It seems like a regular, routine weekday: Sarah Jane is doing a supermarket shop (and trying not to embarrass Clyde, who is doing work experience there) while Luke is at the Natural History Museum, helping to catalogue items and set up displays. But their ordinary day is about to turn extraordinary, as forces from an alien world start to affect Earth and all hell breaks loose. With an icy void opening beneath the chiller cabinet, museum exhibits coming to life and terrifying monsters appearing, Sarah Jane and friends are soon fighting for their lives...

I enjoyed The Time Capsule more than this year’s other audio-exclusive release, The Ghost House, despite the fact that Peter Anghelides’s story relies on the unlikely coincidence of both Clyde and Luke being affected independently by alien artefacts, while the other main juvenile character Rani doesn’t appear until the latter half of the story.

The mayhem that ensues leads to some exciting scenes, which would have been difficult to realise convincingly on screen, of creatures being formed from all manner of supermarket products (including a breakfast cereal beast and a meat monster), museum exhibits and scrap metal. These scenes are enlivened by some catchy incidental music by Steven Jones.

Meanwhile, nostalgia buffs will enjoy the fact that Sarah Jane’s visit to the museum reminds her of her upbringing by Aunt Lavinia and her encounters with alien forms of Egyptian mummies in Pyramids of Mars.

Worth spending time with.

6

Richard McGinlay