Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

By Anita Sullivan

Radio 4, June 16th (and 7 days afterwards on iPlayer)

The bees are disappearing – but that’s by no means the only problem affecting the human race…

Anita Sullivan’s drama doles out its back story carefully along the way, as it heads towards a frightening conclusion that plays on our fears of dementia and loss of control. Frequent flyers – even pilots – can’t remember what they’re doing or where they’re going; people lose concentration and put themselves in harm’s way when that happens.

The story focuses on Deborah, who has come up with a way to deal with the disappearance of the bees by creating small robotic versions that can hopefully play the part which Mother Nature intended the bees to do. The trouble is that when you start to play with one part of an ecosystem, it’s not as simple as just replacing it…

It’s also a story about community and how people, especially in times of crisis, react; Deborah needs the older beekeeper that she befriends, more than she can realize, particularly as the connections between the human ‘hive’ break down (and as she herself begins to succumb to whatever it is that is affecting everyone). Alice Lowe and Harriet Walter are both very powerful.

Director James Robinson presents us with a credible audio environment of worlds that are breaking down, both internally and externally, and as with the best of last year’s plays, you really want to know at the end how this society could continue…

Verdict: A suitably unsettling tale. 8/10

Paul Simpson

Click here to hear The Bee Maker

The next Dangerous Vision is Iz, on June 17 at 2.15 pm