Sunday, 5 January 2025

Nightmares: My Guest Tonight


"I'm usually the one asking the questions."

Writer: Tim Foley
Format: Audio
Released: April 2022
Series: Torchwood One 4.01

Featuring: Yvonne

Synopsis

Many people have poured out their souls on Nigel Best's sofa. His guest tonight is Yvonne Hartman.

Verdict

My Guest Tonight was an excellent start to the Nightmares fourth series of Torchwood One! This is a very exciting umbrella title for the series as it looks set to delve a little darker than what we have had in the first three instalments and with Yvonne Hartman as the main character in particular, the prospects are very bright indeed. She is such a strong character and her ability to command attention is just enthralling. I'm a big fan of hers and it is actually quite incredible to think about the impact she made purely off one guest appearance in Army of Ghosts. She did her duty for Queen and country, but now we're hearing what she got up to as part of Torchwood One before meeting the Doctor. Her position in the story here was fascinating and whilst she is a really strong character, it was actually Nigel Best who stole the show. He was so intriguing and this was an outstanding acting performance from Jon Culshaw. I'm so used to him being tremendous as the Brigadier or perhaps even one of the earlier Masters, but this was a one off character and he absolutely nailed it. The entire concept of him being a talk show host was brilliant and it was such a unique presentation in the Whoniverse. I thought the expletive language was utilised very well and just made the whole thing feel very real world. That's a huge positive in my book and the ambiguity surrounding what was actually happening to Nigel after his incident with the pods as a child helped with that. It was vague, but not too vague that it felt like things went unanswered. Nigel's reaction to interviewing Yvonne and realising something was very wrong was fun because he was clearly being manipulated. She had ensured that the interview skipped to the end before Nigel could ask about Torchwood, and he was then remembering in drips. Yvonne being interviewed in a dreadfully obvious disguise was fun stuff as Nigel knew he was being played but was rather helpless to do anything about it. The way his emotional torment was presented was certainly the stuff of nightmares as Nigel was basically begging for a breakdown. I felt sorry for him by the end, especially when Yvonne essentially got bored of what she was trying to achieve with Nigel too stubborn to admit what was required. He couldn't believe that he'd gone too far and was basically beyond saving. He knew Torchwood was at play and I do wonder if there will be any kind of story arc moving forward for this series. With the theme of nightmares I'm absolutely fine if there isn't, but just how did he know about Torchwood? The prospect of Yvonne being interviewed about it on screen for a talk show was quite the image. Nigel's conversation with his driver was fun too and the little gag about the fiver for his thoughts was amusing. With inflation and what have you, they certainly cost more than a penny! As a whole, this was a terrific little audio adventure that was just fascinating throughout. I was hooked with the concept of the talk show and Yvonne taking on different forms for the guest and then really tapping into Nigel's childhood and debate of whether it was enough was really nicely done. Overall, a fantastic start to the series!

Rating: 9/10

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