A mysterious parcel arrives at stately Creighton-Ward Manor – followed by various nefarious visitors…

At last – Anderson Entertainment have taken a leaf out of the Big Finish Avengers playbook and have found a way to create original Thunderbirds stories without actually creating new ones from whole cloth. Just as the BF John Steed stories use the various comics as a launchpad for new adventures, here Ben Page (and Chris Dale in the second story) use the colour comics as the basis, not hesitating to alter where necessary to keep closer to canon.

So here, the package isn’t a test set by Jeff Tracy for Penny as it was originally, it’s connected to “Mr Hackenbacker” – and thank you for making it clear that that’s an alias Brains adopts! That simple change has knock-on effects through the whole story, adding a further set of protagonists (or indeed antagonists at times), as well as the titular villain.

There’s a cameo from Tracy Island, but basically this is a Penny and Parker story, allowing Genevieve Gaunt and Jon Culshaw to have fun – Gaunt’s teasing of the agents is particularly enjoyable as are some of Parker’s asides. Justin T. Lee’s Hood captures the timbre of the villain (and his particularly melodramatic speaking pattern) and Joe Kraemer’s score is an excellent Barry Gray homage, with the orchestration helping to sell the Thunderbirds feel. Samuel Clemens is well versed in treading the fine line between comicbook excess and a series’ natural heightened reality, and reins things in where necessary here.

Verdict: Although it does seem odd to have a “Thunderbirds” release that doesn’t actually feature any of the craft, this is a fun tale from the world of International Rescue. 8/10

Paul Simpson

Click here to order from Big Finish as a download; and from Anderson Entertainment as a CD click here