...ish [AUDIO/2002.8.29]

★★★★☆

  Now this was written by a grade-A nerd. You can tell Phil Pascoe absolutely loves the English language, the pronunciations and various intertwining and dispersing meanings each word potentially holds. Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant seem to be cheekily enjoying every verbose exchange in the script for them, and Nicholas Briggs directs the entire thing with an assured hand. Even as an audio drama, it must have been hard to realize a script so devoted to language (even the primary antagonist is revealed to be something of that disposition). 

  I guarantee you, you're gonna need more than one listen to have a grasp on ...ish. Initially, you're gonna think that it's quite a bit disjointed and unfocused; your second foray will tell you that nothing was further from the truth. Every seemingly inconsequential wordplay turns out to be either a callback or a key to the next page of the mystery, every sentence contains secrets. In fact, one of the story's revelations hinges on something that's been in front of the listener's eyes (or in this case, ears) the entire time! So don't worry about "not getting it", sit back and enjoy the fascinating exploration of language unfold. 

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ  

  ...ish is as creative as Doctor Who gets, exploring relatively uncharted (but not unheard of, exhibit A: Alien Bodies) territory with the power and possible sentience of language. I had such fun, and I wish there were more scripts of this calibre. An intergalactic language conference holding a murder mystery — what other franchise can dare to pull something like this off?