Rhys Williams (Kai Owen) is set to encounter some folk horror in Poppet, the January 2024 release in the Torchwood Monthly Range of audio dramas from Big Finish Productions.  

Husband and wife team Stewart Pringle and Lauren Mooney, co-authors of 2021’s totally terrifying Torchwood tale The Grey Mare, are back with another story of seasonal scares as winter nears its end. 

Torchwood: Poppet is now available to pre-order as a collector’s edition single-disc CD (+ download for just £10.99) or as a digital download only (for just £8.99), exclusively here. 

A child goes missing in a small Welsh town. As Rhys grows closer to the traumatised Catherine and her husband, he discovers that something is badly wrong in their remote cottage. There are scratches in the plaster, little wooden figures hidden in the walls, and next-door neighbour Mr Collins isn’t what he seems. Will you join them at the festival of darkness?  

Co-writer Stewart Pringle said: "We've really been enjoying writing for the characters who are slightly on the periphery of the Torchwood organisation. The ones who have a more ambiguous, precarious relationship to the weirdness that's going on around them. Rhys feels like the ultimate example of that.  

“When we meet Rhys in Poppet he's also a man on the run, in hiding after the events of the TV mini-series, Children of Earth, and here he's briefly separated from Gwen and Anwen too. He's vulnerable, anonymous, he has none of the power or protection of Torchwood. He misses his family. He misses them so much. And he's going to meet something absolutely horrifying.” 

Lauren Mooney added: “We've written about folk traditions before, like the Mari Lywd in our first Torchwood story, The Grey Mare, and poppets are from the same sort of world, I guess. 

“They're little wooden dolls, human effigies used in sympathetic magic and, pleasingly, they sometimes turn up in the chimneys of old houses. Sometimes they’ve been put there for protection, and sometimes quite the opposite.  

“There's something quite spooky about the thought that you could be living alongside these old charms and symbols for years and years without knowing they were there, and that was where the story began.” 

Making a return to the Whoniverse after 38 years is Sion Tudor Owen as Mr Collins. Sion previously played Drathro's aide Tandrell in Doctor Who – The Trial of a Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet, in 1986. 

Completing the cast are Scott Arthur (Alex), Emily Burnett (Catherine) and Arbel Jones (Maia). 

Torchwood contains adult material and may not be suitable for younger listeners. 

Big Finish listeners can purchase Torchwood: Poppet as part of a six-release Torchwood – Monthly Range pre-order bundle for just £60 (collector’s edition CD + download) or £50 (download only). A 12-release Torchwood bundle is also available for just £110 (collector’s edition CD + download) or £96 (download only).

Big Finish is currently operating a digital-first release schedule. The mail-out of collector’s edition CDs may be delayed due to factors beyond our control, but all purchases of this release unlock a digital copy that can be immediately downloaded or played on the Big Finish app from the release date.