Doctor Who: Short Trips
Paul Spragg Memorial Short Trips Opportunity 2022
Written by: Nick Slawicz
Produced by: Peter Anghelides
Performed by: Lisa Bowerman
Duration: 42 mins approx.
ISBN: 978-1-80240-112-7
Chronology Placement: Set after “The God Complex”

Synopsis: Nora Wicker is forgetful. Not big things – not yet, anyway. She remembers her address and where the shops are. She remembers people when they come to visit, no matter how rare that is. But she doesn’t remember where the bush with the red leaves in her garden came from – and she definitely doesn’t remember asking for a house call from the Eleventh Doctor.

Since 2016, Big Finish Productions has hosted an annual writing contest in honour of their late colleague Paul Spragg who passed away suddenly in 2014, inviting unpublished writers to send in ideas for short Doctor Who audio dramas to be narrated by a single actor. Throughout its tenure, the competition has produced some truly brilliant work, such as the excellent “Landbound”, “The Last Day at Work”, “Free Speech” and “The Lichyrwick Abomination”. The quality of the writing and diversity of the stories have been absolutely stellar each year, and to make things even better, all of the stories are completely free to download from their website.

“The World Tree” is the seventh release in the series and was published in December 2022. Written by Nick Slawicz and narrated by Lisa Bowerman, this adventure focuses on the Eleventh Doctor and his endeavours to prevent an intergalactic horticultural disaster. Told from the perspective of Nora Wicker, an elderly widow who worries about her increasing forgetfulness, Slawicz’s gentle script focuses on human connection and the importance of one’s memories – in particular, spotlighting this older lady who spends most of her days alone with her thoughts. The Doctor is a welcome intrusion into her life; despite the chaos he brings in his wake.

With its cosy domestic setting, “The World Tree” definitely feels like a story from the Eleventh Doctor’s era, as this incarnation of the Doctor had a fondness for the mundane everyday human experience – as seen with his regular interactions with Amy & Rory and when he lodged with James Corden’s Craig Owens in “The Lodger”. It feels entirely in character for the Eleventh Doctor to pop into an old lady’s house for a natter over tea and biscuits. Slawicz highlights this in his script when the Doctor mentions that he enjoys hearing about Nora’s life as it allows him to take a break from the monsters, and from being a monster. I could quite imagine Matt Smith interpreting that whole sequence with his unique performance of an old man within a young man’s body.

Slawicz’s script introduces some fun new ideas that immediately feel like part of the Doctor Who franchise; the concept of an intergalactic World Tree that grows at a unique rate and absorbs the stories and knowledge of those near it. I was also struck by the name of the organization who are tasked with retrieving the troublesome tree; The Grand Arboretum. It’s a very evocative name and feels like something that Russell T Davies would create – akin to the Shadow Proclamation – and I can imagine them being them populated by bureaucratic humanoid plants, similar to the sentient trees from “The End of the World”.

Lisa Bowerman does a brilliant job narrating this adventure, especially when it comes to bringing the character of Nora Wicker to life. Her calming voice helps establish the whimsy of this adventure, placing emphasis on character development over the science-fiction aspects of the storyline. She also captures the essence of the Eleventh Doctor without doing a direct impersonation of Matt Smith. The adventure also teases a future version of the Doctor on the other side of the time bubble, which has been unofficially confirmed as the Fifteenth Doctor by Nick Slawicz on social media.

In the end, “The World Tree” stands out because it understands precisely what makes these Paul Spragg Memorial Short Trip stories so special; kindness, intimacy, and a focus on the small human moments that ripple outward into something cosmic. Nick Slawicz’s script is a worthy winner, delicately balancing the high concept science-fiction elements with a truly relatable fear; losing one’s memories with age. It’s a story that feels both modest and meaningful, proving once again how powerful these short, human‑centred adventures can be. “The World Tree” is yet another example of the high-calibre storytelling that Big Finish produces for Doctor Who, enhancing the televised episodes with these wonderful “short trips” in-between.

Doctor Who: The World Tree is available direct from Big Finish as a digital download.