If you like comedy, and you like the exploration of the sexual psyche, then Torchwood‘s The Restoration of Catherine and Art Decadence will have you laughing. A lot.

The Restoration of Catherine takes Norton Folgate and Sergeant Andy Davidson to the 17th Century, and is the latest in a series of stories where 1950s Torchwood operative (and hardlight pharadyne projection) Norton plucks Andy away from his usual life and time period and takes him to somewhere and when completely different.

This one kicks off with horses, which not much Doctor Who or Torchwood does, so we’ve got an action sequence to throw the main characters into the story but plenty of opportunity for physical comedy. Why the pairing is such an effective and funny one is on display immediately, and there’s a little bit of contextualising that they were both in the English city of Bath in their respective times before arriving in the past unexpectedly. After taking control of their riding situation, they reach a house and the door is opened by a man in fancy dress. Cue titles.

IT’S A FLUTE AND LYRE VERSION OF THE TORCHWOOD THEME.

Production decisions like the above just make the story all the more immersive, despite it being outside of the narrative itself, and also because it’s a reminder of what a cracking theme tune Torchwood has. Since the show’s tagline is ‘the 21st Century is when everything changes’, this twist on it helps disconnect from Torchwood being a ‘modern’ show that has a story with a 17th Century setting to instead telling the listener that the show belongs as naturally in this historical period as it does the present. Inspired.

It’s another reminder that in terms of ongoing ranges from Big Finish, Doctor Who is now almost exclusively based around boxset or two-story release structures and there is not the consistent creative variation that a monthly release schedule requires. The Torchwood writing team are still going at it, and it’s still delivering.

Let’s return to action.

The fancy dress is, in fact, the period clothes of 1660 for Sir Reginald Hardgoing (what a name) and the drunk Squire Edmund Dashington (also, what a name) who are suitors for the Lady Catherine de Winter and ultimately want her house. Unfortunately for Andy and Norton, their arrival means they now are too.

The innuendo taps turn on at this point, with Norton predictably witty while Andy gets dubbed ‘normal Andrew’ by Catherine and can’t shake off the mantle. A puritan, a cavalier, an absolute looker of a woman, a timid policeman from Wales, and a gay man from 1950s London are stuck in a house together until one of them wins a hand in marriage: sounds like the set up to a joke… and it basically is.

The science-fiction element of this story still exists, and because it’s ‘serious’, it’s where the story gets a little dry before jumping back into the comedy. Naked Norton the Belgian servant is a classic Samuel Barnett performance, but some of what the character goes through in this can venture on the outright uncomfortable. Again, it’s a story where the audience has to enjoy frolicking and sexual humour to be able to laugh at the cast of the tale.

And then, rather unexpectedly, this turns into a story about coming out of the closet. An actual 17th Century one at one point.

No spoilers as to who goes through this journey, but it’s a twist that can be seen coming after a certain scene. The script becomes very tight once it’s headed down this route, with conversations interlinking as there are frequent cuts back and forth to different combinations of characters.

The lyre makes a few more appearances as a musical sting and as an in-story instrument, ramping up the stakes, and late on is a line from Norton suggesting this was a very comedic introduction to a various new element of the Torchwood franchise. It’s a great ending, made even better by the credits being read out by the drunk squire.

Next up in the Torchwood range is Art Decadence, which through a different set-up also becomes a comedic coming-out caper.

This time we’ve got a 1920s touch added to all the acoustics, with a new Torchwood team of Sir Reginald Dellafield and his butler AC Forster. It’s an incredibly one-sided relationship, a colossal imbalance which underpins the whole story. They’re an effective double act in terms of getting their job done, such as chasing space locusts through Green Park, but soon their relationship and their jobs will be put to the test by the Serpentine Club that has opens in London.

The enemy they will soon face is the Mara (from Kinda and Snakedance), and it’s utilised as effectively as on television. Big Finish has tried using this snake-shaped foe before, a long time ago now, and that ultimately wasn’t quite successful. This time around, they’ve turned it into an audio threat effectively, and created some interesting ethical quandaries with its presence, but since this story has one-off characters the listener needs to be invested in them to be worried about the consequences of the Mara’s invasive abilities.

This is where the sexual subplot is useful. Is the big picture an incredibly personal issue a character has to face, or is the big picture the wider consequences of the Mara’s powers if it is not stopped?

The scenes when the Mara is in possession of a character are incredibly acted, and the sound design in this release helps make the Mara work on audio. Comedy is laced in through the script to keep it light-hearted enough, and ultimately jazzy enough, to not feel depressing.

A showdown decides which mindset, and which characters, will win and there is also a twist that this range frequently does where it leaves scope for a character to appear again.

The behind-the-scenes interviews in this look at the writing decisions, how a voice change was made mid-recording to put emphasis on a different part of the emotional range of one character, and the Buddhist thinking that inspired this tale.

In summary, two stories that can get uncomfortable (but each Torchwood release begins with the warning of ‘adult material [which] may not be suitable for younger listeners’, so no surprise) as they explore coming out of the closet in two different times. One dives headfirst into the comedy and then adds the uncomfortable elements; the other uses comedy to lighten a dark tone.

The Restoration of Catherine and Art Decadence are available now from Big Finish.