More BBC Audio Drama: "Broken Colours", "Who Is Aldrich Kemp?", "Siege"

These BBC audio dramas all came out earlier in 2022.

Broken Colours This one was written by Matthew Broughton, who wrote the brilliant Tracks, which ran for five series. This one begins with Jess (Holli Dempsey) suffering an injury when a demonstration turns into a riot. A passer by named Daniel (Josef Altin) brings her in for medical treatment. A romance blooms between them, despite their very different backgrounds, but Jess starts thinking there might be something a bit sketchy about Daniel. And then he disappears from her life and stops returning her calls. Obviously people are ghosted all the time, but there's a bit more to it here. The depiction of the shady world Daniel inhabits is fascinating, but so is Jess's own descent into problematic moral compromises. It's also good on how Daniel and Jess are attracted to each other, despite being from completely different worlds. All in all this is a strong piece of drama that I recommend engaging with.

You can listen to it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014p7z

Who Is Aldrich Kemp?

New drama from Julian Simpson, who wrote those Lovecraft Investigation dramas. And an exciting whammy at the end of an early episode reveals that this actually overlaps with those. But unfortunately it is more like another episode of those not great Mythos-Glamis-Albion spy dramas than proper Lovecraftian spookiness. It's not really to my taste but I suspect I will still download the sequel when it comes out.

Don't believe the rumours: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014gtt

Siege Now this is good. Written by Katherine Jakeways, Eno Mfon and Darragh Mortell, it is presented as a series of interviews with people who found themselves being held as hostages when a small-time crook's attempt to rob a convenience store goes badly wrong. The former hostages all have axes to grind and records to set straight, with the way they were previously presented in the media being a particular bone of contention; they also have their problems with each other. Thanks to a great ensemble cast and impressive direction from John Norton the format works really well. Siege is a great example of what can be achieved with audio drama.

Listen to it or download it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00146bz