The team who made Widdershins, a recent Big Finish release in the Torchwood Monthly Range, have a very different interpretation of it to this reviewer.

Writer Guy Adams took some horror influences, with the idea of widdershins – that walking opposite to the direction of the sun is unlucky – a brilliant premise to base a whole story around. Whenever I see people walking anticlockwise around things or on the grounds of a place, I now can’t stop saying widdershins to them.

Producer and script editor James Goss meanwhile took inspiration from a programme “about people recounting their experiences of alien abduction or unusual events, and [he] decided there was probably something in that sort of first-person account with all of the inconsistencies and biases that would come into it”. 

Without listening to the behind-the-scenes interviews, I would have had no idea that was a line going through the story.

The problem is that Widdershins doesn’t just revolve around the main character, Iain; it’s told from his point of view. Every time there’s another character’s perspective, delivered in a way that cuts the listener out of Iain’s world, it jars and creates dislike of those characters. You’re rooting for Iain to get to the bottom of what has happened to him, and feel aggrieved (like he is) that others can be dismissive of his experiences.

Which is what it feels like to live with a medical condition where the sufferer has more understanding, just through what they’ve experienced and without needing to do extensive academic research, than the medical professionals they deal with.

A possible alien intervention would be as dominating of an individual’s focus as a mysterious and life-changing medical condition, and if they had the energy to, they would want to convince everyone they can that what they have or are experiencing is true. The first-stage dismissal means the kind of scrutiny, testing, or investigating that may bring up evidence doesn’t occur, and the longer that goes on – whether talking about aliens or illness – the more dismissive the crowd is likely to become.

Patients know any inconsistencies with their first-person accounts will diminish their case, and don’t want to appear overly obsessed with it either to avoid doctors suspecting a psychosomatic factor. Same when trying to convince someone you’ve had an alien intervention.

But making Widdershins a story about inconsistent storytelling is only obvious with those behind-the-scenes interviews, and if you miss that track at the end then instead you get a great piece of drama that is very different to almost everything else Big Finish puts out and is above all fun.

Widdershins kicks off with stunning sound design, third-party narration (although we soon realise this is Iain), and the feel of 2010s American television and science-fiction movies. Next up is some jaunty piano, and the quick realisation that this whole story is a slickly produced audio diary that Iain is creating to make sense of the events that happened to him. That gives it big brand podcast vibes, or even a Netflix-like quality, which is a big surprise and superbly brought to life by Rob Harvey’s sound design and Goss’ production. Words don’t do justice to how superb it is.

Once more voices are brought in, the editing is slick, and the exposition is cleverly contained in the script. As in literally the script of the audio diary. Glorious stuff.

This story could exist without Torchwood, but eventually the institute gets a mention then is gradually brought closer to the action. If there’s any scrutiny of Iain’s experiences that get through to the listener, then it’s only when the true experts turn up late on (with what sounds like an attempt at Captain Jack Harkness’ voice by somebody other than John Barrowman).

Main-character syndrome may be one way of describing the tale, and it literally it since Iain has produced as well as record his own audio diary.

The following release, Bad Connection, also tells a story from the perspective of a civilian who has encountered aliens.

Jason Watkins plays Emlyn Crook, who picks up a ringing phone in a phone box by Penarth Pier and finds Suzie Costello on the other end of the line, telling him he’s in trouble and he should not end the call.

Unlike Widdershins, this is a story where almost anyone listening could quickly relate to the situation Emelyn finds himself in, thanks to the fast-paced nature and very simple premise: man in phone box, alien outside phone box, woman on phone instructing you how not to get killed by alien outside phone box.

There’s plenty of humour in this scary situation, and it is in part caused by Emelyn being able to see the alien while passers-by cannot. His warnings therefore go unheeded, and he just looks like a bit of a weirdo even as the people of Penarth get ripped apart. Watkins nails the role, and while the story title refers to the bad connection between his character and Suzie, he and Indira Varma are a joy to listen to together through the highs and lows of the alien encounter.

Emelyn has very down-to-Earth reactions and descriptions of the alien, with his background as a librarian coming into play several times, while Suzie can’t help being herself. Literally. It’s a superb character study as she has to have authority while also be kind (and certainly less callous) than she usually is, something she and Emelyn recognise as they attempt to not let the situation get out of hand. That the listener of the story also only hears Suzie as a voice on the end of the line, rather than switching to her location, adds to the delightful awkwardness of some moments.

Although active phone boxes aren’t a common sight anymore, and we know when Suzie was an active Torchwood operative, this story could be set in any decade from the 1970s onwards and would be a great listen for non-Torchwood fans.

The directing and sound design are great, making it a fully immersive listen, and I’d love to have the script so I could recreate this story with a friend (either on other sides of a phone or on a night in together). Particularly as Suzie does make an in-person appearance towards the end, things get cosy in the phone box briefly, and the way Suzie uses people for her own means is brutally dismantled. It ends with a bad connection, a normal person attempting to be the hero of their own story in Torchwood’s absence, and makes for a brilliant listen.

Widdershins and Bad Connection are available now from Big Finish.