Saturday Live, Volume One
by Stephen Fry & Hugh Laurie (Redbush, 2015)
A patchy collection of highlights (so-called) from the 1986 TV variety show. Fry and Laurie are first-billed but don’t actually feature that much. Instead, there’s Ben Elton’s high-octane social and political stand-up, protest poems by Craig Charles, and several remarkably unfunny also-rans.
A Study in Scarlet
by Arthur Conan Doyle (Ward Lock & Co, 1887); audiobook read by Stephen Fry (ABC/Audible, 2017)
This would have made a fine short story—introducing the great detective to his chronicler—yet the lengthy second part serves only to demonstrate Conan Doyle’s dependence on Holmes and Watson. In the absence of these seminal characters, the prose turns flaccid.
Tintin: Destination Moon
by Hergé (Casterman, 1959)
Hergé’s phenomenal commitment to accuracy is nowhere greater attested than in ‘Destination Moon’ and its sequel. Thankfully, the laborious detail is offset by liberal doses of physical comedy courtesy of Captain Haddock, the Thom(p)sons, and—most gloriously—Professor Calculus acting the goat!
The Witches
by Roald Dahl (Jonathan Cape, 1983); audiobook read by Miranda Richardson (Penguin, 2013)
Scary and horrid and yet rather wondrous and fun, Roald Dahl’s take on witches remains a classic of middle grade fiction. Miranda Richardson’s audiobook reading is nicely pitched (notwithstanding her overly grating Grand High Witch and some oddly lacklustre, unnecessary sound effects).
The Great Dictator
dir. Charlie Chaplin (1940)
A political satire that, even at the time, carried a poignance well beyond its surface humour. Chaplin, playing a Jewish barber Hitler lookalike, struck an uneasy but quite brilliant balance between serious filmmaking (Chaplin the writer-director) and comic business (Chaplin the actor).
Flowers and the Last Hurrah
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Analog, March 1999)
A cloning murder mystery, mostly scenario.
Reach for the Sky: The Story of Douglas Bader DSO, DFC
by Paul Brickhill (W. W. Norton & Company, 1954); audiobook read by Robert Hardy (Chivers, 1991/2010)
Brickhill is firmly eulogistic (though not without cause) in detailing the extraordinary feats of double-amputee fighter pilot Douglas Bader, and also something of English life itself in the interwar period and during World War II. Robert Hardy’s audiobook reading captures the spirit.
Sapphire & Steel, Assignment 2
by P. J. Hammond (ITV, 1979)
A murky, abandoned railway station provides the setting for this cagey, at times creepy foray into the supernatural. Sapphire and Steel’s second assignment has more coherence; more progression. The dénouement—though not foreshadowed—remains grimly in keeping, not a deus ex machina.
Mr Browser and the Brain Sharpeners
by Philip Curtis (Alfred A. Knopf, 1981); audiobook read by Sandi Toksvig (Brilliance, 2014)
A perfectly pitched middle grade adventure, pitting 10-year-old Michael Fairlie against egg-headed aliens who want to smarten up and then abduct his classmates. The foggy school oval and pepper-pot spaceships lend an eerie imagery to what otherwise is a fast, fun tale.
The Prestige
by Christopher Priest (Simon & Schuster, 1995); audiobook read by Simon Vance (Blackstone, 2006)
The intertwined life stories of two feuding magicians, told by way of their respective reminiscences. The overlapping viewpoints allow for an exploration of narrative felicity and also, dramatically, an almost Shakespearean tragedy; concomitantly, there’s no denying the book sags in the middle.