Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Christopher Benjamin, Trevor Baxter, Lisa Bowerman, Vernon Dobtchef, David Collings, Alex Mallinson.
One of the most powerful images of pre-20th Century medical advancement is that of the body-snatcher, the ghoulish purveyors of the recently deceased and comfortable in their new home six feet underground to the medical profession, especially those of impoverished students for research purposes has never been looked at favourably or with rose tinted eyes. What it has done though has given cinema and audio drama the great lease of life in which to scare audience’s silly.
The Necropolis Express sees Jago and Litefoot take on the nefarious deeds of Reuben Mord, a disgraced former colleague of Professor Litefoot and his plans to raise an army for the coming British Empire but as always someone or something is pulling the strings from further behind the screen. With the pair of amateur detectives keen to save their former friend Ellie Higson from a fate worse than the death she has already endured, it seems the Victorian heroes have once more stepped into an adventure that they are ill-prepared to face.
Mark Morris’ script is a true delight, a labour of love to two characters that the script writer faithfully acknowledges that he has grown up adoring from their only screen adventure in the 1970s. His characterisation of Christopher Benjamin’s slightly faint-hearted but decent theatre impresario Henry Gordon Jago is pure gold and whilst the Professor gets the majority of the physical action, it is the rumbustious and vocabulary exuberant Jago who steals the best lines as if he taking the family silver out of the house with the blessing of the home owner. For a man who only played the part for a brief short time during the television adventure The Talons Of Weng-Chiang Christopher Benjamin seems to have stored up the pent up frustration of having this great individual in his C.V. and is now letting loose with a great flurry of vigorous language that the Doctor himself would no doubt appreciate.
Every detective needs an adversary and whilst David Collings’s superb portrayal of Gabriel Sanders, the vampire bent on domination, only appears briefly towards the end of this episode, the air of absolute menace that haunts the church yard, the smell of death and decay that creeps into the nostrils like a phantom before exploding the senses is palpable and unmistakeable throughout.
This second instalment of Jago and Litefoot’s series of adventures may rely on less actors to convey the story-line but it none the less is a rip roaring yarn that strikes at the very heart of one of the basic fears of humanity, the un-dead given life and out of control and for that Mark Morris should look upon his work with a semblance of pride.
The Necropolis Express is available to purchase from Worlds Apart on Lime Street as part of Jago and Litefoot Series 2.
Ian D. Hall