The Spirit Trap

The Spirit Trap is a puzzling story. It starts to widen the ‘world’ of Jago and Litefoot, as well as put a lot more focus on Ellie; on the other hand it is also perilously similar to The Unquiet Dead, I’m surprised Mark Gatiss didn’t sue! Consequently, I’m not sure if I like it or not.

Ellie alerts Jago and Litefoot to a medium, Mrs Vanguard, she has visited who claims to have spoken to her brother Jim. Naturally cynical about Mrs Vanguard’s supernatural abilities, Jago and Litefoot attend a séance principally to expose her charlatanism but also partly because if there is even a vague chance she is speaking the truth, the secret of Jim’s death – and Jago’s part in it – may be revealed to Ellie. Jago successfully reveals Mrs Vanguard’s apparent tricks to fake the spirits of the departed but it transpires a far more sinister situation is afoot when both Ellie and Jago are possessed, their own selves plunged into some form of purgatory.

Whilst listening to this it was almost impossible not to think about The Unquiet Dead. There is a séance and body-possessing spirits. It even climaxes with a character sacrificing themselves to banish the spirits from our world. Apparently, the original version of The Unquiet Dead was even closer to this story, with a fake medium just like Mrs Vanguard – a delightfully named, Mrs Plumchute – turning out to have ‘real’ abilities thanks to the alien spirits. Seriously, has Mark Gatiss heard this story? Of course, there are differences – principally the origin of the ‘spirits’ and, more importantly, the fact that two of the bodies which are possessed belong to Ellie and Jago, still very much alive throughout the process; unlike the corpses used by the Gelth in The Unquiet Dead.

Ellie and Jago are very much the focus of this story. In fact, I’m starting to wonder when Litefoot is going to get a more central chunk of the storyline. Here, again, he is on the fringes of the story, investigating the mysterious situation whilst Jago himself is in the thick of it, actually experiencing the supernatural happenings. Both Benjamin and Baxter, though, continue to be excellent; even if Benjamin’s ‘possessed’ acting is a little cliched.

After worrying that I was finding it difficult to become accustomed to Lisa Bowerman as Ellie, so used to her performance as Bernice Summerfield, it seems that the production team of the series may have had a similar concern. To some extent it worked as I became much more accepting of this character – although I still find her ‘cockney’ voice to be oddly pitched; it seems she is suggesting youth by pitching her voice high, but this has the effect of making it sound a little mannered and ‘performed’. There were a couple of times when her performance reminded me a little of Catrin Stewart’s Jenny Flint (another ‘cockernee’ girl performance I find a bit difficult to ‘believe’ in.)

It could also be, of course, that the production team just wanted to push Ellie’s character to the fore a little more, seeing as she is the third main character. That said, there isn’t a huge amount of character development here and what there is, isn’t particularly complimentary. Ellie is presented as being rather gullible and Jago and Litefoot are rather untactful with their destruction of Mrs Vanguard’s operation, not really taking Ellie’s feelings into account. That said, when trapped in ‘purgatory’ with Jago, a gentle bond develops between them with Jago insisting Ellie calls him Henry. I think we may consider this story to be a turning point in the relationship between Jago and Litefoot and Ellie, taking it from being the ‘gentlemen’ and the friendly barmaid to one of friends brought together through shared experiences. It will be interesting to see how this develops, particularly with the secret the gentlemen are hiding about the circumstances of her brother’s death.

A small cast supports the three main players with Mrs Vanguard is played with relish by Janet Henfrey and Lex Shrapnel gives good value as the sacrificial Toby. Sergeant Quick is conspicious by his absence and I wonder if a later story will push him a little more to the fore.

One aspect of the story which chilled me a little were the references to spontaneous human combustion. As a child, about 11 or 12, I think, I had a book of the strange and unexplained. One chapter was about spontaneous human combustion. The concept of human beings bursting into flame for no reason terrified me – and stuck with me for quite a few of my teenage years (I think it only stopped terrifying me when I finally saw Threads…). The scene between Toby and Litefoot discussing the apparent death of Toby’s wife brought the memory flooding back and I could picture the book and the photographs within it. It’s a gruesome element to a quite spooky story.

Historically, this story deals with the previously mentioned Victorian fascination with spiritualism and focusses on the fact that, at the time, there were many fake mediums who preyed upon the recently bereaved. Jago’s exposure of Mrs Vanguard’s tricks highlights some of their practices.

There are less overt Holmesian references (of the Sherlock, not the Robert) variety this time round, although Litefoot’s investigations have a familiar flavour.The presence of disembodied antagonists places this story firmly in a growing list of similar stories I’ll be casting a retrospective eye over towards the end of this century.

As a Jago and Litefoot story this continued to establish the basic format. The adventure was fun and the mystery surrounding the ‘spirits’ remains to be fully resolved (I’m assuming it will be picked up in the final story. However, the strong similarities with The Unquiet Dead made it seem overly familiar, particularly listening to this relatively soon after watching that story.

I still can’t say I’m convinced Jago and Litefoot is the jewel in the Big Finish crown that endless reviews have it pegged as but I can't deny they can still be entertaining.