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I know it’s a bit early to mention Christmas, but I thought I’d highlight something that’s definitely gone on my personal list and it originated from dialogue in a Mark Gatiss episode.
Remember his Night Terrors, in which the Eleventh Doctor tried to reassure young George?
When I was your age—about, oo, a thousand years ago—I loved a good bedtime story. The Three Little Sontarans. The Emperor Dalek’s New Clothes. Snow White and Seven Keys to Doomsday, eh? All the classics.
Well, Penguin are publishing a collection of those ‘Classics’ as Time Lord Fairy Tales, by Justin Richards who knocked out quite a few good books in the Eighth Doctor range. It seems to be getting good reviews with some praise for the sinister edge and giving some of the Tales less than happy endings. Looks lovely as well.
I genuinely have enjoyed some previous works which have touched on extrapolating the Doctor into old storytelling styles. Things like the Arabian Nights-esque story of how The Doctor trapped Fenric in the flask in the novelization of Curse of Fenric. In a similar style, Paul Magrs novel The Scarlet Empress sees the Eighth Doctor become fascinated by a book called the Aja’ib (wondrous or miraculous one). It leads to some great in jokes as the Doctor recounts the latest exploit he’s read about, declaring it preposterous and not getting it’s about him. It’s actually a great book about the necessity of storytelling in relation to fleeting memory. It also has Iris Wildthyme, which is a bonus. I think storytelling avenues like this are ripe for exploitation by authors who can get the right style.
Back to fairy tales and just as enticing is the audio book, released next week which features a host of Who actors tackling a story each. I can’t think of anything better than lying in bed on a winter’s night having Dan Starkey narrate The Three Little Sontarans (preferably as Strax), or Tom Baker waxing lyrical. Like a Doctor Who Jackanory (and there lies a big omission – a project like this would have surely benefited from the mighty Bernard Cribbins).
Here are teasers of the fifteen Tales, and the narrators for the audiobook.
Little Rose Riding Hood (Rachael Stirling, Ada in Crimson Horror)
Deep in the woods, Rose is travelling to her grandmother’s cottage. She’s careful to watch out for the Bad Wolf, but what about the strange woodcutter she meets, wearing a black leather jacket? And why does Grandmother suddenly have such sharp teeth?
The Gingerbread Trap (Samuel Anderson, Danny Pink)
Lost in a forest, Everlyne and her brother, Malkus, find a house made out of gingerbread and sweets. But the kindly old woman who lives there is not all she first seems – in fact, with her strange metal craft and mysterious barrels of oil, she might not even be human . . .
The Scruffy Piper (Nicholas Briggs, voice of just about everything)
Space Station Hamlyn is under siege. Thousands of small metal creatures are flying through space, sent by silver warriors to burrow inside the station. The crew’s only hope is a slightly scruffy-looking stranger, with a recorder and a mysterious blue box . . .
Helana and the Beast (Pippa Bennett-Warner, Saibra in Time Heist)
Kept captive in a castle by a terrible beast, Helana befriends the castle’s only other resident – it’s grumpy, grey-haired librarian. Will the Beast and the librarian turn out to be more than meets the eye?
Andiba and the Four Slitheen (Yasmin Paige, Maria in The Sarah Jane Adventures)
Out walking in the hills one day, a young woman called Andiba hides when she sees several strange creatures beside an odd metal craft. Can she stop their dastardly plans for the local distillery, before it’s too late?…
The Grief Collector (Michelle Gomez, Missy!)
Melina and Varan are childhood sweethearts. Their wedding day should be the happiest of their lives – but when it all begins to go horribly wrong, can they trust a mysterious stranger in a pin-striped suit to set things right?
The Three Brothers Gruff (Paul McGann, yer actual Eighth Doctor)
Three brothers are walking home to their village. One brother is very strong, one is very brave, and the third – although weak and small compared to his brothers – is very clever. What will happen when they encounter a short (but fierce) member of a military clone race?
Sir Gwain and the Green Knight (Andrew Brooke, The Gunslinger, Town Called Mercy)
The Court of King Halfur is in session, attended by the greatest and bravest knights of the realm, when they have an unexpected visitor. A huge, green warrior clad in reptilian-like armour smashes his way into the chamber – but why does he need their help?
Garden of Statues (Joanna Page, Elizabeth I)
Children have always played in the garden of the Big House – though sometimes, the stone statues there seem to move about of their own accord.
Frozen Beauty (Adjoa Andoh, Martha’s Mum, Francine)
A spaceship crash-lands on a mysterious planet, the crew frozen in cryogenic suspension, unable to save themselves from the slithering dangers that lurk outside. Can a handsome Space Captain find the sleeping travellers before it’s too late?
Cinderella and the Magic Box (Ingrid Oliver, Osgood)
Cinderella has lost all hope of attending the royal ball with her stepmother and sisters, when a strange man in a blue box arrives and begins to grant her every wish. But at the palace, Cinderella soon discovers not all the guests are as noble as they seem . . .
The Twins in the Wood (Anne Reid, Plasmavore)
The Emperor of Levithia has been murdered, leaving his two children as heirs to the throne. With treason and traitors around every corner, the children are soon forced to flee into space. What will become of them when they crash-land on a strange planet, full of it’s own surprises?
The Three Little Sontarans (Dan Starkey, Strax)
In an epic battle against a lone Rutan, three Sontarans take up very different strategies to defeat their interminable nemesis, once and for all.
Jak and the Wormhole (Tom Baker, who needs no introduction)
After burying a strange device on his farm, Jak finds himself whisked away on an incredible adventure. Faced with a mysterious, horned enemy, it’s up to Jak to save the world from total destruction.
Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday (Sophie Aldred, Ace)
The planet Winter was once ruled by an evil tyrant who built a Doomsday Machine. When he was defeated, the machine’s seven vital operating keys were hidden across the planet. Now, a villainous queen is plotting to locate the keys, but Snow White is determined to stop her . . .
All in all, it sounds a treat.
@carbr6
what kind of stationery do you think he would use?
Somebody else’s stationery, the thieving git! 🙂
Seriously, he often uses what’s to hand, like the TARDIS blue paper and envelopes he got from Craig to send his chums an invitation to his death in Series 6.
He nicked Ministry paper to falsify an introduction letter from the Prime Minister in Curse of Fenric, and jotted a note to Leonardo da Vinci on the back of one of his sketches.
There was a suggestion in spin off media that he had letterheads for his I.M. Foreman, Scrap Metal Merchant cover while he was on Earth in the Sixties (which would make sense).
When he got all official at home in The Deadly Assassin, he used blank paper, and signed using his official Prydonian Order seal, screen grab below:
Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.
I see no reason that the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.I think I’ve mentioned before that, as a child, I was more likely focused on November 5th than Halloween. Ostensibly, it’s the date the UK celebrate the triumph of Protestants over Catholics by ritually burning an effigy of a man who wanted to reverse that dynamic.
Or it was. Even before I was born it seemed to become something else. A surly resistance against authoritarianism. Because authorities really didn’t like us building bonfires that could get out of control. Even if we turned out to be good at it and stood about, as families, baking our potatoes on a huge conflagration we kids had erected on a public space.
Guy Fawkes will always be ‘A Penny for the Guy’ but the effigy we built and threw on the fire transmuted over the years. For much of my youth it was Margaret Thatcher. And Reagan. Briefly Major or George Bush. Blair. Dubbya. Brown. Cameron.
It became the night of sticking your fingers up at the authorities who tried to tear down your bonfire and you built it again. And again. And so a stupid celebration of one potential theocracy over another just became a symbol of sticking your fingers up at authoritarianism.
So, to remember the 5th, you need V for Vendetta. Originally a comic book, and then a movie, I’ll always direct people to the graphic novel first and foremost, but I’m one of those who still love the movie as well.
A sprawling tale of a ‘1984’ style fascist Government gaining power, and an individual who stands for anarchy, for freedom and ultimately for Vengeance against them. It was astonishing work in the 80s but I think the movie, though not having the weight of multiple Plot lines that benefited the comic, ultimately conveyed the same message adapted to new times.
Seek out the movie, or the graphic novel, but Remember.
A few reasons why I love the movie:
People of the Nation, please attend.
It doesn’t quite match the mad lordly satire of the comic, as V addresses his audience as the faithful staff to his employer, but this is pretty good, and we get a glimpse of Bollocks girl.
Bollocks girl was a symbol of youthful rebellion in a few panels in the book. She’s wove into the film a bit more as a major piece in the Domino effect.
Valerie
The single most emotive episode in the original book, which is pivotal to Vs and Eveys rebirth.
Yes, in the absence of a handy memory worm and/or timespace travel to collect one, a handy vat of Mind Bleach is an essential when looking at right leaning papers comments sections.
Cheap and nasty:
Luxury Mind Bleach:
@arbutus (I really want to try that Pumpkin Stout) @purofilion @whisht @juniperfish @blenkinsopthebrave
Thanks all for indulging an old idealist. I made the huge mistake earlier of reading a few online reviews. ATL all is pretty complementary. BTL – oh, dear. The Daily Telegraph had comments that made me ask for the mind Bleach.
Anyway, on a lighter note (and a reminder of the kinder, slightly bonkers side of our National Character). I was in Whitehaven and had one of those random ‘blue plaque’ moments that can give me a bit of a boost. For anyone not aware, a Blue Plaque you find attached to buildings usually because at some point a person of note was born, lived in it for a while, or died in it.
Mostly they’re quiet and discreet, but occasionally people get creative. So I’m making my way haphazardly from one side to town to the other on foot, enter a small square and come across the house that Jonathan ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ Swift lived in as an infant (he sometimes claimed to have been kidnapped as a child and forced to live there, but he was a notorious fantasist).
Isn’t this brilliant?
For fans of stout, can I really recommend the wonderfully named ‘Nordic Noir’ which Weatherspoons are currently selling as part of their beer featival. Wonderful stuff. Kicks the arse of Guiness.
