Lesley Joseph joins The Ninth Doctor Adventures

The audio adventures of the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) will continue in December, with The Rag Man by Lauren Mooney and Stewart Pringle. This terrifying tale begins with the duo returning to the Powell Estate, where they discover a strange visitor…

A Victorian-style rag and bone man, seemingly in the wrong time, has pulled up his cart in the middle of the Estate. Jackie (Camille Coduri) recognises him from a cautionary tale she used to tell young Rose, passed on from her own mother. But now the Rag Man is no longer a children’s story, and he’s here to feed on the lost and lonely…

One of the Powell Estate residents in its sights is the paranoid Mrs Bickerton, voiced by the iconic comic actress Lesley Joseph. Known as the star of TV series including Birds of a Feather and Night and Day, Joseph now makes her Big Finish debut.

Lesley Joseph said: “I think it’s a wonderful script. As I read it, I thought, I really want to do this. I’ve never done Doctor Who before, and it’s really exciting. This story’s extreme, but at the same time, it’s quite moving.”

Doctor Who – The Ninth Doctor Adventures: The Rag Man is now available to pre-order for just £9.99 (download to own) or £11.99 (download to own + collector’s edition CD), exclusively here. Please note: the collector’s edition CD is strictly limited to 1,500 copies and will not be re-pressed.

When Jackie was a little girl, her mum used to tell her that if she didn’t behave, she’d leave Jackie out for the Rag Man, and he’d take her away with all the other rubbish. A silly story.

Except now the Rag Man has come back again, his filthy cart resting in the middle of the Powell Estate, a cloud of flies buzzing in his wake. And he’s coming to take everything Rose and Jackie have ever loved. 

The guest cast of The Rag Man also includes Amerjit Deu as Mr Ghaissi.

Writer Lauren Mooney said: “We’ve already got the nostalgia of getting to write for the Ninth Doctor, Rose, and Jackie, and then to have Lesley Joseph in it as well – she’s a brilliant comic actor, and I just can’t wait to hear what she does for Mrs Bickerton.”

Writer Stewart Pringle added: “We really wanted to lean into the horror aspect and create something that felt akin to what Moffat was doing in The Empty Child and those really creepy episodes of the mid-2000s run.

“There’s something innately frightening about the idea of a figure out of time, like a Victorian-style rag and bone cart pulling up in the middle of the Powell Estate. And then from there, we thought about those cautionary tales that you’re told as a kid. This bogeyman idea also gave us a way to see a little bit of Rose’s childhood and a little bit of the mum Jackie was.”

The Rag Man is the ninth of twelve new audio adventures for the Ninth Doctor and Rose. A complete series multibuy bundle of all twelve releases is available to pre-order at the specially discounted price of just £102 (digital download to own), exclusively here.

Additional three-release multibuy bundles are available from just £27 (download to own) and £33 (download to own + collector’s edition CD).

All the above prices (including pre-order and multibuy bundle discounts) are fixed for a limited time only and guaranteed no later than 28 February 2027.

Please note that Big Finish is currently operating a digital-first release schedule. The mailout of collector’s edition CDs will be delayed, but all purchases of this release unlock a digital copy that can be immediately downloaded or played on the Big Finish app from the release date.