John Hurt returns as the War Doctor in audio series

John Hurt is returning to the role of The War Doctor, in twelve full-cast Doctor Who audio plays from Big Finish Productions.

In the company's announcement, Big Finish executive producer Jason Haigh-Ellery said: 

"Now we have the chance to get to know that character more and hear John stretch in the role. We’re all in for a hell of a ride as the War Doctor engages in battle. But who are the greater threat - the Daleks or the Time Lords?”

The audio adventures of The War Doctor will be told over four box sets, each containing three linked hour-long episodes. The first box set is entitled Only The Monstrous, and is written and directed by Nicholas Briggs, who has wo many audio dramas for Big Finish as well as voicing the Daleks and other monsters for the TV series.  Briggs said:

“The story of the Doctor who refuses to call himself the Doctor in order to do the unthinkable upon the ultimate battlefield — all of space and time — was irresistible to me.  Such a deeply disturbing and engaging character created by the formidable talents of writer Steven Moffat and actor John Hurt. It’s such a privilege to be working on this.”

Briggs and Hurt also discussed the new story on a short podcast released by Big Finish:

The cast of audio series also includes Jacqueline Pearce, playing Time Lord Cardinal Ollistra, who is best known to science fiction fans for her role as Servalan in the cult series Blake’s 7.

Only The Monstrous will be released in December 2015, and will be followed in February 2016 by the second volume, Infernal Devices, which is written by John Dorney, Phil Mulryne and Matt Fitton. 

In addition to The War Doctor series, November 2017 also sees a prequel box set to the saga, Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor — The Time War, which will follow the early stages of the Time War from the Eighth Doctor’s perspective. Paul McGann stars, alongside characters first introduced in the War Doctor box sets.

You can pre-order all four box sets of Doctor Who: The War Doctor, plus Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor – The Time War today from the Big Finish website, priced £20 each on both CD and Download.

The Eighth Doctor box-set is presumably set shortly before the 2013 online minisode The Night of the Doctor which showed Paul McGann regenerate into John Hurt:

Audiences were first introduced to John Hurt's War Doctor in the 2013 television episode The Name of the Doctor:

Hurt then returned in the Fiftieth Anniversary special The Day of the Doctor, alongside David Tennant and Matt Smith’s Doctors.  It was revealed that he had shunned the title "Doctor" in order to fight in the Time War against the Daleks.  The War Doctor stole the "Moment", an all-powerful weapon with a telepathic interface played by Billie Piper, intending to use it to end the war:

The War Doctor's story eventually reached its conclusion when his final scene showed the start of his regeneration into Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor:

The character of the War Doctor has also been explored in an official BBC Books novel The Engines of War and the Titan Comic series Four Doctors which is available as a collected graphic novel early in January: