Indira Varma has always had probably the hardest job among the original Torchwood team when it comes to bringing back her character, Suzie Costello, for audio.

Hardest because her on-screen adventures amounted to one before she died, and a bit of back-from-the-dead action a little later on. We never really got to know much about “the real Suzie” before she was out of the game, creating a vacancy in the team that would be filled by curious copper Gwen Cooper.

She’s come back a few times on audio now, and each of her releases have added more to her character, but each of them has been a kind of additional solo jewel, each obeying the format of having Suzie paired with one extra character and faced with awkward questions and choices if she’s to keep the world safe, sometimes at the expense of her peace of mind.

Child Free is where everything changes – and we’re more than ready.

The Same, But Different

Let’s be clear: Child Free, by Big Finish newbies Holly Robinson and George Fletcher, obeys many of the same rules as previous Suzie Costello audios – Suzie, one significant other, battle to save the world, morally grey decision-making, yadda yadda yadda. If that’s what you’re coming to a Suzie Costello audio for, have no fear – Robinson, Fletcher, Varma and Big Finish have got you covered.

But Child Free could, if it’s allowed, become a gateway release to a whole new era of pre-TV Torchwood. It’s that good, and that packed with potential.

Hear me out. The plot of Child Free is inherently Torchwood – Suzie, on a Friday night in Cardiff, is out tracking alien energy signatures in a night club. She literally bumps into Hywel (played by Arthur Hughes with consummate “Alright Bloke” chemistry, not unlike that displayed in his pre-marriage, pre-Torchwood by Kai Owen as Rhys Williams). 

Hywel is a) wearing a big white wedding dress, b) on a stag do, and c) up for an unusual one-night stand with Suzie, whose energy-tracking evening ends in an unfortunate sambuca accident.

On the way home to Suzie’s though, the pair encounter a baby, left to cry in a shop doorway on Chippy Lane. They hand it in to the police so that, to use Hywel’s phrase, Suzie “can take me home and shag my brains out.”

Morning comes, and it comes with the revelation that Hywel wasn’t just out on A stag do, he was out on HIS OWN stag do, which complicates matters, as he’s now a) just had a one-night stand the day before his wedding, causing uncertainty over whether he’s ready to take the plunge, b) still dressed in a big white wedding dress, and c) in a real hungover hurry to GET to his own wedding before his world implodes.

And then they realise that the baby they handed in to the police… is actually on Suzie Costello’s kitchen table, alive, well, hungry, and in need of a nappy change.

Annnnnd then the ravenous plasmic blobs from another dimension pop in, trying to steal, or eat, or otherwise inconvenience the baby.

The Odd Couple

To tell you much more of the plot would be to stop you having fun with the storyline as it unfolds. In fact, we’ve probably told you too much already. Suffice it to say that Suzie and Hywel become a kind of odd couple, trying to keep the baby safe from the plasmic blobs of interdimensional terror while trying to work out whether Hywel is really ready for the imminent next phase of his life as a husband and potentially father, and at the same time whether Suzie Costello is actually the good person she seems to want to be.

It’s glorious, and confident, and a rip-roaring ride from start to finish, while maintaining the highly Torchwood underpinnings of both character development and always keeping an eye of the greater threat, and always potentially being willing to sacrifice almost anything to keep the Earth safe. That allows for an exploration of the conflict between the emotional dynamics of “Practical Suzie” versus “Potentially Kind Suzie.”

Incendiary Chemistry

As a first Torchwood script from Robinson and Fletcher, it serves as a salutary lesson to anyone who thinks “Oh, I could write one of those stories.” 

Not like this, you couldn’t. Probably. 

The script has enormous energy and freshness and pace, and serves every need you could possibly bring to a Torchwood audio story, absolutely by the bucketful. More, more, more from this pair, please.

And, to return to our earlier point, more, more, more also from Varma and Hughes as Suzie and Hywel, please. There’s such insane chemistry between the two, and the script serves them with a Cardiff-centred interpretation of classic, black and white screwball comedy dialogue that they feel very much like a couple from whom we want to hear more.

Robinson, in the BTS features on this release, admits that in another life, Suzie and Hywel might have given it a go together, but that after a month or so, Suzie would probably want to kill him.

That’s entirely valid, but despite their shag-first-ask-questions-later beginnings, Suzie and Hywel’s dynamic is not that of a couple. It’s the dynamic of a friendship where each could act as the other’s release valve every now and again. 

Future Potential

Does Hywel go through with his wedding? That’s for Robinson and Fletcher to decide, but if he does, convinced he’s ready to become the next phase of himself, a future chance meet-up with Suzie as she’s trying to save the world could offer him a pocket of exhilarating, adventurous, Peter Pan friendship, a little get-out-of-humdrum-free card, to remind him of the difference he can make and the things it’s worth fighting for – not something likely to be presented to him on a day to day basis in his career as a graphic designer.

And for Suzie, who’s practicing being a good, nice, and possibly even a kind person to see if she can do it against the isolating backdrop of her work at Torchwood, Hywel could act as an occasional touchstone to keep her fighting the fight, a reminder of what she’s fighting for, and if not a partner, then at least the idea that she could have a partner who understands the nature of her work and how it affects her. After all, in They Keep Killing Suzie, we learned that when emotionally scarred shag-rat Owen Harper joined the team, they had a relationship, so that blurring of worlds was clearly something to which Suzie was open.

Suzie and Hywel could be good for each other as platonic, world-saving friends, which would be relatively unusual for Torchwood, and would allow for the worldbuilding and character enrichment of Suzie Costello, the second-in-command to a time-travelling immortal, leading up to her death in the first episode of TV Torchwood, Everything Changes.

A Sparkling Beginning

This is all speculative, of course, but the point is that the combination of Robinson and Fletcher’s sparkling dialogue and intriguing Torchwood premises, and Varma and Hughes’ dynamic and charm-filled performances present a ready-made way of giving Suzie a more layered backstory than TV Torchwood ever did.

While Indira Varma has an international career no less busy than any of the other on-screen Torchwood regulars (with the exception of their rightly-cancelled leader), the periodic adventures of Suzie and Hywel would be an extremely welcome addition to the main range.

But don’t take our word for it. Get Child Free today and have yourself a revel in the wonderful chemistry of a new Torchwood pairing that could run and run.

You can thank us later. Tony Fyler