It’s Del Tarrant’s wedding anniversary – and someone has come to visit…

Steve Lyons’ tale focused around Tarrant and Avon is based around a particular idea that could very easily fall apart on audio – but which also ironically works best there. It’s down to some clever direction by John Ainsworth and sound design by Luke Pietnik that it succeeds as well as it does.

There’s no easy way to review this without spoilers so if you’ve not listened to it yet, then it’s a story that provides character insight into both Tarrant and Avon – and the relationship between the two of them – with Steven Pacey and Paul Darrow giving powerful performances alongside Lisa Bond’s Queen Janylle and Cliff Chapman’s Tyrric.

Spoilers follow

Usually, you’d want some way to delineate between the ‘contemporary’ scenes and those set in the ‘future’ (ie in the dream web), but the story depends on the listener not always knowing which is which – or indeed who the person is who’s experiencing the dream. You’d expect that to cause confusion, but Ainsworth and Pietnik ensure that that’s not the case: you’re only uncertain for as long as you need to be.

Verdict: A clever idea that works well. 8/10

Paul Simpson

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