After 40 years, Michael Keating could play Vila Restal in his sleep. This episode has a lot of Vila in it and that is a good thing. What is a bad thing is that the idea behind the story is a silly one: namely, Cally puts Vila under telepathic control and manages to stop him being afraid when he goes off on a dangerous mission. (Why halve they suddenly decided to do this, without even trying it out first? Who knows.) Needless to say, this scheme then goes wrong.

The story really succeeds or fails for the individual listener according to their ability to cope with its central conceit. If you can suspend your disbelief, you will be rewarded with a great performance by Michael Keating. That’s about all I can say for it.

This is one to listen to for the performances. There is some fantastic writing for Vila and Avon, and Hugh Fraser returns as the President of the Federation. Big Finish has developed a few truly memorable recurring characters, and the President, with his unique line in smooth megalomania, is one of them. This episode about the funeral of an off-world leader is really some brilliant repartee in search of a story, but who cares?

This is a rather unusual story. I’m pleased for Yasmin Bannerman that she has been given some solid plays to work with, and am getting used to her in the part of Dayna. She has frankly done better with Big Finish then Josette Simon ever did with the writing in the original TV show.

To be honest, I’m not a massive Dayna fan, as I don’t relate to her urge to blow things up and kill people. This tale of a Liberator crewmember finding herself in the Federation military is tailor made for the character, and
I can’t fault the execution, but it’s probably less to my personal taste than some of the other episodes. It all depends on what you like. Other people who like military stuff probably enjoy it more than I did.

The character of Tarrant as seen in the tv series can be an almighty pill. The notable exception is the episode Deathwatch, the penultimate episode of season C, where Del Tarrant meets up with his brother Deeta, and which is generally considered one of the very best episodes Blake’s 7 ever did. This audio play, Kith and Kin, follows on from Deathwatch, and while it is nowhere near as good, it’s definitely one of the better offerings in the Crossfire audio series. The older Steven Pacey is an experienced and frankly fantastic audio actor, and he generally gets much more out of the twenty something Tarrant now than he ever did when he was the same age as the character.

Terry Nation goofed when naming Del Tarrant, as he had already called the villain in the very first episode of Blake’s 7 Dev Tarrant. This inevitably has led to speculation over the years as to whether the two characters were related, whether the name was simply a coincidence. I have personally never subscribed to the theory that they were related, partly because I find it extremely tedious the way characters in the show have a tendency to cross paths with long lost relations (a tradition Big Finish has carried on) and partly because the two characters don’t look anything like each other. In this play, the story hinges on the fact that the two Tarrants are indeed related, and that Dev is the older brother of Deeta and Del (who are twins, though Del was born via a later pregnancy—given Steven Pacey played both parts in Deathwatch, I was grateful to have this explanation slipped in). It’s the usual dysfunctional family revenge plot, but Steven Pacey is so good, I can forgive this. It’s also fun to get more of Tarrant's back story.

I would rate the play higher, but one character—Kimar, played by Peter Aubrey—strikes a false note from the beginning. He’s very annoying, and neither the character nor the performance seem believable. The man is supposed to be a smart corporate accountant, married to the CEO of a huge galactic business, yet he’s written and played as some kind of excruciating sub-Vila. So, marks off here, but otherwise worth a listen.