Several years ago there was a serial on Channel 4 called "Ultra Violet". You’d be hard pressed to find anyone with a bad word to say about it (aside from those who still crave a second series). It earned high praise for its refreshingly realistic portrayal of vampires. Not for them the camp, bow tied vamps of Hammer horror films or the wise cracking, kung fu masters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It gave the world urban vampires who lived amongst us rather than in spooky castles or crypts. Vampires were part of our society. Feeding off us but still going unnoticed in the metropolitan throng. What Ultra Violet does for vampires Loups Garoux does for werewolves.

It doesn’t talk down to its audience like the classic horror films of the past. Writer Marc Platt has a reputation for writing, shall we say, complex stories which are hard to understand so must be really good. Loups Garoux – his first audio drama for Big Finish – is more accessible than most of his work but still challenges the listener. These wolves aren’t the savage and out of control monsters you’d expect. They have psychic abilities every bit as dangerous as their teeth. Like Ultra Violent, Loups Garoux succeeds in making its chosen monster frightening again (after years of comedic treatment) by giving them a previously ignored intelligence. These wolves can walk invisibly amongst us by altering our perception. They can magnify our fears and drive us out of our minds. But they can also run businesses and marry into human society.

They still have weaknesses of course. Werewolves, like vampires, have a stack of traditional vulnerabilities. Platt uses some, ignores others and in doing so gives the wolves almost a sympathetic side. They fear silver because it is "the metal of the moon". Nothing else is said and what form this fear takes isn’t ever really clear. A silver blade can harm them but doesn’t seem to make them explode like vampires poked with a bit of wood from the Slayer. They also need to be kept in contact with the Earth. Hence most of the second episode taking place on a train – they cannot fly in planes or hover cars as it makes them ill. They are tied in unspecified ways to the rain forests and blame humanity for their destruction. They have a point there.

Indeed, so noble are the majority of the wolves that the Doctor is sort of on their side. He opposes Pieter Stubbe not because he is a werewolf and therefore evil but because his actions will almost certainly destroy the werewolves. They have, he argues, a culture that must be protected against the selfish and destructive ambitions of he that would be their leader. Pieter Stubbe – played by radio veteran Nicky Henson – is a being of enormous power. And presumably enormous size as he can swallow (and regurgitate) Turlough whole. He wants the wolves (under his control, naturally) to take over the planet and blah blah blah. But he also wants to mate with Ileana De Santos – the reliable Eleanor Bron – and finds that the Doctor appears to have beaten him to it. So, with a power mad monster, a love triangle and a guest appearance by Burt Kwouk it might almost be an episode of Eastenders.

The casting of veterans like Bron, Henson and Kwouk really does show the benefits that a quality cast can bring. It’s all very well to use younger, cheaper talent but class will tell. In the hands of lesser actors the characters of Ileana and Stubbe would’ve been woeful. A soppy old woman and a mad wolf. Thankfully they are so much more than this. Indeed, the only person who seems out of place is Mark Strickson. It’s unfair to criticise his acting too much as he’s long since given up being an actor. But of the three groups Big Finish cast from – "name" stars, young unknowns and Doctor Who regulars – it is usually the latter which is the weakest pool. He’s not embarrassingly bad but he’s not very good either. Again, in his defence, it should be pointed out that Turlough had a personality for a few episodes on TV before that storyline ran its course and he became part of the Tardis furniture.