http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2234093.html

The Skeleton Quay, by Jonathan Morris, is a jolly good ghost story set in an isolated coastal village, with a striking guest performance by Francesca Hunt, who sounded so much like India Fisher that I had to check the credits to see who it was (and it turns out they are sisters). Return of the Repressed, by Matthew Sweet, is i some ways even better; the plot is a bit incoherent, but bringing Adrian Lukis's Sigmund Freud (quite ahistorically) to London to analyse Jago and deal with peculiar bestial manifestations is a brilliant idea, and great fun to listen to.

Then we step down a gear, I'm afraid. It's no great secret that George Mann isn't my favourite writer, and his Military Intelligence didn't change my view; what is actually a rather promising set-up id then let down by an incoherent ending. I listened to it three times and still wasn't sure what was supposed to have happened. I can't blame Mann entirely; he was presumably given a brief to write to, and the implausibilities of our heroes' travails are therefore not to be laid at his door. The final story, The Trial of George Litefoot by Justin Richards, spends most of its time digging its way out of the plot hole that the previous story left our characters in, but does have a gloriously steampunk climactic scene.

Not to worry. It's very nearly worth it for the first two plays alone, and the good bits of the second half (which very much include the core team's performances) almost make up for the deficiencies. But I wish they had finessed the narrative hook between the third and fourth stories better, and perhaps thought out the details of an admittedly improbable situation with more care. ( )