By Val McDermid

BBC Radio 4, March 3, 2017 (iPlayer link here)

You expect a dodgy tummy at a festival – it almost goes with the territory – but what if there’s more to it than that?

It doesn’t appear to be part of an organised season of Dangerous Visions, but Val McDermid’s new three part play has very sensibly been given that branding.  McDermid provided the script for the unusual adaptation of John Wyndham’s The Kraken Wakes last year, and her original tale tackles a subject that I suspect would be close to the classic writer’s heart. There’s also more than a touch of Nigel Kneale’s dramatic style in pulling the audience into the issue through ordinary people – sausage van vendors or garrulous barstaff who respond to a purple portrait of the Queen.

Gina McKee stars as Zoe, a writer trying to find her way in this new “post-factual” world. She doesn’t want to simply provide puff pieces on celebrities, but if attending the Solstice festival and interviewing the musicians there puts food on the table, that’s what she’ll do. But at heart she’s an investigative journalist, and when what should be just 24 hour gippy tummy starts to become something more, she senses a story. And it turns out that she’s got a personal reason for getting to the truth…

To an extent, this first part is covering much the same ground as the opening episode of Survivors (but without the received pronunciation Home Counties accents and suburbia of the original 1970s series), but by focusing on Zoe and her slightly chaotic home and work life, McDermid makes the story more accessible. We get short expositional scenes featuring other characters but the emphasis is on her investigation – and I’m looking forward to hearing whether things are quite as clear cut as they seem, or whether the play’s focus will move in the other parts to the medical response.

Verdict: An all too plausible scenario brought to life well. 9/10

Paul Simpson