Daisy Chain, Sapphire And Steel Have Been Assigned

“All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension…”, those words and that music bring back scary childhood memories, I can tell you. Fortunately, thanks to  Big Finish Productions, Sapphire and Steel can live again in a series of Audio CD adventures – the one we are talking about today is Daisy Chain, the second in the series one audio adventures. Running time is around 100 minutes.

The investigative pair, from the popular 1970’s science fiction drama continue their investigations to prevent Time invading which involves time travel and dimension hopping members of medium atomic weights protecting each dimension (apparently transuranic, heavy, elements cannot be used where there is life) so its fortunate that suitable elements include Gold, Lead, Copper, Jet, Diamond, Radium, Sapphire, Silver and Steel are around – all with their unique and appropriate skills. Sapphire has an empathic approach to investigation and has the ability to turn back time under certain conditions, whereas Steel has a much colder, harder and stronger approach often leading to some questionable decision making (including a lot of shouting and a little slapping). Silver, with his humour and trickery, shows up in other audio adventures to help the pair along.

The story of Daisy Chain is set in Suburbia in 2004 “And it looks like rain. Sapphire and Steel are drawn to a house apparently much like any other on the street, except that this one, and the family living in it, harbour a secret that threatens to destroy them all.“

There is something about a children’s music in a story like this that really sets the scene for a haunting story as we join the somewhat disfunctional family during their celebration of Jamie passing his university entrance exams only to hear the clicking of a tape recorder as it replays the last moments over and over. Time for Sapphire and Steel to find out what is going on…

Susannah Harker takes on the role of Sapphire and fits into the role, previously held by Joanna Lumley, really well and David Warner, the science fiction stalwart, is an inspired choice as the cold hard Steel, replacing David McCallum.

The different thing about Sapphire and Steel adventures is that they don’t always consist of happy endings, and the plot lines can sometimes be quite disturbing, which makes the stories really stand out. Even if you are not a fan of the Sapphire and Steel series, you can still get a lot of entertainment from this supernatural ghost story.

The story Daisy Chain, by Joseph Lidster, is produced by Big Finish Productions.