A queen and her maid crashland on a planet seeking the legendary Captain Jack…

With a brief exception at the very end of this story, this is a three hander for John Barrowman, Jessica Hayles and Joanna Van Kampen, and it’s a very different script from Tim Foley than you might imagine from a story that kicks off with a crashlanding and then the search for the mythical hero who’s going to save the day. It actually becomes an affecting look at the perils of immortality – not least the effect of seeing those who aren’t blessed/cursed with it growing old and dying. Two of the three lead characters in this have that ability; the third believes she wants it.

It’s a very different way of looking at Jack – it’s an element that did come to the fore occasionally in the TV series, but audio is able to show that passage of time considerably more easily than visually, and director Scott Handcock and sound designer Steve Foxon use some neat tricks to evoke the passage of time. (There’s one particular line from a seasonal song that I’ll be happy not to hear again for some time to come after listening to this!)

Verdict: A bittersweet tale, and one that may well stick in your memory a lot longer than many of the more traditional stories featuring Jack. 9/10

Paul Simpson

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