Doctor Who: 173. The Lady of Mercia

The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Tegan, Turlough and Nyssa to the University of Frodsham, close to where the warrior queen AEthelfrid fought a desperate and bloody rearguard action against the savage Danes. Over a thousand years later, in 1983, battle is still being raged, with student activists taking on savage funding cuts... and disrupting a conference about AEthelfrid convened by history professor John Bleak.

Meanwhile, over in the Physics Department, Dr Philippa Stone is working night and day on a top-secret project - but can her theoretical time machine really be the solution to the university's problems?

Present and past are about to collide - and the results, as the TARDIS crew is about to discover, will be far from academic!

Written By: Paul Magrs
Directed By: Ken Bentley

Cast
Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Anthony Howell (Professor John Bleak), Abigail Thaw (Dr Philippa Stone), Rachel Atkins (Queen AEthelfrid), Catherine Grose (Princess AElfwynn), Kieran Bew (Arthur Kettleson), Stephen Critchlow (Earl of Wessex)