Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Annabel Baldwin, Jon Culshaw, Jack Myers, Hannah Brown, Alan Cox, Abigail Cruttenden, Mark Elstob, Louise Faulkner, Jason Forbes, Harriet Kershaw, Tom Kiteley, George Naylor, Andrew James Spooner, Sam Stafford.
When the American Science Fiction series Vwas aired on British television, it caused a sensation for those with the foresight to sit down and take in the spectacle and dynamic of a storyline that is one of the finest examples of alien invasion to ever be part of television history.
It is the subterfuge of the piece, the allusion, in no way subtle, to the evil and threat of fascism and Nazism of Hitler’s Germany, that made it so appealing a watch, a reminder that no matter what we must resist the charm of those bearing gifts that look like us, act like us, but are in fact monsters dressed in uniforms and lies.
Big Finish’s adaption of the series, V UK, is one that adheres to the premise and the tense unearthed emotions that original asked of the viewers to explore in the mid-1980s, and gives them the opportunity to understand just how fierce a fight it could have been had the action and the fight for freedom been set in one of the homes of modern science fiction and not in the heat and roar of the sun kissed lands of California; how the sense of dystopian, almost H.G. Wells like approach could have seen the series dominated by the undercurrent of red brick and soot in the air despair could have added an element of grim realisation to the drama unfolding.
The second series of the audio drama, V UK: Occupation brings together many of the classic elements of the original television version, and with a tremendous sense of underplayed humour, especially with the inclusion of Visitor Willy, voiced by Jon Cuslhaw, and with sincere homage to the great Robert Englund who played the part with touching playfulness on T.V., and it is one that drives home the issues faced by those in the country at the time of the near certainty of invasion from the forces of darkness in the 1940s, and asks of modern audiences to reflect on the huge differences being faced today.
Through this three-part story line that makes up the box set, the terror of being occupied is prevalent, it raises the tension in the mind of just how we react to such a notion, and perhaps it might be good for some to understand this a little more, to feel empathy for what the characters, the human beings are facing in the face of absolute carnage and obliteration.
A decently told continuation of the serial, V UK: Occupation is the very British answer to that which America made cool, given extra credence as memory is long and the scars of oppression run deep on both sides of the issue.
Ian D. Hall