Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: David Warner, Susannah Harker, Richard Franklin, Tom Bevan, Eric MacLennan, Helen Goldwyn.
Time has a curious hold over humanity, other creatures may adhere to nature’s environmental clock, somehow bringing life to the world on a specific day such as when flying ants take to the skies or when salmon return to their spawning grounds. However, humanity is defined by how its spends each hour, every minute, the days and years in which it is alive and is judged for it, is derided if one single second is misused or wasted in the pursuit of the wrong career, not enough exercise, not reading enough, throwing a day away without having created art; the knives come out and the loudest condemnation is unavoidably proclaimed.
Each person has all the time to use Time how they wish, to be governed by the clock and the moments in between the tick and the tock is The Surest Poison that not only goes against nature but arguably is addictive, obsessed over by all in society, down to the microsecond we are consumed by Time itself.
Richard Dinnick’s enticing and detailed audio drama, The Surest Poison, for Big Finish is a perfect example of how sublime the merging of science fiction and historical fact can work together well, indeed become such a marvellous piece of art in its own right that it makes the listener desire to know more about the subject matter that has been played out for them.
Such is the effect of Time on Sapphire and Steel that the application of a time piece forged by a mind consumed with perfecting the way in which humanity regulates how it spends the day, is always going to leave a crack in the very fabric of Time itself, the perfect trigger for the darkness to come forth and devour the soul and bring forth possible destruction for thew world.
Richard Dinnick’s use of Abraham-Louis Breguet in the four-part tale is not only one of wonder and examination, but also a presentation of how a person can be so driven by their work, by their own mind’s conjecture and deliberation of invention, is such that the only path they can possibly tread is one of damnation, that they forget to live in the present, for the very moment in which they breath.
Such insight is to be applauded, and whilst Time in the hands of the inventor has been a motivation to spur humanity onto pushing the boundaries of science and exploration, it has also been the crux of exploitation, that people are tied to a clock has proved in the end that humanity is not in charge of Time, but instead is a slave.
The Surest Poison is an audio drama that would arguably would have sat comfortably in the presence of its television forebearer; an exquisite script, precisely measured for tone and consistency, an antidote to the expectation of Time on our hands.
Ian D. Hall