Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Paul Darrow, Michael Keating.
With its distinctive theme tune and great stories, it is no wonder that Blake’s 7, like Sapphire and Steel and Space 1999 became interwoven into the fabric of British society in the 1970s. Televised Science Fiction was having its golden era, alongside the only programme of the day to carry on into the 21st Century, Doctor Who. This was a halcyon time for anybody who regarded the genre as essential viewing and who would make time into their busy lives to see what happened next to the likes of Johanna Lumley and David McCallum in Sapphire and Steel, Space 1999’s Martin Landau, Barbara Bain and Catherine Schell and Blake’s 7, Paul Darrow, Gareth Thomas, Michael Keating and Sally Knyvette.
Big Finish, the makers behind the new Doctor Who adventures which star the likes of Paul McGann and Colin Baker, have turned their productive eye over many of the old favourites of British television, including Sapphire and Steel and Sherlock Holmes but none perhaps come as close to the feel of the television series they represent as their new stories for Blake’s 7.
The Liberator Chronicles reintroduces the audience to the lives of the six people who have either blood on their hands or the profits of thievery in their chequered past but who come to stand for hope in the universe that has come under the control of the Federation. Whilst the programme in its day played up to the idea that these six differing desperados, plus the on board computer Zen, were freedom fighters fighting against an system that could be seen now as a much a threat against individuality as Terry Nation’s greatest creation, The Daleks, the audio series makes the narrative seem more plausible, more claustrophobic, more menacing than could probably be expected in the late 1970s and early 80s.
The first of the three stories that make up Series One of The Liberator Chronicles is an engaging story which uses the full expertise of Paul Darrow, a classic actor who could still shine above many of today’s burgeoning and exceptional talent and a voice who can still captivate and intimidate the listener as the narrator of The Turing Test. The Turing Test pays homage to one of the great heroes of World War Two, the man, among many others of brave individuals who fought a war with their brains and whose intelligence and understanding of computers led to the war being turned finally against the forces of Fascism that stalked the nightmares of creator Terry Nation.
The story sees Paul Darrow’s Avon and Michael Keating’s Vila land on a remote planet where they have intelligence that suggests a new type of android is in existence in the shape of a young girl. With the smell of profit and arrogance in the nose of leader Rog Blake, the two men are sent to act as scientist and android, to infiltrate the compound and steal the new machine. Where the story allows to itself to separate from the television series is by placing Paul Darrow right at the heart of the narrative. The sometimes cumbersome and clunky feel of the series was due to the amount of actor’s vying for space in the show’s format. In audio, especially in The Liberator Chronicles that confinement of lines is taken away and the natural setting of Avon’s dubious duplicity is able to come to the forefront.
It is never a hardship to listen to Paul Darrow, his inflection and tone of voice make him a joy to listen to; even when portraying a man who you wouldn’t exactly trust with your life. In The Turing Test those years of acting on stage in some excellent and commanding parts all come tumbling out and makes the series of audios well worth exploring.
Terry Nation’s Blake’s 7: The Liberator Chronicles is available to purchase from Worlds Apart on Lime Street, Liverpool.
Ian D. Hall