An encounter with an alien race with a very unusual method of communication puts everyone in UNIT to the test…

I said when I reviewed his contribution earlier this year to the Early Adventures that I’d be keeping an eye out for David K. Barnes’ name on a Big Finish audio – and his second released story is one of the most powerful done yet in the UNIT series. Where Chris Chapman’s Wirrn tale was a big-screen UNIT extravaganza, Breach of Trust is a much more personal story, one that, were it to be on TV, could be done as a “bottle show”, almost, with 99 percent of the action taking place within UNIT’s base at the Tower of London. Starting with Kate putting someone firmly in their place for their breach of their position, and ending with one of the best moral dilemmas to be put in front of our heroes (and one that has far too many similarities with current day Earth politics to be comfortable), it’s a story about a situation that has no right answer, where public duty has to be set against personal feelings, and there can be no winners.

Add to that one of the cleverest ideas we’ve had in some time for the aliens’ communication – I’d love to see how this was described in the script in terms of instructions to the sound designer/composer when they were interpreting the “speech” prior to Osgood’s machine kicking in – and fantastic performances across the board (James Joyce’s scene when he’s being told to tell a child a terrible truth is painfully hard to listen to and has haunted me since), and you can see why I’ve given this top marks (which may be the first time three consecutive stories in a set have done so!)

Verdict: Morally complex and dealing with the shades of grey that come with the position Kate Stewart holds, this is gripping, excellent drama. 10/10

Paul Simpson