The Trial of George Litefoot (2013)

The final story of this series is also the shortest. The first story was just over an hour long and this one is seven minutes shorter. At the end of the previous story, Professor Litefoot was charged with murder of his friend Henry Gordon Jago. It seems that the Colonel has survived the explosion yet somehow Jago hasn’t. It soon becomes clear that the Colonel has friends in very high places and what I like from this moment is that it’s going to be two people (Ellie and Quick) trying to prove the Professor’s innocence. Whilst they are doing that it seems that Litefoot has his own drama where he is trying to get use to eating the sort of food that people like him wouldn’t eat. It’s a fun thing to see Litefoot endure. What’s not so much to see is how thanks to the Colonel, the Professor has little to no chance of being found not guilty.

It is 15 minutes before Christopher Benjamin enters in and we get a nice explanation as to how he managed to survive the explosion. The fun continues when it’s decided that Jago isn’t going to try and help Litefoot escape but allow the trial to continue. The scene ends of a fine not when it’s revealed the HGJ will be the one to defend Litefoot. The court scene is a fine moment in the story as it seems that everyone and their dog is lining up to condemn Litefoot as the guilty man. It just seems to be a question as to how much of a farce does this become before the inevitable happens and that is when Jago shows that he is in fact alive. In fact the question that should have been raised (unless I missed it and I must have missed it) and that would be why Jago didn’t do this sooner? It soon becomes obvious. It’s because if they would have done it sooner then they would have run out of things to do towards the end.

I thought that the idea of the Colonel doing everything he does is to ultimately kill Queen Victoria was a good one. It seemed like the whole point of the arc made sense and it’s at times like this that you can appreciate how much thought went into setting up this series. The final scene started off with everything seeming to be all ok with the Colonel being killed. However like the last story, Quick has to be deliver some bad news. This time the news is somewhat more serious. A bounty has been put on Jago and Litefoot’s head because of the death of Agatha. Our favourite duo are on the run and this series has ended in a way that I could possibly have imagined. By the end they are known as Lithgoe AND Jackfoot and series seven cant come quickly enough. I wish I had it on my iPod NOW.

As the concluding part it managed to tie up the loose ends nicely, tell a great story and also end the series in grand style. I always think that Justin Richards is a very good writer and his stories are always enjoyable to listen to. This is another story which continues to show what a very good writer he is (not the first time I’ve written this during the course of listening to these stories). I have enjoyed each story of this sixth series (yes even the Matthew Sweet story). It’s quite impressive how each series of Jago and Litefoot has been just as good if not better than the previous one. Normally a spin-off would start to run out of steam by this stage of their run but credit to both Benjamin and Baxter as well as Big Finish that they have managed to make each series seem fresh and fun to enjoy.