Eight hours ago, three students found their way into a network of caves that have been closed for close to a century. The mountain rescue team gearing up to rescue them are highly trained, highly motivated and not ready for what’s waiting for them down there. Rhys (Kai Owen) has a map. He’s not ready either.

One of the hills I cheerfully die on is the truth that every element of a creative team is vital. Every form of media we interact with undervalues someone involved in the process. This year’s Hugos, at last, went a long way towards reversing that with the way that large scale creative teams were honoured. Now we just need more comics journalists to understand what letterers and colourists do and more film journalists to understand that cinematographers and screenwriters are a thing. Oh and audio journalists to understand and honour what sound designers do and how they can make a production.

Which brings us to the extraordinary work everyone involved in The Hollow Choir has done, starting with sound designer Shane O’Byrne. From the moment Rhys and Simon go into the caves the location is a character here. Caverns echo and dwarf their voices, a sequence where Rhys’ ears are blocked will spike your anxiety as massively as it does his and then there’s the singing. The constant, off-kilter, too low and too slow singing that draws everyone into the caves becomes the canvas for the drama to play out across. It’s deeply, honestly unsettling. it’s hypnotic. It’s key to the whole story and it’s something only sound designers can do. Massive kudos to Shane.

With that foundational choice, the rest of the story builds to something truly special. Bethany Weimers is a great director, adept at giving her actors the canvas they need to work on and that leads to extraordinary performances from the entire cast. Cerith Flinn and Olivia Forrest don’t have large roles here but they feel tangible and real and fragile, normal humans swept up in a story way too big for them.  Simon Armstrong’s Simon is just as interesting and given far more room, a highly competent and deeply troubled man who finds the caves echoing his wors failings and magnifying them back at him. Again, he’s painfully mortal, but cheerfully, grimly familiar with the caves in the way Rhys is not. His pragmatism is what drives a lot of the story, defining the path both he and Rhys take through the caves.

Kai Owen has always been good, even when the material the early years of the show gave him very often was not. As is discussed in the excellent interview segment, Rhys is a character who has been extremely well served by the show’s audio iteration, given the time and opportunity to grow. Much like fellow Emergency Normal Person Andy, Rhys isn’t remotely equipped for what he has to go through. He does it anyway, and Malcolm Devlin & Helen Marshall’s script explores just why head on.

The moment Rhys describes himself as expendable locks everything we’ve seen him go through into a different, immensely poignant focus. This isn’t a world Rhys ever wanted to or expected to be in. But he is, and he loves his wife and loves his daughter and if he has to die to keep them safe then that’s just what he’s going to do. This alone would be enough, but the script is confident enough, and more than clever enough to jump off from that into something much deeper. Rhys and Simon are very similar men. Their journey from antagonists to allies to Simon realizing what Rhys can’t is some of the most emotional, perceptive writing this series has ever produced, in any iteration. Also some of the most Welsh and if you don’t tear up at Rhys and Simon singing their way through the nightmarish caverns of the story I’ll be immensely surprised.

Verdict: It feels like every time there’s a new release in the Torchwood monthly release I say it’s one of the best yet. That’s because it’s usually true. This range is one of the most consistently innovative, wildly creative and intelligent series Big Finish put out. It’s the platonic ideal of how you write in a franchise like this for so long and keep it interesting and vital. Every story matters. Every creative matters. And here, more than ever, they’ve put together something very special. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart

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