The most terrifying monster in Torchwood’s 2022 run of stories is a polite older gentleman who likes tea and birdsong.

Starting in the middle, Pringle and Mooney introduce us to Greg, played with genial relentlessness by David Shaw-Parker. He’s a nice chap, likes his house, likes his noises and also really wants Ianto to listen. Listen to all of it. Now.

The UHF ghosts of Sapphire and Steel prowl the upper echelons of this story, looking for escape and finding none. Toby Hrycek-Robinson’s sound design, and Lisa Bowerman’s direction, make the sound the threat, the prison and the solution. It works fantastically, and the sense of the otherworldly overwriting the worldly is folded into time loops, numerical infection and the flat voiced numbers station itself. Tania Rodrigues could well be overlooked when this story releases and I hope that isn’t the case. Shaw-Parker is the anchor but Rodrigues is the cold, unsettling star around which everyone orbits.

Yet again, Gareth David-Lloyd turns in great work here and Ianto has rarely been more pressed than he is in this story. Imprisoned, infected and increasingly unsure there’s a moment towards the end where you really do wonder if he’s going to get out of this. Given what we know about how Ianto’s story ends, that’s a hell of a feat. That end is another one of the ghosts in the static here, Greg and his noise an eerie echo of the 456. Even the eventual reveal, which grounds both Greg and the story, echoes that. The most terrifying monster in Torchwood’s 2022 run of stories isn’t just Greg. It’s what Greg has been forced to become by the same system that will one day kill Ianto. Victims both, but only one is a monster, even if he’s been driven that way.

Verdict: The Lincolnshire Poacher is yet another in Torchwood’s startlingly good run of stories and honestly you should pay close attention to anything any member of this team put out, it’s all this good. The story is based loosely on fact and you can find out more below. Just, listen in daylight… 10/10

Alasdair Stuart

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Numbers Stations

The Lincolnshire Poacher