MI13’s greatest agents face an enemy that could bring Great Britain to its knees…

Particularly after a week of listening to the excellent – but often downbeat – Dangerous Visions season of SF plays from Radio 4, it’s great to be able to retreat into the lunatic world of the Scarifyers as David Warner and Terry Molloy return to make sure murderous garden gnomes, and bearded loonies of various hues aren’t going to cause utter devastation.

Guest stars Matthew Holness and Phil Rose join in the fun with gusto and as ever, writers Simon Barnard and Paul Morris throw in as many mad ideas as the script can contain (and then push a few more in to utterly nail the evils of Morris dancing). There’s even more of a feeling of the colour episodes of The Avengers than there was before – you can see BRA, Fitch, Kelley and the rest encountering Steed and Mrs Peel without too much change being needed for the script, even if the supernatural element might take the two agents out of their comfort zone a bit more than it does Harry Crow and Edward Dunning.

There are also two lovely bonus shorts on the CD – the second of which may bring a lump to the throat with the all too brief return of Nicholas Courtney in an old tale of Christmas past.

Verdict: Madcap extraordinary fun. 9/10

Paul Simpson