Sophie, Trev and Simon are about to encounter strange conditions on the planet Mirth…
The people behind this crowdfunded new podcast audio describe it as “a new comedy audio drama for kids aged 8-80”, and they’ve summed it up well. If you enjoy the bad puns of old radio comedies like I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again, then you’ll groan appropriately at lines like “There’s no such thing as a free launch”, whereas younger children will enjoy Sophie’s constant errors as she tries to say OMG (there is one brilliant sofa-related one!).
We don’t really know much about the set-up other than 80s comic double act Trev and Simon are on board a ship with NASA gift shop assistant Sophie (who seems to know quite a lot about what she’s doing), and a computer called LEMON (voiced by audio stalwart Barnaby Edwards). They want to get back to Earth but need supplies so land on the planet Mirth, which is beset by random storms… Very very random storms!
The jokes come thick and fast, and, unsurprisingly, are of varying quality – depending on your age, and knowledge of the 80s pop scene, some will have you laughing out loud, others will, as the series itself notes, give you the galloping nadgers. There’s also a song in there too – and a rather odd method of presenting the names of some of the backers (at least, I guess that’s the reason certain names get repeated clearly after they’ve been mentioned in dialogue).
Verdict: Saying that this is inoffensive fun sounds like damning it with faint praise, but it’s a diverting and amusing way to spend half an hour – and there’s potential for it to be more. 7/10
Paul Simpson
Click here to listen to the episode and to support the postproduction on part 2
IF YOU HAVE COME HERE PLEASE REDIRECT YOUR BROWSER TO WWW.SCIFIBULLETIN.COM 