Body Horror (2020)
This was written by Lucy Catherine, who also wrote Harland, which disappointed me. I liked this a bit more. It is set in the near future when the march of progress means it is now possible to perform full body transplants. The main character is a middle aged woman who is less than comfortable in her unfit overweight body. She wins the lotto and has her head grafted onto the body of a young woman who died in a tragic accident. She also has some kind of remould to de-age her face. So all is good. Except she starts feeling ghostly impressions of her new body's former owner. And she begins to hear suggestions that the body transplant clinic might have its own dark secrets.
I thought maybe this unfolded in a somewhat predictable manner, but for all that it was well made and packed a few punches as it rolled along. Try it for yourself and see what you think: Body Horror
Power Out (2020)
And this one is about a kid hacker who gets involved in a radical group who decide to bring down the UK national grid as a protest against environmental destruction or something. The characterisation is pretty good but I thought the kid hacker was portrayed too positively; the programme did not really engage with how many people would die or see themselves fall into destitution if the UK power grid was brought down. But you can listen to it yourself here.
Steelheads (2021)
This one starts off with an up and coming star tennis player who has an inoperable brain tumour. She agrees to be placed in suspended animation in the hope that the passage of time will mean that future science be able to cure her. But when she awakes, the world has gone to complete shit despite it being only a couple of years into the future.
It is by the same people who created The Cipher but is much better than that, with the plotting carrying things along in an enjoyably relentless manner while Jessica Barden is impressive as the lead. But when they finally reveal what has happened to the world I didn't really buy it. I found myself thinking that a problem with mystery dramas is that too often the writers make them up as they go along, coming unstuck when they have to pull an explanatory rabbit out of the hat.
Listen to it yourself here.
The Sink: A Sleep Aid (2020)
I have saved the best till last, and it is an odd one. Written by Natasha Hodgson and with creepy narration by Alice Lowe, it presents itself as being a kind of programme to help people sleep, combined with some kind of semi-scientific study of people's dreams. So it starts off with Alice Lowe talking about how worried she is about how the listener hasn't been sleeping too well lately and how we should sit back and let her help us, but then it switches into what seems to be re-enactments of people's dreams. At first these are bizarre but comic, with the kind of surreal logic found in real dreams. A writer finds himself being berated by an interviewer after he has written a book so big that it won't fit in his house. A couple go for a picnic in the woods in an attempt to save their troubled relationship but then encounter a man who has got stuck while taking part in a fun run in a "Sonic the Hog" costume; their efforts to help him trigger the destruction of their relationship. And so on. But the mood begins to shift, with things becoming noticeably more ominous when one guy asks another, "Did a bird man ever come to your school?" After that it becomes impossible to miss all the references to birds peppering the various dreams.
What it's all actually about remains a bit arcane but the journey is a fascinating one. And I find myself thinking that I should give it a re-listen while lying in bed falling asleep, letting it seep into my dreams. Maybe you should do that too, but be careful of the Bird Man.
Did anyone else ever have the bird man come to their primary school? WITH THE PHOTOS OF OWLS AND HUMMINGBIRDS? AND WE BOUGHT THEM. SO MANY.
— Natasha Hodgson (@NatashaHodgson) July 3, 2012
One great thing I discovered subsequently is that back in 2012 Natasha Hodgson tweeted about how the Bird Man did actually come to her primary school. So clearly this drama was a long time hatching, making her an obsessive hero for our sleep deprived times.
Listen to it yourself here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08vxrgx. Sweet dreams.
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