Review: Howard the Duck

Howard the Duck by Steve Gerber
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had a complete run of the original Howard The Duck comics that I lost (along with others) in the "The Great Roof Leak" of the 1980's. I was therefore very pleased to find this collection in a charity shop. Annoyingly, however, it only has issues 1 to 8 and (bizarrely) issue 16.

Issue 16 is a particular weird choice since it is an essay rather than a comic... but Gerber was always a wordy writer; see for example the almost solid page of text in issue 2. More annoying is the absence of the Kiss storyline but since it does contain the election attempt for the "All Night" party I am willing to forgive it!

Get Down America!

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Review: Adolf Hitler: My Part In His Downfall

Adolf Hitler: My Part In His Downfall by Spike Milligan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I came across The Goon Show as a young boy by accident (as far as I remember) when I heard it on Radio 4 in a Sunday afternoon comedy slot. I subsequently found a book of Goon Show scripts in the local library. I read and re-read it, committing large chunks to memory, and would recite sections at length to anyone unfortunate enough to get cornered by me.

Having discovered Milligan, I went looking for more. The local library also produced a copy of this book. I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever read! Reading it again, many years later, it still made me laugh out loud but this time I was much more aware of the sadness and melancholy in his tale.

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Review: Neverwhere

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'd heard the radio adaptation of this book a year or two ago and really enjoyed it. I was surprised to discover though that the book was based on a BBC TV series that Gaiman wrote... what was I doing in the mid nineties that I missed that completely!?

Despite having heard it on the radio, I had forgotten the end and thoroughly enjoyed finding out what happened again. (Crumbs. I just looked it up. I must have heard the radio shows five years ago! No wonder I'd forgotten most of it.) I enjoyed the way Gaiman reused and repurposed London place names: the way some things were taken literally (e.g. Earls Court) and how places became people (Old Bailey being my favourite - I couldn't help but hear Bernard Cribbins voice in my head when I read his lines).

As with the radio programme, the bit that worked least well for me was the character of Richard Mayhew, which is unfortunate since he is arguably the main character. He was so (unbelievably) slow on the uptake, he was clearly supposed to be a messiah type character but it was never clear why and the resolution to his story arc was easily guessable.

Despite that, I still enjoyed this book. Gaiman delivers some nice lines, for example, when describing London he says: "It was a city in which the very old and the awkwardly new jostled each other, not uncomfortably, but without respect..." and I, although I didn't laugh out loud while reading it, I often sniggered quietly. And if that's not a ringing endorsement, I don't know what is!

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Review: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Kind of a three and a half stars as the ending let it down. (I think I could have done without the Sunday section at the end.) Went for four in the end because generally I found it interesting and funny in roughly equal measure.

Pratchett's stamp was all over the book but, if the appendix that details of the writing process is to be believed, it was a truly collaborative process. (I'm probably just not familiar enough with Gaiman to spot his fingerprints.) The writers claim they worked hard to make each other laugh and I laughed along with them, for example where they describe a hellhound's first appearance:

"It was already growling, and the growl was a low rumbling snarl of spring-coiled menace, the sort of growl that starts in the back of one throat and ends up in someone else's."

I also liked the "explanation" of the M25!

Now, clearly it is not a work of theology but it does raise interesting theological (and indeed philosophical) issues albeit wrapped in a comic fantasy. Not a great work but definitely great fun.

I'm labelling my final observation as a spoiler because I know some people get a bit twitchy about revealing plot details - not much of a spoiler in my opinion but better safe than spoiler!

***SPOILER ALERT!***
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I read in an appendix that the book started off as a parody of Richmal Crompton's Just William books called William the Antichrist. Adam and the Them, along with Tadfield, suddenly made a lot more sense.

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Review: A Room with a View

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Read this while on holiday in Florence. Went looking for the Pension Bertolini (it is now a hotel) and many of the other sights described in the book. Loved the city. Loved the book.

It is laugh out loud funny in places. It is the kind of book that on almost every page there's a line you want to share with the people around you. For example, from chapter 1:

"You must have it," said Miss Bartlett, part of whose travelling expenses were paid by Lucy's mother—a piece of generosity to which she made many a tactful allusion.

or

He preferred to talk to Lucy, whose playing he remembered, rather than to Miss Bartlett, who probably remembered his sermons.

and

He is nice," exclaimed Lucy. "Just what I remember. He seems to see good in every one. No one would take him for a clergyman."

I could go on!

It was interesting reading it straight after The Masters of Sitcom: From Hancock to Steptoe. Galton and Simpson may have invented the TV sitcom but so much of the humour in this book comes from the situations that it is clear Galton and Simpson were standing on the shoulders of giants.

Serious issues are addressed: class, sexuality, education, passion, repression... but it is seriously good fun and a seriously good read

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Review: The Masters of Sitcom: From Hancock to Steptoe

The Masters of Sitcom: From Hancock to Steptoe by Christopher Stevens
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The author argues that Galton and Simpson were not just “Masters of Sitcom” but that they invented (or at least re-invented) sitcom. When they first started writing, British comedy required a straight man to provide a set-up and a funny man to deliver the punchline. Galton and Simpson, along with Hancock, set out to change that.

In Hancock’s Half Hour, though, there would be no joke-telling, punchlines or music-hall patter. The writers were intent on getting rid of catchphrases, songs, running gags, musical interludes and sketches. This was a type of comedy as radical as the realist theatre that would sweep the English stage in the late fifties: natural, honest and unflinching.

As they did so, the author argues they changed the face of comedy and traces a direct line from Steptoe And Son to The Royale Family. Whether you buy into that thesis or not (and I'm inclined to give some of the credit to people like Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes) the real strength of this book is in the quotes from Galton and Simpson scripts. More than half the book is straight Galton and Simpson and that alone makes it worth a four star review.

I liked the insights given into their writing process. For example, on what is probably Hancock’s most famous line:

“A pint... that’s very nearly an armful!” It started off as, “A pint... that’s an armful!” and then one of us said, “Nearly an armful,” and the other one said, “Very nearly an armful.” It’s funnier, because it’s more precise.

It is imprecisely precise… and that’s why it’s funny. What’s missing though is much of an insight into the relationship with their actors… for example, with Hancock. Clearly a man with mental health issues and yet rather than help him, they seemed to pick at the wound. Given his insecurities, it seems a bit of an omission to reproduce the following without comment:

HANCOCK: I’ve been living a lie. (Dramatic) Geraldine, I have never said a funny thing in my life.
GERALDINE: When do we get to the lie?
TONY: All those funny things you hear me say aren’t me at all. I employ a ventriloquist. He stands off stage thinking up funny jokes while I stand here opening me mouth. (Emotional) Yes, Hancock the funny man is nothing but a great big dummy.
GERALDINE: When do we get to the lie?

Hmm! Insensitive? Ignorant? Evil? I can’t help but feel it was just plain nasty yet the author offers no comment.

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Review: Doctor Who: The Pirate Planet

Doctor Who: The Pirate Planet by James Goss
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The last Doctor Who novel I read was extremely disappointing (Doctor Who: The Coming of the Terraphiles). I was worried that someone creating a novel from a TV story by Douglas Adams would fall short and disappoint me again. I could not have been more wrong. Where the Michael Moorcock story completely fails to capture the character of the Doctor, James Goss nails it. Of course, it helps that he had access to early drafts, full scripts and a bucket load of other stuff from the Adams Archive. It is difficult to see where Adams ends and Goss begins; an astonishing achievement. I will be looking for more James Goss soon to see what else he can do.

I’ll finish with a couple of (non-spoiler) quotes that to me say Douglas Adams but could be James Goss. What do you think? Can you see the join?

Quote 1:

Romana still had a lot to learn about the universe. How could a planet have a soul? Well, she had yet to see an English country garden on a summer's day.

Quote 2:

‘Doesn’t matter. We’ll never get in!’ Last time, she’d had the element of surprise on her side. And had landed an air-car on them. This time, they were pinned down.

‘Never?’ The Doctor looked hurt. ‘Never say that to a Time Lord.’

‘Never say what?’

‘Never.’

‘Never what?’ asked Romana.

‘Mind,’ the Doctor sighed.

‘What mind?’

‘Never mind.’

‘Never mind what?’

‘What?’ Now the Doctor was thoroughly confused.

‘What?’ Romana heartily hoped someone would shoot them. The Doctor first, though.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ the Doctor said. ‘We’ll get in somehow.’

‘We can’t!’

‘Never say that to a Time Lord,’ the Doctor beamed.

‘Oh, you’re impossible.’

‘No, just very, very improbable.’

Update

Famously, Adams was writing The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy while working on Doctor Who. The links between the two are clear in this book (for example, the “very improbable” quote above) but it is particularly clear in the section at the end where James describes some of the material he had access to from the Adams archive. My favourite from the archive is in the appendices where James reproduces Adams’ thoughts on who might be behind the Key To Time. There, at the end of a list of possible villains, Adams had handwritten a single word: “Mice”!

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