, given that the introduction of Audacity was supposed to launch a new era.

Why bring back an admittedly fan favourite pairing and potentially push Audacity into the background already?

Especially when that already felt like it had already happened to a certain extent, in the busy two parter that made up two thirds of the Audacity box set?

Yet I needn’t have worried; Audacity and Charley make for a great duo, almost instantly becoming BFFs – teaming up to question, chastise and gently tease the Doctor.

Audacity’s strong personality and firm ethical, moral stances continue to shine through here too; Jaye Griffiths, in the role of Lady Montague, continues to be a superb addition to the cast.

So, onto the Christmas themed stories in this box set – what do we have here?

First up is the cleverly structured Twenty-Four Doors in December, by John Dorney.

This story sees the Doctor attempting a bit of a break after the excitement and danger of The Great Cyber-War (the aforementioned two part story in the Audacity box set), picking up Charley and treating her and Audacity to a month long Christmas holiday in noughties London.

Unfortunately, a department store Santa becomes fatefully intertwined with the time travellers, setting the stage for a tragedy that needs to be averted.

The ever reliable Jason Watkins is fantastic as the tragic, failed actor who has got himself stuck in a hopeless rut, with his annual role as Santa seeming to be one of the few things he has left to cling to.

It’s a sad and affecting tale, told in 24 scenes, each representing a different door of an advent calendar.

I enjoyed this one – along with Watkins, another highlight was the immediate chemistry between Audacity and Charley – though at times felt a little too bleak, especially for the hapless Santa at the centre of its events.

Speaking of bleak – it seems the writers really took that box set title to heart – the second adventure in the set is Christmas ghost story, The Empty Man, by Tim Foley.

Radio horror story host Eldridge Blackwood becomes haunted by an eyeless phantom who bears his visage – with the Doctor, Audacity and Charley arriving to help with the problem of the murky apparition.

Just as Watkins did wonderful work with his one off, tragedy-beset character in the first story, here we have Nickolas Grace turning in wonderfully sad and sympathetic performance as the radio star at the centre of the tale.

His character really is written and performed beautifully – and I’m not ashamed to say that the conclusion of the story brought a tear (or two) to my eye.

Lastly, there’s a bit of a larger scale story with Winter of the Demon, by Roy Gill.

Snowbound Victorian Edinburgh provides a vivid – and very Christmassy – backdrop to this tale, which sees a nasty industrialist attempting to bring electric power to the city.

However – people are being discovered dead and horrifically burned; what does Shaw have to do with this?

Can the Doctor, Audacity and Charley save the day from the terrifying presence, linked to Shaw, in the Scottish city?

Less contained than the previous two stories, Winter of the Demon makes the most of its supporting cast – though David Robb felt a little too laid-back with his line delivery for the evil Sir Donald Shaw. I did feel as if he could have done with a bit more life in his portrayal, but this may just be a personal preference for me. Robb isn’t bad, as such, but his interpretation of the character just didn’t work for me.

India Fisher’s Charley gets a bit of a holiday romance with the sweet, endearing Captain Archie McLellan – which finally gives this somewhat downbeat collection of tales a bit of an uplift.

Their encounters are wonderfully written and played; it’s a genuinely lovely element of the story and McLellan is another excellent, nicely acted character to add to the list of standout supporting cast members in this box set.

Despite the appropriately cold events in this box set overall then, In The Bleak Midwinter is a great listen, released at the perfect time of year for it to be most effective.

I suspect that I’ll be listening to one or more of the stories for many Christmases to come; though Big Finish do seem to be very good at this type of seasonal story, so who knows what they’ll have up their sleeve for next year?

You can purchase Doctor Who: In The Bleak Midwinter from Big Finish here.