The Sonny units are going to revolutionize care for the elderly. Gentle, efficient and able to learn they’re the perfect carer. Torchwood, and Gwen, are of course suspicious and Rhys is asked for a favour: put his mum Brenda in a home with a Sonny and see what happens. Everyone is prepared. No one is ready.

This is an incredibly dangerous kind of story to do. It’s one of those songs we all know the words to and there’s an almost Pixar-like sense as the episode opens, of something terrible being on the way. Part of that is because Torchwood deal with terrible before they finish answering their email. The rest is the simple, horrifying truth that eventually we all age and sometimes, we age badly. You go in braced for sadness and loss of innocence and tragedy. You go in preparing to be upset in a good way.

What you get instead is so much better.

This sort of story is Torchwood at its best and Kai Owen and Nerys Hughes are on absolute top form here. Owen has always been an instantly likable, pragmatic leading man and here he brings not only that but a welcome complexity. This is Rhys’ mum. He’s not happy with what he’s being asked to do or face but he also instantly falls into the same behaviour pattern as the other relatives. Out of sight isn’t out of mind, but it’s definitely out of sight. Rhys is a fundamentally good man and Owen has rarely been more likable than he is here but Rhys is also flawed and Owen shows us that too.

Nerys Hughes is drama royalty, there is really no other way to put it. She attacks the script with the same gusto Brenda goes about her red sauce (if Rhys would ever bloody remember it) and like Owen excels at finding the layers in Lizzy Hopley’s clever, intimate script. Brenda is Welsh brass through and through but she’s also aware this is a situation she could face one day. Her scenes with Owen crackle with cheerfully belligerent affection but also real fear, and not just  of the A.I. in the corner either.

Now, let’s talk about Sonny. Steven Kynman, like his castmates, brings an extra dimension that lifts the character beautifully. His Sonny is a sharp-edged puppy, not quite sure of boundaries or who or what they are but absolutely motivated to become… something. There’s a brittle air to him that slowly evolves as he does and the middle act of the play is especially good, where Sonny becomes a distinctly passive aggressive carer and clashes with Rhys. There’s an alien quality to him but it’s only alien in that he isn’t flawed. The uncanny valley in audio form, beautifully played and beautifully described by Hopley’s script and Lisa Bowerman’s excellent direction. Special mention too to the sound design by Toby Hrycek-Robinson. I’ve been in homes like this, and the rooms, the outside spaces, all of it feels and sounds familiar.

The real surprise here isn’t the quality: this is Torchwood, one of Big Finish’s most consistently excellent lines. Rather it’s that this story goes places you never see coming. Life finds a way, like the man once said and everyone involve finds themselves facing the same problem and solving it in a way that’s as flawed and interesting and real as they are and as Sonny is becoming. I’d love to see a follow up, because this leaves Brenda especially in a fascinating place, but if we don’t get one this is more than enough. Like Sonny, it changes a difficult conversation about how to tell stories like this and, like Sonny, its brittle edges are only the beginning.

Verdict: Witty, clever, kind science fiction filled with ideas and character and absolutely a gold standard in a range increasingly made of them. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart

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