Despite my love/hate relationship with Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood, I hugely enjoyed the first Torchwood audio drama I checked out: Goodbye, Piccadilly.

Set in the seedy environment of Soho, London in the 1950s, Goodbye, Piccadilly saw Torchwood operative Norton Folgate calling present day police sergeant Andy Davidson back in time to assist him with retrieving an alien artifact and helping to clear him of the suspicion of being a double agent.

It was funny, campy, raucous and even had some great social and political commentary to boot, particularly with regards to the awful bigotry of the time.

With Norton and Andy’s previous encounter mentioned numerous times, I was really keen to go back and listen to their original adventure!

And that’s what we have here, with Torchwood: Ghost Mission.

Tom Price first reprised his role as Andy Davidson from the Torchwood TV series here and it’s great to hear him slip back into the role so effortlessly.

Andy’s approached by a stranger, telling him that he’s going to be assessed for his suitability to join Torchwood, which he’s all too eager to do.

His assessor – Norton Folgate – tells him that he’s been sent forward in time to shadow him; the reasoning, he’s told, is to ensure absolute impartiality.

It’s not long before Andy’s dragged into a situation involving terrifying monsters, a human photocopier and much more besides!

Oh, and Norton is basically a ghost, being unable to interact physically with anything – so Andy is on his own, aside from the sarcastic phantom that’s following him around and assessing his every decision.

The best aspect of Ghost Mission is the chemistry between Tom Price’s Andy Davidson and Samuel Barnett’s Norton Folgate; they play off each other wonderfully and it’s easy to see why their partnership was revisited in Goodbye, Piccadilly.

Yet the plot felt wafer thin and never feels like it really goes anywhere; beyond a few big set pieces – with some icky sound effects and other excellent atmospheric audio touches – there just isn’t much meat on these bones.

The epilogue is intriguing, but does rely on prior knowledge of other Torchwood audio dramas to really pay off, so it fell a bit flat for me.

All in all then, while it has its moments, I certainly didn’t enjoy Ghost Mission as much as Goodbye, Piccadilly – which I thought was far superior in just about every way.

You can buy Ghost Mission directly from the Big Finish website, either as a CD plus digital download or just as a digital download, here.

If you prefer, you can buy the CD from Amazon here.