Big Finish Reviews+ The Scarifyers by "Green Tentacles of Death"

This month we venture into another series of audios, The Scarifyers, a Cosmic Hobo production, but happily enough Big Finish has took them under their umbrella.

There are many stories in this run of audios and they are all available from Big Finish.

The review this month is of the first story The Nazad Conspiracy.

Christmas 1936.

Ghost story writer Professor Dunning (Terry Molloy) doesn't believe in the supernatural. So he's more than surprised when an invisible winged demon appears in his drawing room.

The Metropolitan Police's longest-serving officer, Inspector Lionheart (Nicholas Courtney), doesn't believe in the supernatural either, wings or no wings. So he's less than impressed when Russian émigrés begin dying impossible deaths all over London.

Together, Lionheart and Dunning must face quarrelsome Generals, sinister clowns and Russian demons as they unravel the Nazad Conspiracy.

I have to admit, I am in total love with this series of audios, as I first caught them on Radio 4 Extra, on its wonderful show the 7th Dimension.  Okay 7th I hear you say, well the station changed name from BBC Radio 7 to 4 Extra.  Hosted by the lovely and talented Nicholas Briggs and a raft of science fictions fanatics, one Toby Hadoke to mention.

This first story starts off making you laugh, then cry with laughter, then snort with laughter, go red and choke, okay maybe that was just me at the end.  Nicholas Courtney always played the straight man, but in this straightish I would say, as he cracks jokes with the best of them.  The character he plays suits him perfectly and with just a hint of the Brigadier to keep Who fans cooing.  Now the real star of the show has to be Toby, *cough* sorry Terry Molloy, this man is amazing.  Terry starts you off on the long track of understanding with such charm and pose that you can’t help but love him.  Now most of us would have known Terry as either Davros or from his Archers show, but from now on he is Professor Dunning, that sweet lovable intelligent bumbling man who knows the answer but fails to grasp the importance.

Also in this show is a character of Aleister Crowley, the most evil man in the world or is he?  Played to perfection by the vocal talents of David Benson, readers of this column will know that name from Iris Wildthyme, where he plays a bad tempered Panda (not Bear).  David takes this character and makes you laugh and cry and love him just as much as the main characters, to me that is an art form so rarely used nowadays.

So come away with Lionheart, Dunning and Crowley and have a barking experience with the ‘Scarifyers’.