"She is the key to make Darkness all powerful."

The Doctor has managed to steer the TARDIS to Tibet in the year 1917, to keep an appointment for a cricket match. But dark forces are stirring, looking for just the right individual to unlock their prison.

When Erimem is apparently killed during a freak thunderstorm, it seems that the Doctor's travels have once again brought tragedy to one of his companions. However, an ancient evil has other plans.

What is the secret of the white pyramid? How is Erimem's past linked to that of an alien entity older than time itself? And can the Doctor solve the mysteries surrounding him in time to save both his companions, and the Earth, from being consumed by the Darkness?

Peter Davison has been particularly well served by Big Finish in the last couple of years. He's not had to contend with plodding tales like Arrangements For War, oddities like Flip-Flop or the repetitive plotting of Creed of the Kromon. And The Roof of the World continues his run of above average tales.

I've remarked before how impressed I am with the acting talents of Caroline Morris as the former Pharaoh Erimem, but in this play she really comes into her own. The second episode is virtually a two-hander between her and veteran character actor Edward De Souza and it is to her great credit that she never seems out of her depth in such esteemed company.

All the regulars are on form, with Davison exerting his Doctor-ish authority and Nicola Bryant sounding exactly as she did twenty years ago, while managing to add depth to Peri with each new play that comes out.

Of the guest cast, all have their moments in the sun. The aforementioned De Souza gives an excellent turn as Lord Davey, mouthpiece for the alien threat that has designs on Erimem. William Franklin makes the most of his role as her father, Pharaoh Amenhotep II, while Sylvester Morland adds bluff and bluster as General Bruce. At times though it is Alan Cox as Matthews, the General's aide, who steals some of the best lines. And listen out for chanting Egyptian priest Pyran, played by the author.

Speaking of the author, Adrian Rigelsford will be a name best known to fans for the abortive 30th Anniversary special The Dark Dimension. As that project never got off the ground, this is his first chance to write a Who adventure and he gives us an intriguing tale of trapped evil, ancient power and The Great Old Ones. A pretty good debut story, even if it is eleven years late!

All in all, this is a good adventure to spend a couple of hours getting lost in. So why not take a trip to Edwardian Tibet? I doubt you'll regret it...

Hmm. Decidedly average I'm afraid. I'm glad it wasn't the Yeti/Great Intelligence, anyway.

Episode one trips along okay, but none of the characters talk like real people - they talk like dramatists wish people talked so they can write eloquent dialogue.

Episode two starts okay, until you realise that it's basically a re-hash of Tegan's dream-states in Kinda just done less effectively. For a start, it's hard to feel threatened by an evil force so stupid that when trying to convince someone to submit to them they show her contradictory evidence. So, at first Erimem is shown her funeral with the Doctor and Peri clearly very upset. But then, they show her Peri dying in the TARDIS and Peri tells her that Erimem could have helped her and must have died when the console exploded. Er...so how did Erimem die in Tibet then? Unless Peri could see Erimem's ghost in the TARDIS, in which case why does she just accept that her dead friend mysteriously appeared in the TARDIS and didn't help her? In fact, if she's a ghost, how *could* Erimem have helped her? And yet Erimem buys it. I'm not sure who's more stupid - the Great Old Ones or her. Then an obviously fake Doctor turns up, Erimem rumbles him immediately, then for no reason at all changes her mind and believes in him. The whole thing makes no sense at all. To be fair, Morris is a better actress than Janet Fielding, and plays the part well, but the inconsistancies are very annoying and destroy all belief in what i'm listening to.

After a highly-charged cliff-hanger we move on to part three ... in which nothing happens, although there are a couple of nice scenes about people doing what's right despite being afraid.

Part four is a little better, and Davison plays it very well, but the ending is a total anti-climax and, again, doesn't make any sense when you think about it. The Doctor defeats the Old Ones because he's not afraid of them because he knows they aren't the most powerful creatures in the universe. Er... well, that doesn't mean they aren't powerful enough to kill him and Erimem, and personally the fact that I'd been killed by a bunch of second-rate villains wouldn't be much of a consolation to me if I knew that I and a friend of mine were about to die. Plus, I'm not entirely sure why the fact that the Doctor isn't scared means they can't kill him. Then you get the ending scene between the Doctor and Erimem which again, is a nice scene, but it's a combination of the Doctor's re-assurance to Tegan at the beginning of Mawdryn Undead and the Doctor even quotes himself from Kinda when he talks about Evil never being able to face itself.

Basically, too much of the story has been done before, and too much of it is a mess for this to anything above average.

Oh, and did anyone else look at the author photograph and think of that line from Red Dwarf - 'Better *anything* than that toupe!' I'm sure it's not a toupe and that it just looks like one in the photo. But it made me smile.