Adam is in the clutches of a man who wants to destroy him. Pat Hamilton doesn’t quite know where he is or why he’s being asked so many questions…

OK, this is one of the weirdest episodes of a Big Finish drama yet – it’s as if George Markstein had popped into Verity Lambert’s office and said, “Can I just borrow your character to put him through some mental torture so I can see exactly where the line is before I finish writing any Prisoner scripts?” Whereas elements of the earlier stories could have fit within the original show, this one simply couldn’t – it deals with a lot of issues that simply were swept under the carpet in the decade that this show was originally produced.

It’s not easy listening (and I really don’t advise doing so if you’re travelling to and from a hospital visit!) but there’s a definite throughline as Adam maintains his sense of identity with the aid of his own inner demons even as Dr Milligan tries to “rid” him of them. It’s somewhere between brainwashing and mental torture and there’s a reassuringly mundane reason for it breaking down (as inevitably it must – or the third disc would be blank!).

Blake Ritson gets put through the wringer in Guy Adams’ script and Nicholas Asbury switches his performance on a dime. I’m hoping that with this sorted out, the series can revert to the swashbuckling debonair charm that we glimpsed in the third episode of the last set – at the very least, the characters deserve a break!

Verdict: Tough listening, but kudos to Ritson, Asbury and director Nicholas Briggs for pulling it off. 7/10

Paul Simpson

Click here to order Face Off from Big Finish