Audio CD review
BBC Audio
Release date Out now

Jack and the gang appear in four plays based on the hit TV series…

You couldn’t fail to have noticed the first of these plays, Lost Souls, which featured the Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva. It was commissioned to coincide with the turning on of the Collider and broadcast as part of Radio 4’s ‘Big Bang Day’. It’s a fun, if rather tame, tale that lacks the bite of the TV show. Freema Agyeman once again joins the cast, but as with her appearances in the TV show, she feels somewhat parachuted in for no particular reason.

The next play, Asylum, is more like it. Showcasing Tom Price’s amiable PC Andy (a man whose name always reminds me of a cartoon character), this feels like a proper episode. Continuity is explored (we learn why Andy is never retconned despite being vaguely aware of Torchwood) and Andy gets to lock horns with Jack. The one character who does suffer is Ianto, who gets a couple of amusing one-liners but little else.

Golden Age offers a look at British Imperialism – something that was a part of Torchwood until the battle of Canary Wharf. Over the course of the story, we discover that Torchwood used to have a headquarters in Delhi, which agent Jack Harkness was sent to shut down in 1924.

Going beyond the remit of what the TV show could get away with (the budget was never likely to stretch to a trip to India), this is easily the best story of the set, offering political comment and some strong Torchwood continuity that spin-off fiction often has to avoid. The cast seem to rise to the quality of James Goss’s script, and Eve Myles in particular offers a strong performance.

The high quality of the plays continues with The Dead Line. A mysterious phone call is sending people into a trance. As the epidemic continues, Jack joins the increasing number of victims and Gwen and Rhys race to save the day!

The character of Ianto is a firm fan favourite (judging by the near hysterical reaction to his death in Children of Earth), and he gets plenty to do here. Gareth David Lloyd is just tremendous, making the listener lament every time his character was merely used as comic relief. His relationship with Jack and his concerns about the dangerous life they both lead is moving and memorable. It highlights exactly the kind of adult themes that Torchwood promised but rarely delivered. Jonathan Wilkins

VERDICT: 8/10
A mixture of the good and great, with Golden Age providing the collection’s highlight.

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