You can pick up all sorts in Cardiff at night – but for Fawzia, she’s never had a passenger, or a night, quite like this…

David Llewellyn’s latest main range Torchwood audio focuses on Toshiko Sato, as she desperately tries to find the person who’s taken a device, which could not only put him in danger but everyone in the vicinity. It’s told in the main from the point of view of the taxi driver, Fawzia, whose life outside her profession we pick up in snippets of conversation along the way.

It’s a pleasantly linear story, setting up the situation, throwing in some complications, and apparent gaps and then resolving it in time for something that’s really unusual in Torchwood (and no, I’m not saying what that is). Naoko Mori and Suzanne Packer make a good pairing, and in the same way that sleuths of old used to have a “cabbie” on call when they needed to pursue someone (or in other words, the same actor had a semi-regular role), it would be great to hear Fawzia return (and if she does, can we have a cab on the cover that reflects the car she’s driving?)

Lisa Bowerman ratchets up the tension as required, and Toby Hrycek-Robinson’s sound design transports us from the madness of the last train arriving to underground hideouts.

Verdict: Emily Cook’s first production works well providing a different view of Cardiff. 8/10

Paul Simpson

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