Pompeii AD 79 - on the penultimate day of its existence - is not the ideal place to be. So why has the TARDIS brought the Seventh Doctor and Mel to the doomed Roman city, just as it's about to be engulfed for all time by the erupting Mount Vesuvius?

The Doctor very quickly realises what the reason might be, but keeps it to himself and chooses not to leave the scene of this impending disaster. Matters become further complicated when their arrival is witnessed by a passing slave, and the off-the-cuff explanation given - that they are messengers of a foreign Goddess - soon backfires when word reaches local councillors.

Most notable for being the first Big Finish production to reunite Sylvester McCoy with Bonnie Langford, The Fires Of Vulcan is superbly staged and solidly performed by all concerned (Steve Wickham's aggrieved gladiator is a particular delight). However, it appears to serve as little more than a clever exercise in time paradoxes, via the bookending plot device of a blue police box discovered among the ruins of Pompeii by 1980s archaeologists.

An air of inevitability about The Fires Of Vulcan hangs heavy as the fire, ash and lava about to consume the city and its people. The Doctor and Mel get to witness all too closely the terrifying spectacle, but their eventual fate is hardly unexpected, and no otherworldly forces are at work, despite the story's potential to play upon the Romans' belief system of all-powerful Gods who have to be appeased.

There is also a golden opportunity missed to bring a new companion aboard in the form of Aglae (played with assurance by ex-Eastenders star Gemma Bissix), a young Grecian girl who befriends Mel and thus becomes caught up in the ensuing attempt to avert catastrophe. All in all, The Fires Of Vulcan is an entertaining diversion, but not a great deal more.

SCORE

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