Captain Blood

The Colonial Radio Theatre's performance of Sabatini's historical adventure about an Irishman wrongly convicted of treason who escapes slavery into the life piratical is generally well served by sound effects (good explosions!) and music. The adaptation, however, is serviceable, if sometimes awkward. And the actors are not easy and natural in their roles, and a few are quite bad. Accents (which are constant) are a sore point: the British weak, the Spanish clichéd, the French abysmal. Especially hard to listen to is the mannered and sepulchral narrator. This program deserves credit for effort and earnestness, and for some rousing moments, but mediocre acting, like Captain Blood himself, triumphs in the end. W.M. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine