The Theatre of Dreams

I listened to this audio all in one go last night, and what can I say? Well, I'll try and describe my feelings for this audio. Here goes:

The Theatre of Dreams was an absolutely stupendous audio, and I wasn't surprised to find that it was written by Johnathan Morris. Besides Bloodtide, I've loved every one of his audios that I've heard. He's truly Big Finish's best writer. (He created Flip, after all.)

A slightly scary, mind-warping premise, I loved nearly every minute of this audio, especially because it contained Duncan Wisbey's Ormond Sacker. Holy cow, the man's voice is just delicious. I haven't listened to series 1 yet (naughty me!), so this was my first outing with Sacker. I found myself looking forward to his scenes and wishing there were more of them.

Litefoot seemed at his most vulnerable here. He usually knows what's going on before any of the other characters (just look at Litefoot and Saunders), but in this one he was pretty confused for most of it. Even at the end, he wasn't quite sure whether or not he was still dreaming. Neither was I, which I'm sure is what Morris was aiming for. It was really sweet that his greatest wish was helping Ellie, but I was secretly hoping (curse my annoying shipper heart!) that his greatest wish was getting together with Jago. (They seemed to go by first-name basis a lot in this audio. Hmm.)

Speaking of which, the beginning of this audio, bizarrely enough, contains a gay character. I was absolutely delighted, and it was handled well--because as far as I know, that was absolutely not approved of back then. Unless, of course, you were rich, in which case people tend not to pry.

Funny Jago, of course. Lots of people love him, but as proved by his greatest wish, he can be quite selfish at times. On the upside, this makes his brave and clever moments all the more wonderful--and he has a few of this in Theatre.

The supporting characters, Madame Deuteronomy and Fosco, were pretty scary at times, especially Fosco's laugh. Morris's production notes, I think, mentions how delighted (and scared) everyone in the recording studio was when Alex Mallinson did that laugh for the first time. As well they should have been.

All in all, this was an amazing episode, proving once again that Jago & Litefoot is one of Big Finish's best outputs. Certainly the most consistently good.