Mother Russia (audio story)

Mother Russia was the first story of the second series in The Companion Chronicles audio range. It was produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Marc Platt and featured Steven Taylor and Dodo Chaplet. It was the first to feature the talents of Peter Purves and to use the character of Dodo. However, it was not Steven Taylor's debut in the range, since he had earlier appeared in the very first Companion Chronicle, Frostfire, read by Maureen O'Brien.

It depicts an incident which happened to the First Doctor, Steven and Dodo during the Napoleonic Wars in Russia.

Publisher's summary
It's 1812 and the Doctor, Steven and Dodo get ready to spend their winter in a Russian village. The French are on their way, but that's not the only invasion the travellers will have to deal with.

Part one
to be added

Part two
to be added

Cast

 * Steven Taylor - Peter Purves
 * The Interrogator - Tony Millan

Continuity

 * Dodo Chaplet takes up a position as a piano teacher, on the condition that she does not have to play, or hear Steven Taylor sing, "The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon". Also, Steven is surprised that the Doctor wishes to holiday in Russia, since they have so recently holidayed in Tombstone, Arizona. (TV: The Gunfighters)
 * The Doctor's interest in Napoléon Bonaparte was no doubt fueled by the fact that, as Susan Foreman once said, the French Revolution was her grandfather's favourite period of Earth history — and the fact that he narrowly missed meeting Bonaparte the last time that he was in the era. (TV: The Reign of Terror) The Second Doctor would later have an extended encounter with Bonaparte (PROSE: World Game) and the Third Doctor would claim to have advised the Emperor that "an army marches on its stomach." (TV: Day of the Daleks)
 * The Eighth Doctor and his companions Fitz Kreiner and Trix MacMillan would later visit Russia during Napoléon's invasion in 1812. (PROSE: Emotional Chemistry) The renegade Time Lady Iris Wildthyme also met Napoleon on the Russian front. She told George Strangeways that, in spite of what the history books said, he was "anything but small". (AUDIO: The Panda Invasion)
 * The Doctor previously visited Russia, specifically Siberia in 1903, in the company of his granddaughter Susan, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright. On that occasion, they met Grigori Rasputin. (AUDIO: The Wanderer)
 * The successful Russian defence against Napoléon's forces was later commemorated in the 1812 Overture by the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. (AUDIO: A Thousand Tiny Wings)
 * Steven comments that Homer's writings in The Iliad are "wrong", and contrasts the French Army with that of the Greeks. (TV: The Myth Makers)