ALL-CONSUMING FIRE

All-Consuming Fire is a Big Finish audio adventure based on the original 1994 Andy Lane Doctor Who New Adventures novel as adapted by Guy Adams, and features the 7th Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) in a Sherlock Holmes (Nicholas Briggs) adventure.

The story opens with the Sherlock Holmes music followed by Watson (Richard Earl) giving us a potted foreshadowing of things to come, prior to the 7th Doctor Who theme and the adventure starting properly.

Holmes is retained by, of all people, the Pope, to hunt down three missing books from a mysterious library.  Books, that a certain diminutive fellow with an umbrella noticed were missing.

The Library of St John the Beheaded holds some very dangerous books indeed, hence the need for Sherlock Holmes to be on the case.  When the Doctor turns up at Baker Street, and Holmes is unable to deduce much about him because his attire and the usual clues are not attuned to Victorian England, he becomes a chief suspect.

The first episode, for that’s all I’ve listened to so far, is surprisingly good.  I wasn’t sure how Holmes and the Doctor would mix, but they’ve gone down the route of suggesting both exist in the same “universe” rather than the usual acceptance of Holmes being a fictional figure.

Briggs and Earl are solid and assured in their roles of Holmes and Watson.  Sylvester McCoy is as confident as the 7th Doctor as he’s ever been.  We haven’t yet had enough of the story or other characters for the narrative to get bogged down with scene congestion and dialogue stealing which is often a problem with crossover/mixed-world stories.

I’m really looking forward to episode 2.

Addendum – the first episode is available as a freebie if you want to give it a go: https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/all-consuming-fire-part-1-1374

I’d definitely recommend it, although you may want to listen to a regular Sherlock Holmes adventure first in order to acclimatise yourself with Briggs and Earl.