|
Having supposedly been gunned down, Galileo Gamak is surprised
to awaken in an unfamiliar room - is he in the afterlife?
Meanwhile, Colonel Franklin exerts her tyrannical control
of the Space Patrol. And a cleaner gives Madame Deephole's
entrance a good seeing to...
As
you may have gathered from the cast members listed above,
the usual stars of this seedy CD series - Michael Keating,
Gareth Thomas and Nicholas Courtney - are all conspicuous
by their absence during this episode. But, by way of compensation,
we can enjoy the welcome return of Jacqueline Pearce as the
lascivious Madame Deephole. Cindy Rellar also reappears, although
this time she is not played by Sammie Winmill. Just as Cilla
did in Part Three, Cindy wakes up to find that something strange
has happened to her voice, which enables Mark J Thompson to
stand in for Winmill by doing a pretty decent impersonation
of her former performance.
Also
conspicuous by their absence are the usual musical tracks,
although I was never a great fan of these anyway.
In
addition to the return of Pearce, Blake's 7 fans are
in for a further treat, as the mimicry continues courtesy
of the eerily familiar sounding Stellar Network Radio serial,
Jake's Heaven, which is now forced to carry on without
its former star, Jake Avara. It is revealed that Jake and
Jenny (Alison Taffs) are to be replaced by two new celebrity
characters: Chris Tarrant and Dana! The situation in which
Gamak (Mark J Thompson) and his fellow survivors find themselves
at the beginning of the episode is also notably similar to
events in the risible Blake's 7 follow-up novel, Afterlife.
Several
new plot twists and a move away from the surface of Xoolian
Major and the hijacked space cruiser makes for a refreshing
change of emphasis. Never fear, though, for the ever-present
double entendres remain. Indeed, they just get filthier, especially
when Madame D and her alien cleaner Major GrondlePuss (Mark
J Thompson again) get going.
Richard
McGinlay
|
