The Adventures of Sally
by P G Wodehouse (Herbert Jenkins, 1922); audiobook read by Frederick Davidson (Blackstone, 1997)
Wodehouse’s American stories tend to be a little more staid than those set in England. The plot here is clever and the prose witty. Sally is a winning protagonist. But Davidson’s audiobook reading plays no small role in enlivening the whole shebang.
Sold – For a Spaceship
by Philip E High (Robert Hale, 1973)
High deploys his customary optimism in having the remnants of the human race awake from suspended animation to reclaim their much-changed planet. An enjoyable helter-skelter hodgepodge of pulp SF ideas, characters and landscapes, marred by male-female interactions that are early Hollywood cringeworthy.
Cyril of the Apes
by Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy; ill. Quentin Blake (Jonathan Cape, 1987)
A middling middle-grade adventure in which the protagonist—a crotchety writer with no redeeming features—embroils himself in various perils and through happenstance alone escapes them. The illustrations and tone of writing suggest this is supposed to be funny, but it isn’t.
The Colour of Magic
by Terry Pratchett (Colin Smythe, 1983); audiobook read by Nigel Planer (Isis, 1995)
Pratchett’s first Discworld novel is a bubbling primordial soup of imagination. It sets the scene but at this burgeoning stage is less a crowning achievement in comedy and more the concomitant satire of a very funny man trying to write serious fantasy.
The Scarlet Pimpernel, Series 1
by Richard Carpenter (BBC, 1999)
Three feature-length episodes starring Richard E. Grant as the foppish Lord Percy and his dashing alter ego, and Martin Shaw as his amoral foe Paul Chauvelin. The BBC has long excelled at period drama. This one is fun if a little dated.
The Wombles
by Elisabeth Beresford (Ernest Benn, 1968)
The book that started a phenomenon. Beresford envisaged bear-like creatures living on Wimbledon Common. They are honest, hardworking, kind, curious and tidy but the younger Wombles are sometimes led into trouble by their childlike foibles. Each chapter relates a sweet, safe mini-adventure.
The Cockatrice Boys
by Joan Aiken (Victor Gollancz, 1966)
This dark, rather detached MG story sees an odd cadre battling by train across an England overrun by fantasy monsters. Like much of Aiken’s writing it is unsettling, compelling, but totally lacking in resolution (or even intent)—a beautifully described bad dream.
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.