It’s time to listen to and discuss The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles: Curiosity Shop
Buy it online using the link above.
Once you’ve listened, talk about it below! Even if you listened to it before and just want to discuss it - dive right in! Just please use spoiler tags where appropriate.
Everyone who participates will get a coveted Audio Club badge! 
Just for fun, add your rating here:
I will admit, I was not that wowed by this on my first listen. I was confused and I don’t think I followed it well, and I struggled to discern some of the Doctors that Dudman was doing. I didn’t dislike it, but I couldn’t see what everyone was raving about.
Fortunately, my relisten went much better and I liked it a lot more. Ingar is truly astonishing on audio and I would love her to be in 1000000 more dramas forever please. The heartbreak of her literally giving herself up bodily to try and get the Doctor back is so painful, and Valarie’s relentless stubbornness to want to change things and make them better - one of the many reasons I love her. 11DCs is just hit after hit tbh
Curiosity Shop is one of the best, it’s tense, heartbreaking, and a brilliant story from Valarie’s perspective, but it’s Dudman who makes the story for me,
I genuinely have no idea how he can play someone else playing other people and make it sound so convincing, 9/10
I remember this episode so clearly. It might be one of the darkest Doctor Who stories out there in any and every medium. It really pushes the envelope. Dudman and Ingar are at the top of their game here, Ingar in particular is an absolute powerhouse especially in Broken Hearts which deals with the ramifications from this story directly.
This is a great story. It dragged for a bit but it slowly picked up. I love the exploration of Valarie and what she has to sacrifice. Dudman did a great job.
Really excellent and my favourite Valarie story so far. So excellently paced—Valarie falling apart more and more as she gives up more and more of herself is devastating and Safiyya Ingar plays is so, so well. It’s really heartbreaking. And the depiction of the broken world where hope is slowly running out is pitch perfect.
In anticipation, I wrote my review last week, but like a dingus, I never typed it out, keeping it in my head. A mixture of what I would’ve said and what I’m thinking now:
“Curiosity Shop” does a few things wrong, and a lot more right. My biggest quibble is that the ceasefire the Doctor wants to hold is vague and unexplained, as is the device by which he’ll do so. I get that it’s set dressing for the literal breakdown in his and Valarie’s relationship, but a little insight would’ve made the story that much better.
My other issue would’ve been that Valarie reacts to being dismantled too well; with “Broken Hearts”[1] hastily written to address this, that was replaced with the focus on Dudman’s Doctor impressions. Great impressions, for sure, but I was way more taken by Valarie’s ordeal. The poor woman is used by her good friend, losing herself piece by piece, losing herself to the point of becoming childlike and immobile, and due to a bout of amnesia, he barely acknowledges that he’s hurting her until the end! Conflict and turmoil over fanservice, is what I’m saying.
One aspect I quite liked was Valarie’s regular visits to who I think is a restaurant owner. You’re given an idea of how bad things are for both her and this planet, with the owner running out of food, and the conversations act as a bulwark, preventing the story from being mired in, “Mr. Foreman thinks he’s the Fifth Doctor! Now, the Second! Wait, the Eighth!”
next week, people!!! ↩︎
Man, I just don’t get Goss. I’ve tried, I really have, but I think he’s a totally competent writer that always falls just shy of greatness.
Curiosity Shop tries to be a tragic character piece but instead resorts to a repetitive structure and telling us about more interesting stories instead of fleshing out its own.
Full review here, if you enjoy, please leave a like:
I wish I liked Curiosity Shop as much as most people. There’s a great central idea that’s very era-appropriate, “what if the Doctor forgot his promise?” There’s some nice touches as we gradually see the Doctor regain his Doctoriness, and Ingar is as brilliant as always, but it takes too long to get where it’s going, starts to feel quite repetitive, and Dudman is perhaps asked to give a couple of voices too many.
The episode also comes across as slightly dismissive of just how horribly the Doctor treats Valarie in this. I wonder if there was more dramatic mileage in that…
Not sure why I started this audio club series with a somewhat negative review. I love this series, I think it’s a triumph.
I think it is a good story, but there is something about “bringing back the Doctor through the memories of a companion” that I can’t quite put my finger on 
…
I find the story quite moving but still a bit shy of greatness, mainly because I find that the pacing is too slow and sadly Dudman’s performance doesn’t really work for me.
I did however up it from a 3,5/5 to a 4/5 
this time around.
I think that this is good but also a bit long. It felt a bit repetitive after a while. But I did the same as @BillFiler:
A very good tale from the second Eleven & Valarie box set. This is the most serious story from the series so far. This story is written as a breakdown of who The Doctor is, and it leaves an impression. The butting heads of the Madman in a Box and The Lonely God plays out well in this one. Curiosity Shop is written for the audio format and takes advantage of it. Jacob Dudman is given the opportunity to show his ability to mimic other Doctor voices. The real standout though is Safiyya Ingar, who is give a lot to work with here, and doesn’t disappoint. The pain and sadness they are able to portray just makes me love Valarie more. Both of them get a chance to show off their range as actors. The guest actor is great, and even sounds a little like Colin Baker. Overall, this is a great addition to the series.
4.5/5
This was my problem too, I didn’t realise it was even meant to be older Doctors for a good while into the story. Obviously on a relisten thats less of an isse and I can recognise the core heart of the story with Valerie really is great. But it still dampened my view of it as its a pretty big problem if you cant fully follow what’s meant to be happening. I think they should have worked with Dudman on the impressions a bit more.
Been working through 11 and Valarie for the first time and happened to listen to this today. And I was very surprised to see it so highly rated when I entered my score of 3.5. I just dont get it.
Valary is fantastic, but everything else was a bit lacking. It honestly felt like they wanted to make a story thay was “look at how good Dudman is as an impresionist”. Which unfortunately I think put to much on Dudman’s plate as even his outstanding 9 and 10 (ild say perfect if his 11 didnt exist) seemed to slip. And I genuenly dont know what a few of the Doctors were.
Full review here:
I never even realized it was supposed to be other Doctor’s [1] until I finished and read the reviews. Tbf, I haven’t seen a lot of classic and I still haven’t so that might have to do with it.
or that it was the Doctor until the Doctor revealed himself near the end ↩︎
Haven’t got much to add to this thread other then i really liked this story, and i love Valerie,
Dudman working his through all the doctors incarnations was great
His 9 and 10 probably felt like they were slipping because he wasn’t just doing impressions of the Doctors, he was doing an impression of Matt Smith doing impressions of the Doctors, with the 11th Doctor occasionally slipping back in. It’s a nice idea, but that’s a lot to ask of Jacob Dudman.
I wondered, but unfortunately I dont think that can really be made clear. To the listener. It also doesnt fix that some of the Doctors are unrecognizable
Interesting that lots of people are mentioning they found it hard to distinguish Dudman’s assorted interpretations of each Doctor. To be fair, I had no trouble with the impressions, so take the following with a pinch of salt, but: I thought the dialogue was so specific to each individual Doctor that Dudman could have used his Eleven voice throughout and it would have been clear which scene was meant be feature each Doctor.