Torchwood - The Hope (2019) - Audio Review

Starring: Burn Gorman, Tom Price & Sian Phillips

Written By: James Goss

Directed By: Scott Handcock

Megwyn Jones is one of the most hated women in Britain. She used to run a home for troubled children in an isolated part of Snowdonia called The Hope. For a long time there were rumours about what was happening there, and then one day it was realized that the children had gone missing. Ever since, Megwyn's kept her peace. Is she innocent? Is she guilty? Where are the bodies? The years have been long and hard on Megwyn and on the families of the children. But now Megwyn's dying, and she's agreed to go back to The Hope, to reveal the horrible secret she's kept all these years. 

This review will contain major spoilers - read at your own risk!

'The Hope' was one of my first forays into Big Finish's monthly 'Torchwood' range. I'd been looking at picking up one or two 'Torchwood' stories and when 'The Hope' was first released, it received glowing reviews from pretty much everyone, praising how dark and gnarly it was. Being the morose little sh*t that I am, I was sold. And having now listened to it, I can concur that this is an exceptionally bleak story and one that actually earns its mature badge. Listening to the 'Aliens Among Us' series, I've noticed that Big Finish's approach to recreating the tone of 'Torchwood' can sometimes just rely on the basic crude stuff that will get listeners to call it dark and grown-up, such as featuring lots of swearing and sex. This isn't a bad thing at all, but having just a couple of characters shagging and using naughty words doesn't inherently make a story mature - the first TV series of 'Torchwood' tried this a lot of the time and just ended up feeling like a randy teenager's idea of grown-up. 'The Hope' is instead dark through and through, dealing with a lot of sensitive and heavy themes. It can get properly nasty, even going so far as to feature a scene where the sister of a murdered child has to dig up that child themselves - that's the kind of dark material we're working with here. 

I imagine most listeners will quickly pick up on some of the real-life cases that 'The Hope' draws inspiration from, most notably that of Myra Hindley and the Moors Murders. 'The Hope' touches on the extreme anger that people often respond with towards crimes involving children, as well as the ways that some individuals and officials can exploit these crimes for personal gain. It frequently gets into uncomfortable territory and questions the way in which we can respond to the deaths of loved ones. If a family member is killed, it's typically expected for their relatives to focus on their best qualities and to only ever speak of them positively. But when the group escorting Megwyn become separated and lost in the fog, Sally, the sister of one of the murdered children, breaks down to Andy about her tumultuous relationship with her little brother. The story even goes further to suggest that the authorities knew that children had been disappearing under Megwyn's care, but because they had been deemed problem kids, they instead opted to send her even more. 

As for Megwyn herself, she's marvellously performed by acting royalty, Sian Phillips. An already prestigious actress, I can imagine Big Finish were glad to secure her in this role, not only for that prestige but because Phillips is fantastic at keeping you unsure of Megwyn's guilt or innocence. The question of whether Megwyn really carried out these killings fuels the first half of 'The Hope', and raises an interesting difference between Owen, who is willing to give Megwyn the benefit of the doubt, and Andy who is more convinced of her guilt. As the story progresses, you're led more towards the believing that Megwyn is a murderer, and by the time the truth is revealed Phillips plays the part of a psychopathic killer chillingly well. She is uncomfortably convincing when she admits that she carried out the murders just for the power and joy of doing it. The revelation that Megwyn is in fact guilty makes for a refreshing change of pace too. Ordinarily in a story where the world has already condemned someone but their guilt is left ambiguous for the audience, you might expect them to be revealed as a tragic character. But in this case, Megwyn really is the irredeemable child killer she had been accused of being.

But this isn't a 'Torchwood' story specifically about a historic crime. As with TV episodes like 'Ghost Machine', it does work in a more sci-fi element. In this case, it's revealed that the ground surrounding The Hope has restorative abilities that have partially preserved Megwyn's victims in a zombified state. This reveals makes it clear why Owen was the obvious candidate to headline this story. Taking place after his death in the TV show, Owen gives himself to the ground to see if it can restore him fully to life. In one of the best scenes 'The Hope' has to offer, the ground does give Owen a brief burst of life - it's played so well by Burn Gorman and the music, a beautiful retooling of Owen's original theme, sent chills down my spine. There's also an incredibly poetic ending for Megwyn, who had planned to use the ground's restorative powers to live forever, having given it so many victims over the years. Instead her victims and the ground itself conspire to condemn her to an eternity in hell - what better fate for such an unforgivable character? 

'The Hope' is a near-perfect example of 'Torchwood' actually living up to its promise of being sci-fi for grown-ups. It's bleak and heavy throughout, and yet appropriately it does end on a more hopeful note. It turns out that the ground did manage to restore Owen to full life for an unspecified amount of time, and how better to enjoy that time than to snack on a simple bag of crisps? 'The Hope' is honestly one of the best releases I think I've heard from Big Finish in 2019, and at the very least is Top 5 material. At worst, it may require a tiny bit of suspension of disbelief to accept that all the characters get separated so quickly and easily in the fog, but if it allows for drama and dialogue that's this strong, then I'm more than happy to do that. One of Big Finish's best and by far their best 'Torchwood' release so far.

The Hope

9/10