The Dock Brief [aka “Trial and Error”]
dir. James Hill (1962)
Peter Sellers stars as an ineffectual barrister who has waited years for his first case, and Richard Attenborough as his unhelpfully guilty client. The performances are subtle and serious, while the script offers up a wistful character piece, not the comedy promised.
The Horribly Haunted School
by Margaret Mahy (Hamish Hamilton, 1997); audiobook read by Richard Mitchley (AudioGO, 2011)
A short but fun and lively middle-grade story with happily dovetailing plot threads and larger-than-life characters for the intended audience (and also some light touches of droll absurdism for adult readers). Where the title is somewhat misleading, Mitchley’s audiobook reading is spot-on.
Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey
dir. Pete Hewitt (1991)
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure was not a film that demanded a sequel. Bogus Journey squanders what little charm the original had (the fleeting highpoint being Keanu Reeves and Hal Landon Jr. combining to play dead Ted possessing Ted’s father). Genuinely heinous.
Children of the Stones
(ITV, 1977)
Notable for its eerie music and sustained sense of supernatural peril, this 1970s children’s television classic no doubt terrified many a young viewer. Though well acted, it’s unquestionably a mood piece. The final-episode denouement fails to make sense of much that precedes.
Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 1
(1966-1967)
This ambitious first series established three lead actors perfectly suited to their roles (and who struggle when pushed beyond them). Pros: relatively high production values, genuine SF concepts, ground-breaking racial diversity. Cons: patchy scripts, gender objectification, Kirk’s (Shatner’s?) creepy interactions with women.
The Pickwick Papers
by Charles Dickens (Chapman & Hall, 1837); audiobook read by Simon Prebble (Blackstone, 2010)
An enormous book that oscillates between loquacious charm and utter tedium. Though Dickens created memorable characters (most notably Mr Jingle and Sam Weller), considerable portions of the whole evince the churning out of copy to meet his word count and monthly deadline.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
by C. S. Lewis (Geoffrey Bles, 1950); audiobook read by Michael York (W F Howes, 2017)
Alluringly titled and imbued with that single memorable premise—a winter kingdom hidden within a wardrobe—this imaginative and much-fêted children’s story remains weighed down by narrative religiosity. Events play out as ordained. The protagonists have no real say in what happens.
Ladyhawke
dir. Richard Donner (1985)
An improbably successful embodiment of the 1980s filmmaking zeitgeist. Beautiful cinematography is given a progressive rock score. Michelle Pfeiffer and Rutger Hauer enact a tragic love fairy tale while Matthew Broderick witters amiably and the action turns to consciously b-grade physical comedy.
The Bad Beginning
by Lemony Snicket (HarperCollins, 1999); audiobook read by Tim Curry (Harper Audio, 2004)
As with fairy tales, the children’s circumstances and the characterisations are taken to unnatural extremes. Tim Curry’s (and cast’s) audiobook reading exacerbates this remove from reality. The piecemeal in-text defining of words is merely condescension masquerading as education, which grows quickly tedious.
The Great Explosion
by Eric Frank Russell (Dennis Dobson, 1962)
The novel whose gentle drollery earned Russell a posthumous Prometheus Award for libertarian SF. Russell’s short stories often poked fun at authority. In this longer form his anti-conformist, anti-bureaucratic ribbing encompasses also a wistful sense of the individual’s place amongst the stars.