Gabrielle Ketley reviews the latest Torchwood release

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Torchwood: The Hollow Choir, is the Big Finish writing debut of Helen Marshall and Malcolm Devlin, who were brought onboard to use their horror writing prowess to create us all “something horrible”.

For anyone with a healthy dislike of confined spaces, the dark and drowning, the premise very much delivers on the “something horrible” scale. Three students;  Ella, Lucas (Cerith Flinn) and Lynn (Olivia Forrest), are trapped inside a series of caves, with an hour to escape before they’re flooded in by the rain. 

Gotta love a clock, something to keep the pressure on. From the offset, we are made fully aware by the head of the rescue team, William Davis (Simon Armstrong) that the timer is on and there’s no time for malingering, or for babysitting the “special ops” agent who has just marched in onto the scene.

Except that this special ops agent has a map, a map of the supposedly un-mapped part of the caves in which the students are lost.

Rhys (Kai Owen) ending up the one hope of a trio of lost students, because he has something as crucial yet mundane as a map, (a finger painted map at that) is Rhys in a nutshell. Rhys is the every man, Torchwood’s link to the real world. It is his normalcy, his ties to everyday life, that makes him such a crucial asset. 

That said, Hollow Choir explores a Rhys who has experienced his fair share of Torchwood weirdness. No longer just the boyfriend on the fringes of the action, here he’s the one in the know, the who has to break it to the others that as bad as the threat of flooding is (and yeah, that’s a pretty big threat, unless you happen to have gills), it’s still not concern number one.

Because, you know, Torchwood.

If dark, confined spaces, and drowning isn’t horrible enough for you, perhaps the mysterious voices, singing away the dark, luring in unsuspecting cavers will do the trick.

Kai Owen delivers a superb performance, giving us a Rhys who is at once the experienced Torchwood agent, and the everyman who is trying to help, as best he can. Kai Owen bounces excellently off Simon Armstrong‘s plain speaking, wise cracking William, a dynamic that allows for a lot of heart, and even the odd moment of (much needed) humour.

It’s a delight to see Rhys not only take centre stage, but to take centre stage as a leader and a hero. The one who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, the one who is called upon to make the hard choices, but still very much plain old Rhys, who at the end of the day, just wants to go home.

The whole adventure is creepy, tragic, atmospheric (excellent use of soundscape) and truly haunting. 

Torchwood: Hollow Choir is available on CD or as a download from

http://www.bigfinish.com