Heritage: The Screaming Ceiling

"I demand to see your spooks!"

Writer: Guy Adams

Format: Audio

Released: October 2019

Series: Paternoster Gang 2.02

Featuring: Vastra, Jenny, Strax

Synopsis

In one of the earliest cases of his illustrious career, Thomas Carnacki heads to the Highlands to embark upon the terrifying investigation of Castle Kraighten.

On arrival, he finds that another party of sleuths has been engaged – surely these amateurs of Paternoster Row have nothing to teach the great Ghost Finder?

But this is no ordinary haunting. A room in the castle has a mouth in its ceiling. And it screams...

Verdict

The Screaming Ceiling was a terrific adventure to continue the second boxset of Heritage! The second series of stories for the Paternoster Gang improved in a big way with a really fun and enjoyable outing. I thought the format really helped the listener and it was a stark reminder of things throughout to hear from Thomas Carnacki in retrospective, especially with the twist and red herrings he had laid throughout the story. I kind of expected him to be more than he seemed, but his failure to focus on the humans in stories revealed his true nature. I thought his arrival to the Highlands was very amusing and that seemed the perfect place for a ghost story. Vastra was keen to echo sentiments of the Doctor in mentioning that she believed in things that humans perceived as ghosts, without actually believing they existed which was good. She once again oozed leadership of the Gang, but the highlights absolutely came from Strax. His firm assertion that he could kill anything, even the dead, was a glorious moment and hearing refer to a portrait of the Queen as a repellant woman was magnificent. This was Strax at his best. I thought Jenny had another pretty quiet story which was a bit of a shame, but I remain hopeful she will get a starring role in the boxset finale. The interaction between Carnacki and Dorothy was amusing and both he and the Paternoster Gang being called to investigate the mysterious goings on at Castle Kraighten was very good. Carnacki liked to think that his reputation preceded him, but nobody had ever heard of him! That was the basis for some good humour, and it was a nice touch for him to have knowledge of the Gang. The concept of a room with a mouth as its ceiling was very intriguing and painted quite the image in my head, especially with it screaming! I feel like I should have guessed from the fact the castle had a mouth within one of its rooms that it would turn out to be sentient, but the extent of the time passed was something that struck me. It can't have been fun to be in essentially a coma for around eighty years, but it provided a relatively simple resolution in the end to take out Dorothy's connection to Kraighten itself. It did all tie together nicely with the building constantly getting people lost within because of its size and seeming to be a bit jumbled to prevent Strax and Carnacki getting back to where they were required. I thought the anecdote at the end from Carnacki was a lot of fun and after trying to big up his reputation throughout as a ghost finder, he admitted he was not cut out for the job after the Paternoster Gang had eventually dealt with the Kraighten threat. However, Vastra was less dismissive of his abilities and seemed like she might be willing to train him up after all which was nice because Carnacki really was a brilliant character! I'd like to see him back alongside the Paternoster Gang in the future, but for now this was a really fun and eery adventure! 

Rating: 9/10