A call for help from the Moon sets in motion a series of problematic events for International Rescue…

This third dramatized Thunderbirds story, featuring the new cast led by Jon Culshaw and Genevieve Gaunt, is based on the hardback story penned by John Theydon. (Well, actually the original World Distributors version is credited to John W. Jennison, Theydon’s real name, but – one suspects for simplicity – Anderson Entertainment’s version of the book and audio is listed as by Theydon, to go with all the other stories that Jennison wrote under that name.) The Armada paperbacks – Thunderbirds, Calling Thunderbirds and Ring of Fire – have been quite easy to pick up over the years but, at least in my experience, copies of this and its sequel, Lost World, are scarcer.

Intriguingly, it’s far more the sort of story that Thunderbirds Are Go! would do rather than the original TV series, with the repercussions of a rescue leading to a different type of tale. The Mole needs to be transported to the lunar surface, but that presents an opportunity for The Hood, who manages to inveigle his way into the space freighter, but that goes off course and…. Somehow we end up with the lovely image of Parker being the advance guard for the invasion of a Tibetan base. Along the way, there’s some interesting insights into The Hood and apparent total ignorance on his part that Tin-Tin is his niece! It’s a story that provides ample opportunity for the ensemble cast – we have a novel pilot for Thunderbird 2, for instance.

Ross Arrowsmith’s audio adaptation loses some of the very 1960s phraseology – and presumably the accompanying version of the novel does too (sorry, but I invested in a copy of the original!) – but it’s very faithful, excising unnecessary description where the audio will make things clear (and correcting the odd error – one of the boys asked Grandma to make ‘steak and fried’… it becomes the more logical ‘steak and fries’). As with the first story, there’s a mix of performances, some purely capturing the spirit of the original cast, others far closer vocally, which once again takes a little getting used to. However director Samuel Clemens tightens things up and Joe Kraemer’s score is much closer to the Barry Gray originals in feel, as the music suite at the end demonstrates. There’s still a little too much use of the same bits, but I suspect budgetary constraints for that.

Verdict: A much slicker production for an intriguingly unknown slice of Thunderbirds history. 8/10

Paul Simpson

Click here to order the audio from Big FInish