Following a month or two of pre-production and casting, Shada was rehearsed and recorded over four days in November 2002 at the Christchurch Studios in Bristol.

Because the majority of the cast and crew had travelled up from London for the week, we enjoyed a rather stronger social bond than is sometimes the case with radio recording - for those few days it was rather like being away on a location shoot or a theatre tour. As a result, my recollections of the social life in our hotel, and in the bars and restaurants of Bristol, are just as strong as my memories of the recording itself.

We began with a read-through of the script on the Monday afternoon. A read-through is a useful way not only of familiarising oneself with the sound and rhythm of the script, but also of establishing a working relationship with the cast and getting a feel for the way the various performances are going to develop.

The recording schedule itself was dictated as ever by the twin gods of availability and economics, which in practice meant that on the Tuesday we completed everything involving Melvyn Hayes, Hannah Gordon and Stuart Crossman, while James Fox and Andrew Sachs were finished by the end of the Wednesday. The remaining cast were there for the entire week. Within that framework, I tried to keep the overall running order as chronological as possible.

For the record, the very first scene we recorded was the opening encounter between Chris Parsons and Professor Chronotis, while the final scenes to be committed to tape were Paul McGann's 'solo spots' on board the TARDIS in the last episode.