Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Christopher Benjamin, Trevor Baxter, Louise Jamieson, Conrad Asquith, Lisa Bowerman, Warren Brown, Andrew Westfield, Alex Mallinson.

Series Three of Jago and Litefoot, the popular spin-off from Doctor Who and made by Big Finish, greets with open arms an old friend to the Victorian world of amateur detective detection as Leela, the fourth Doctor’s incarnation’s noble savage, appears to warn her old friends that the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

Dead Men’s Tales by Justin Richards is a departure from Series One and Two in that there is no introduction of an enemy, no scoundrel on the loose to cover the four part arc, however with cleverness that you would associate with any writer working on the Big Finish range of audio dramas, that just makes it all the more special. Justin Richards weaves the plot together as if the series was re-booting, starting over with a flourish of ghostly apparitions that seem to be scaring the local population who make their living down by the docks.  The wet men, so they are called by the locals, are after just one thing and it isn’t anything that the intrepid trio are able to foresee.

What makes the story move along is of course the re-introduction of Leela, once more played by the outstanding Louise Jamieson, to Jago and Litefoot. The nods to the past are exquisite, well written and performed with a sense of glee in the three actor’s voices. It is heartening to hear the way Leela tries to fit into her new surroundings as she struggles with complexity of the London Cockney rhyming slang and her Eliza Doolittle transformation from savage to opera attendee and to the final alteration in the name of solving the mystery to an East End bar-maid with all the social graces of a lion at a gazelles only dinner party. Only the superb Louise Jamieson could capture all that warmth, all the humour and sense of timing that was required to carry Dead Men’s Tales off to the great start that it is.

Not that the story hangs entirely on Leela of course, that would be doing a huge disservice to Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter. Both men are again on fine form as they take on the tight but ultimately fascinating script and give it the due respect it deserves. In a world in which seems to value the idea of the older established acting fraternity being given the brush off when it comes to lead roles, Big Finish really know how to give two of the most delightful companions that Doctor Who had their rightful place in the sun.

Dead Men’s Tales is available as part of Series Three of Jago & Litefoot stories by Big Finish. It is available to purchase from Worlds Apart on Lime Street, Liverpool.

Ian D. Hall