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Sapphire & Steel
"All Fall Down" Part 1
Audio drama
Big Finish Productions
Written by David Bishop
Directed by Nigel Fairs
July 2005 |
Sapphire, Steel, and Silver must find the Time trigger in a
warehouse-sized archive of old material.
Didja Know?
The title of this storyline,
"All Fall Down", comes from a line in the classic nursery rhyme
"Ring a Ring o' Roses". The nursery rhyme is a recurring
motif throughout the 4-part story.
Silver returns in this storyline, voiced by the same actor who
played him in the TV series, David Collings.
Characters appearing or mentioned in this episode
Dr. Webber
girl
Sapphire
Steel
Professor Joyce Fleming
Silver
Mary
Didja Notice?
The 4-part storyline of
"All Fall Down" makes recurring use of the "Ring a Ring
o' Roses" (or "Ring Around a Rosey" or "Ring Around the
Rosey"), which also had a prominent role in the 6-part
"Escape Through a Crack in Time".
"Ring Around the Rosey" originates from around the time of
the Great Plague of London, some researchers believing the
rhyme describes the Black Death itself, though many
historians dispute this. In
"All Fall Down" Part 2, there is a definite connection
to the plague.
Sapphire is already waiting for Steel
when he arrives at the site of their latest investigation in
London.
Sapphire asks what took him so long and Steel responds, "I
walked." Is he just making a joke? Normally, we don't see
the pair's arrival, but at the end of
"The Railway Station"
Part 8 they suddenly vanish once the job is done. Did
Sapphire just materialize for their meeting while Steel
"walked", taking his time? Do the operatives of whatever
their higher power is have actual habitations or bases of
operation on Earth/London?
When he arrives on site, Steel asks where
and when they are. Sapphire tells him they are in London in
the present. Why would Steel need to ask "when"? Previous
stories have established they (and Time itself) can only
operate in the present (except for Sapphire's ability to
turn back time by minutes or hours, but less than 24 hours).
Sapphire implies that a past death at a certain location can
leave lingering emotions, such as sadness, in the present,
even if it is not something that Time is able to make use of
for an incursion.
The precise location of the latest Time incursion is at the
City of London Corporation Archives. The real world analogue
of that is the
London Metropolitan Archives at 40 Northampton Road,
Clerkenwell, London.
Mary remarks that Thomas Edison invented the world's first
audio recording device, the phonograph, in 1877. This is
correct.
Just as Mary says, the first recorded words on a phonograph
were those of the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb".
Thomas Edison (1847-1931) was an American inventor and
businessman. "Mary Had a Little Lamb" was first published in
1830 as a poem by American writer Sarah Josepha Hale.
Memorable Dialog
what took you so long?.mp3
what if they upload the trigger?.mp3
always such a pleasure to see you, my dear.mp3
more of a coffee drinker.mp3
haunted building.mp3
time is too valuable to be wasted.mp3
a long time between cups of tea.mp3
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