Torchwood: The Victorian Age

Writer: AK Benedict
Director: Scott Handcock
Script Editor: Steve Tribe
Cover Illustration: Lee Binding
Music: Blair Mowat
Sound Design: Kelly Ellis
Producer: James Goss

Starring John Barrowman & Rowena Cooper
Released March 2016

The Victorian Age is the next in the series of ride along-style releases from the single-disc Torchwood audio range produced by Big Finish - with the gimmick of pairing John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness with the institute's founder, Queen Victoria. As Rowena Cooper, who plays the monarch, puts it so succinctly, this story is "mad and wonderful."

The basic setup is of a scheduled inspection gone wrong - so wrong that it ends up with the Queen pursuing an alien menace across London. These are entertaining trappings to frame the fairly standard central narrative of a parasite stealing energy from the youthful to rejuvenate itself and, in the process, seemingly ageing its victims years in seconds.

But that isn't what's important here. AK Benedict's title has at least three implications. First, of course, is that this is something of an examination of Torchwood, and Jack, in the nineteenth century. It is amusing to note Scott Handcock's casting of Benedict and real-life partner Guy Adams as the two staff completing the institute's Victorian line-up. Jack is slightly tamer here than in other releases, particularly in his deference and respect of the Queen, reflecting the time in his life where he's still coming to terms with his new existence. The title's second meaning relates to the ageing/de-ageing nature of the creature terrorising London. The third examines the Queen's attitudes to growing old, and her subjects' view of her and the monarchy. Playing all of these threads in parallel is deftly handled but the story raises more questions than it answers. Happily, it also gave rise to at least another three releases for Cooper as Queen Victoria.

The sound design and music are expertly deployed, with some special era-appropriate compositions from Blair Mowat. Although some of the effects played in, such as horses' repeated whinnying, don't always bear much scrutiny, they seem intended more to bring the listener into the next part of the story than accurately represent a historical event. That said, they are always of the highest quality, remarkably crisp and well-designed so you are never in any doubt where something is occurring.

For an hour in the company of Queen Victoria: alien hunter, this is a highly entertaining ride. Although there is a little too much telling and not enough showing, and Louise Jameson threatens to ruin several scenes with a performance that is varying degrees of awful, The Victorian Age is a comforting distraction that will leave you wanting to hear more from this era.