Returning from their journey to a parallel world, Jago and Litefoot hope that they’re back in their London – but the presence of a large balloon in the sky would suggest otherwise…

Four years or so after we were scheduled to be listening to the latest set of adventures for Henry Gordon Jago and Professor Litefoot, we finally get a chance to catch up with their investigation of the Red Hand. This set has had a convoluted genesis – Ian Atkins commissioned the stories as producer on the range but it became clear that Trevor Baxter was not going to be well enough to record them, and sadly died in 2017. Incoming producer Alfie Shaw has overseen the novelisations of the scripts into audiobook format, and their recording by four excellent narrators, with Jamie Newall taking up the baton for the opener, Paul Morris’ adaptation of his and Simon Barnard’s script.

We start with the most appropriate dedication and then it feels like coming home. Newall is a skilled impersonator and there’s more than once you’ll really believe that Baxter and Christopher Benjamin have recorded their lines (Ellie, it must be said, is a little shriller than Lisa Bowerman normally lets her be). The script is a corker, as Jago might say, with some lovely Easter eggs (something inevitably lands in the “vicinity of Sloane Square”), and the threat that’s established is large enough that you’re relieved rather than annoyed when it’s clear that it’s going to stretch for more than just this episode.

It’s good to have some more emphasis on Jago’s theatrical background at the New Regency Theatre (and the Palace on one occasion!) and you can just see him importuning the Lord Mayor at an important function to get him to agree to open facilities at the theatre. There’s also some nice callbacks to earlier adventures, and some of the character developments therein, alongside an appropriately levelled sound design from Richard Fox.

Verdict: Deserving of a much warmer welcome than they receive at the Red Tavern, it’s great to have more adventures for Jago and Litefoot – albeit in an effectively extended time. 9/10

Paul Simpson

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