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Torchwood review: Deadbeat Escape (audio)

By James Aggas

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On a dark and stormy night, Hywel Roberts seeks rest at a strange hotel. Where an old enemy of Torchwood is waiting…

We come to the last of the monthly Torchwood audios, at least until next year. It’s been a pretty strong season overall. We’ve had stories as wonderfully fun and witty as Goodbye Piccadilly. But we’ve also had stories as dark and horrifying as We Always Get Out Alive, too.

Deadbeat Escape definitely falls into the latter. I wonder if James Goss and Guy Adams took a bet on which one could write the scariest story of the season.

Adams’s We Always Get Out Alive is a wonderfully disturbing listen. (Admittedly, “wonderfully disturbing” aren’t two words that you’d usually put together. But keep in mind, I’m a huge fan of horror, and the description suits that story perfectly.)

However, if there’s one story that outdoes it in terms of pure horror, it would definitely be Deadbeat Escape. From the very start, you know that you’re in for something very horrific. Especially since this time, the audio isn’t focused on a member of Torchwood. Instead, it’s focused on one of its most dangerous enemies: Bilis Manger.

Bilis Manger

I say it’s focused on him, but that’s not quite true. He is the key character that makes it a Torchwood audio, yes, but it’s not through his eyes that we see the story.

Which is a good thing: Bilis Manger is definitely a character that works best when he’s shrouded in mystery. In his TV episodes, Captain Jack Harkness and End of Days, we never truly knew his full motives. And even in his previous audio episode, A Kill to a View, we were left wondering what he was up to.

The same is true in Deadbeat Escape. He’s as mysterious, sinister and, perhaps most dangerous of all, charming as ever. Murray Melvin was born to play this role, and it’s clear that he absolutely loves performing it.

Having a completely new character as the key perspective of the episode was a stroke of genius on James Goss’s part. Because not only does the audience have an advantage over the main character by knowing just how evil Manger truly is. It also leaves us uncertain over whether our protagonist will even survive by the end.

Billis Manger returns once more in Deadbeat Escape.

(Image credit: Torchwood/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

Fresh take on a classic horror story

And it’s definitely a character that we want to see survive with Hywel Roberts. Through both Goss’s strong writing and Gareth Pierce’s incredible performance, he’s a really relatable character that we root for.

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Like the audience, he’s not sure what’s going on, at first. So we get to experience the horror and the mystery from his perspective. Of course, when he heads into a mysterious hotel on a dark and stormy night, the audience knows before Hywel does just how bad things are going to be for his character.

James Goss was very clever at using this classic trope for his story. By using something that the audience would be familiar with, he’s not only able to establish a clear sense of atmosphere in the audio medium very quickly. He’s also able to explore the characters within this hotel better, while still providing a fresh take on this classic kind of horror story.

Deadbeat Escape is overall a perfect story to end this current run of monthly Torchwood audios. It’s dark and horrifying, but it also has an incredibly strong emotional core, too.

With both excellent writing from producer James Goss and two perfect performances from both Murray Melvin and Gareth Pierce, even with none of the regular Torchwood members in the story, Deadbeat Escape is still pure Torchwood.

Next. Review: The Wrong Doctors (Sixth and Sixth Doctor audio). dark

Have you listened to Deadbeat Escape? Are you a fan of the character of Bilis Manger? Do you want to hear more from this character? Let us know in the comments below.

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