Torchwood: Sigil Review

After the sad news in April that actor Murray Melvin had passed away, it was a huge surprise to find that Big Finish had managed to record a few final stories with him as the villain Bilis Manger. This wasn’t only in Torchwood but also in the upcoming War Master box set. This, it seems, will be his last proper appearance in the Torchwood range and as a story to go out on, he couldn’t have asked for a better one.

Big Finish did something interesting here and didn’t announce any information about it till the day before it was released, keeping the final appearance of Murray a huge surprise. Ash Darby’s story focuses on Sam, a woman who, having seen a statue in the window of Bilis’ shop notices it has the same sigil design as one that she has been both fascinated by and haunted by her whole life.

Sam is brought to life effortlessly, thanks to Darby’s brilliant dialogue and character and to actor Gabrielle Brooks’ fantastic performance which gives Sam a distinct personality and creates a believable relationship with Sam’s boyfriend Emil, played by Angus Imrie.

Darby spends much of the first two-thirds of this story focusing on the rocky relationship between Sam and Emil, while Bilis looms large in the background manipulating things from the shadows. Imrie brings Emil to life effortlessly and it’s not hard to see why their relationship is struggling but both parties are guilty, even though he puts much of the blame on Sam.

Where author Ash Darby may slip up in this story is that Emil doesn’t feel as fleshed out as Sam. Still, we can forgive that because he isn’t the main character here and luckily director Lisa Bowerman is excellent at making sure the performances from her actors are giving the depth that scripts can sometimes lack for characters.

Murray Melvin is, of course, excellent as Bilis, oozing menace at every turn but making Bilis weirdly likeable at the same time. It’s so clear that he was enjoying playing this character that you can almost hear the grin on his face when Bilis says a particularly menacing monologue towards the end. It’s also an interesting side to Bilis that Darby injects into the character in that he doesn’t necessarily know what’s going on until the very end, but somehow he is in control the entire time.

I loved the scenes where he is in a sports car driving through the countryside squeezing every ounce of John Steed from The Avengers as he possibly can, Melvin does a fantastic turn here, almost playing it as the Doctor and their companion until the eventual turn at the very end. For a final Torchwood performance, Melvin is incredible here.

I love horror stories and it’s always a bit of a turn when Torchwood do them, despite being perfectly suited to telling scary stories. Sigil reminded me of something from the old Hammer House of Horror television series from the late 1970s that used to be on ITV and is a story that you can imagine being told through a grainy television.

The exploration of folklore and art, as well as the importance of the artists and scenes that Hitchcock would be proud of all wrap up to make one tight little bow and give Bilis the perfect send-off.