Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Anthony Howell, Julian Wadham, Lucy Briggs-Owen, Oliver Cotton, Philip Bretherton, Andrew Dickens, Daniel O’Meara, Dan Starkey, Karina Fernandez, Michael Chance.

The insurance business, like any other involving risk and money, is always one that has both its admirers and its detractors. To some who feel as though they have been placed into a corner and had their livelihoods threatened by such practices, the steepness of premiums, of the loss that could be potentially involved is something that rankles with the fury of a volcano but to which hardly can ever be done; after all everybody needs insuring for something.

John Dorney’s adaptation of Lewis Davidson’s A Change of Bait is a cracking episode into which the practices of such insurance are carefully examined and shown to be nothing more than a step up from the gangland practices of protection that dominated the British high street for many decades, the back hander that greases many palms and stops a business from somehow catching fire in the night.

With both Steed and Dr. Keel back in the action after the fairly average start to the fourth box set, the pace of the action and the story line is heightened exponentially, it really is a tremendous asset to any audio production when the drama is captured by those the listener trusts to do the job and to frame completely the story line in the listener’s mind.

The task of such an undertaking though is only as good as the supporting characters and in Philip Bretherton as the crooked Potts and Oliver Cotton giving a very admirable performance as a man under extreme pressure and his health at breaking point in the personage as Archie Duncan, the story line is one that really feels as though it has been completely revitalised and lovingly adapted.

Even the thought of such practices now spring to mind as the layered issue that steed and the good Doctor back on an even keel and whilst A Change of Bait lures the listener in, the story itself could very easily be transferred to modern day Britain, especially one that finds itself at the whim of commercialism and volatile markets.

A much more impressive piece to which John Dorney’s work in adapting should be congratulated.

A Change Of Bait is available to purchase as part of The Avengers: The Lost Episodes Volume 4 Box Set from Worlds Apart, Liverpool.

Ian D. Hall