Donald Cotton The Romans (1987)
Once was that I routinely bought these Doctor Who novelisations published by Target, and although they weren't all that I read, I sure was reading a lot more of these than I was reading anything else. This is why I've always found the magic of Doctor Who books is that they get you reading defence to be mostly pish given the number of people I know in their forties and fifties who still won't read much of anything except this sort of thing. Anyway, I thankfully lost interest somewhere past the halfway mark of the eighties, leaving twenty or so novelisations specifically based on the television show which I never bought. More recently, something akin to a mid-life crisis inspired me to hunt down the remaining volumes so as to fill gaps in the collection, which is what I've done and why I have this one. I know full well that a few of them will be utter shite, but it seemed like something I needed to do and most of them were still pretty cheap, and I somehow felt I owed it to my younger, less-worldly self; and, I suppose I should admit, there was just a little curiosity in there somewhere.
I vaguely recall having read Donald Cotton's Myth Makers novelisation back in the depths of time and found it surprisingly witty, and I vaguely recall having enjoyed The Romans a lot more than I expected to when it came out on VHS, so here I am. Happily, my instincts seem to have been right in this instance. The Romans, as seen on the telly when I was two, is an historical farce, so plenty of comic misunderstandings based on mistaken identity. Cotton avoids the pitfalls of describing something funny which once happened on telly by rendering Dennis Spooner's original story as a series of increasingly implausible letters, notes, and diary entries written by the main characters, in other words an epistolary novel - which, I should probably add, I had to look up. I say implausible because, for one example, Ian Chesterton's portion of narrative is told in letters he writes addressed to the headmaster of the school at which he once worked, written presumably in the event of his getting back to sixties England at some point; and he fills these letters with detail, writing at length during moments snatched here and there while serving as a slave on a Roman galley, or imprisoned at the circus pending a fight to the death with Andre the Giant; but the implausibility of said letters is part of the sheer joy of them, and if it's a problem, you've probably read too many of these things.
The various narratives perfectly adapt Cotton's considerable wit to the voices of the characters with the understated humour of a Peter Cook monologue. For example, here we have William Hartnell learning how to play the lyre, intent on giving a performance of Thermodynamic Functions, an atonal composition of his own which I'm sure would have pleased Tony Hancock no end.
Once was that I routinely bought these Doctor Who novelisations published by Target, and although they weren't all that I read, I sure was reading a lot more of these than I was reading anything else. This is why I've always found the magic of Doctor Who books is that they get you reading defence to be mostly pish given the number of people I know in their forties and fifties who still won't read much of anything except this sort of thing. Anyway, I thankfully lost interest somewhere past the halfway mark of the eighties, leaving twenty or so novelisations specifically based on the television show which I never bought. More recently, something akin to a mid-life crisis inspired me to hunt down the remaining volumes so as to fill gaps in the collection, which is what I've done and why I have this one. I know full well that a few of them will be utter shite, but it seemed like something I needed to do and most of them were still pretty cheap, and I somehow felt I owed it to my younger, less-worldly self; and, I suppose I should admit, there was just a little curiosity in there somewhere.
I vaguely recall having read Donald Cotton's Myth Makers novelisation back in the depths of time and found it surprisingly witty, and I vaguely recall having enjoyed The Romans a lot more than I expected to when it came out on VHS, so here I am. Happily, my instincts seem to have been right in this instance. The Romans, as seen on the telly when I was two, is an historical farce, so plenty of comic misunderstandings based on mistaken identity. Cotton avoids the pitfalls of describing something funny which once happened on telly by rendering Dennis Spooner's original story as a series of increasingly implausible letters, notes, and diary entries written by the main characters, in other words an epistolary novel - which, I should probably add, I had to look up. I say implausible because, for one example, Ian Chesterton's portion of narrative is told in letters he writes addressed to the headmaster of the school at which he once worked, written presumably in the event of his getting back to sixties England at some point; and he fills these letters with detail, writing at length during moments snatched here and there while serving as a slave on a Roman galley, or imprisoned at the circus pending a fight to the death with Andre the Giant; but the implausibility of said letters is part of the sheer joy of them, and if it's a problem, you've probably read too many of these things.
The various narratives perfectly adapt Cotton's considerable wit to the voices of the characters with the understated humour of a Peter Cook monologue. For example, here we have William Hartnell learning how to play the lyre, intent on giving a performance of Thermodynamic Functions, an atonal composition of his own which I'm sure would have pleased Tony Hancock no end.
I soon mastered the rudimentary principles on which the lyre can be persuaded to operate, and was endeavouring to implement some permutations which had occurred to me involving its more advanced harmonic frequencies, when I was distracted from this pleasant pastime by a series of thumps and bangs, which appeared to emanate from the next room.
My immediate impression was that my neighbour might possibly be a percussion player, anxious to accompany my impromptu recital; and glad as always to accept professional assistance whenever offered, I strode rapidly to the communicating door, which I flung open with a few well-chosen words of welcome, which now escape me. But no matter; for it was soon obvious that for once I was under a misapprehension.
The Romans novelisation is great, and genuinely great, not least as a reminder of what I liked about this thing in the first place, namely how it was once prone to flying off in all sorts of unexpected directions, back when narrative variation was more than just a matter of what it reminds viewers of this week. Above all, at least for me, it's gratifying to know there was at least some occasional justification to my reading these things to the exclusion of almost everything else.
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