Vila is shanghaied into working on a heist – with the Terra Nostra all too involved…

Robert Valentine gives us the second of this box set of Blake’s 7 adventures that picks up on another repercussion of the crew’s encounter with the Terra Nostra in Shadow. Vila’s away from the rest of his shipmates and easy pickings for Kyzer Frik, who needs someone with Vila’s skillset to take on his enemies – and while we recognise who they’re likely to be early on (the box set title is a Clue) the characters pick up on the information that they discover. Slowly but surely Vila finds himself in a situation that he’s been in before – but this time there’s a different sociopath stalking him…

Michael Keating sheds the years to give us a Vila that could have been picked up from 1980 and dropped in the recording studio – there’s the audio equivalent of a raised eyebrow that tells us that Vila understands all too well what he’s got himself involved in, and is looking for the nearest exit… until, of course, he becomes embroiled in the intricacies of the heist he’s been hired to carry out, at which point his innate professionalism kicks in. And when it comes to survival, there are few better than he…

Jamie Robertson’s sound design keeps us firmly in the Blake’s 7 universe while director Lisa Bowerman and producer Peter Anghelides bring together another strong cast, with Ariyon Bakare and Shvorne Marks in particular impressing in roles that could easily have become pulp fiction.

Verdict: A heist tale with some enjoyable twists. 8/10

Paul Simpson

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