As a big fan of Lovecraft’s creations and certainly not the man himself, I was very keen to check out The Lovecraft Invasion.

A Sixth Doctor Adventure, it has a really clever, reality warping premise in which a parasitical alien, the Somnifax, latches itself onto HP Lovecraft himself, and sets about attempting to manifest all of his darkest creations.

The Sixth Doctor, along with companions Constance and Flip, are in pursuit and must deal with lots of familiar creatures and characters from Lovecraft’s stories – though not all of them are out to kill our heroes.

I really enjoyed lots of elements of The Lovecraft Invasion, which does a lot of excellent stuff with its premise, even incorporating one character’s knowledge that they gleaned from checking out The Call of Cthulhu tabletop RPG.

Andy Hardwick’s music is superb too; incredibly moody and atmospheric, perfectly suiting the setting.

Yet one thing really lets it down. It’s common knowledge just how awful and extreme Lovecraft’s racism and general bigotry was; it’s difficult in many ways to separate art from artist in many of his stories, particularly when the subtext becomes apparent.

Yet this story, and in particular, the dialogue given to Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor, goes to ridiculous extremes to bludgeon the listener with this point in a really ham fisted and blatant way.

It even goes so far as to have him insult fans of Lovecraft’s work entirely, in one bafflingly blunt line.

Though I have absolutely no issue with listeners being educated on just what an awful person Lovecraft was, and how extreme his xenophobia was even for his time, it’s done in such a bizarre way that it almost breaks the fourth wall to address the listener directly.

It’s something that I don’t believe is necessary, given how progressive much of the Doctor Who fandom is. At least, certainly not to the extent in which it’s done.

If you can get over that particular issue, you’re likely to find a clever yarn here, and one that does a great job of bringing the Cthulhu Mythos to the Whoniverse in an ingenious way.

You can buy The Lovecraft Invasion directly from Big Finish here.