In hospital, a wounded man explains how he came by his injuries – but can his ridiculous tale be true?
This is a little gem of a Blake’s 7 adventure: Blake and Avon working together, with not everything going according to plan. Avon plays to his strengths, and tries to compensate for Blake’s perceived weaknesses; Blake is firm in his belief that if he descends to Federation tactics, he’s no better than they are.
Eddie Robson brings it all together in a neat package, with a subplot regarding Blake’s relationship with Dr Lian gradually taking on increasing importance as the play progresses. Gareth Thomas has the lion’s share of the work, occasionally providing a frighteningly accurate echo of Paul Darrow’s inflections as Avon (luckily for a lot of the time, Avon’s voice is disguised for story reasons), and using a voice that sounds incredibly like Steve Wickham’s for the main guest character. It means that some scenes that are being narrated by Blake feel like multi-voice drama (something that didn’t really happen in the previous adventure).
As with The Magnificent Four, the whole soundscape is vividly brought to life, with Alistair Lock’s music channelling Dudley Simpson’s stings. Regular Big Finish voice artist Beth Chalmers isn’t given a great deal to do with Dr Lian, but makes her actions believable.
Verdict: A B7 story that could easily have worked as an episode of the show. 8/10
Paul Simpson
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