Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Target Book Club - Readings of the Day - Part Three: Stephen Gallagher, Steve Cole , Alex Hewitt, Joe Lidster, Gareth L. Powell & James Goss

Transcript

Target Book Club - Readings of the Day - Part Three: Stephen Gallagher, Steve Cole , Alex Hewitt, Joe Lidster, Gareth L. Powell & James Goss · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

0:59
So basically our guest of honour, I can't believe we
1:02
actually have a guest of honour, is Stephen Gallagher, the writer
1:06
of two magical Doctor Who stories and also a lot of
1:10
television, including The 11th Hour and October and also the
1:16
film Latin Boys go to. Hell, according to Google.
1:23
Bats and Boys Goes to Hell features an entirely new form of
1:26
back. Blast Backlash.
1:28
Bounce back Steven will be reading and also talking until
1:34
we tell him to stop so Steven Gallagher A.
1:49
Lot of terrific Davises. Everyone is so well prepared.
1:52
I have not prepared anything at all.
1:53
I'm going to do a little bit of chat and a little bit of a read
2:02
and a little bit more chat and hopefully the the next 15
2:05
minutes will speed by and we'll all go away happy and satisfied.
2:10
The the origins of of my contact with Doctor Who.
2:15
I was originally I broke in as a radio writer and I did a series
2:19
of Saturday night theaters for BBC Radio 4.
2:22
Prior to that, I've done the science fiction for independent
2:25
local radio. I did a trilogy of plays and I
2:28
novelized my own material. Soldiers Call Me Books moved
2:33
over to the BBC, was doing the Saturday night theatres.
2:35
And I did a science fiction play called An Alternative to
2:38
Suicide, which starred Michael Jason.
2:42
And it was the script of An Alternative to Suicide that was
2:45
passed over by the producer Martin Jenkins to the doctor's
2:49
office. Chris Bidmead read it.
2:52
John Nathan Turner read it. I got invited in for for a chat.
2:57
I met Tom Baker. You know if.
2:59
You see me speak. Before I probably told you my
3:01
Tom Baker anecdote where he was there in his, in his suit, you
3:05
know, the trousers that Rupert the Bear wears, the the yellow
3:08
checked trousers. Tom had an entire suit made out
3:11
of that. And he, he gave me his, his, his
3:17
theory as to as to how doctors, who works and how the the drama
3:20
works. He says it doesn't matter about
3:22
the monsters. The monster could be anything.
3:24
He said the monster could be any rummages in his pocket and he
3:26
brings out the cheese sandwich. He said the monster could be
3:29
this cheese sandwich and he planted it on the desk and he
3:31
said, and it's entirely how I relax to the cheese sandwich
3:34
gives me the drama and I'm sick and I think life could not get
3:39
better than this. So I go away and I I come up
3:44
with my storyline, which is a kind of, you know, feverish
3:48
mishmash of all the science fiction that I've absorbed in my
3:51
life up to that point. I was 23.
3:54
So a lot of science fiction, a lot of mishmash, not a lot of
3:58
discrimination or filter. And out of that came a single
4:01
page of four paragraphs. Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3,
4:06
Episode 4 of a thing that I called the dream time.
4:10
Because it all takes place in a certain kind of strange out of
4:15
reality. Now that just happened to
4:16
coincide really well with the concept of Espace that had been
4:20
already introduced into season 18 or into season 17, ready for
4:24
season 18. So I got commissioned on the
4:29
basis of that single page and given the task of getting the
4:36
TARDIS through Espace, getting rid of K9 and also writing out
4:42
Nisa. No, sorry, not writing out
4:44
Romani. Nisa comes later.
4:47
So I went away with that and I came up with the overall kind of
4:52
scheme of Warriors Gate because I had to incorporate E states
4:58
into all of this, this, this kind of notion of a space
5:01
outside of space and time. I brought in another concept
5:04
which I was working at Granada and I hadn't left my job yet.
5:08
And one of my colleagues, Joan, was really into the E Ching.
5:13
And she'd read she'd, it wasn't the proper E Ching.
5:16
It was 3 coins in a magazine article, but it was the E Ching.
5:19
You could throw the three coins and then look up the, the
5:22
combination. And she was really enthusiastic
5:24
about this and she was getting everyone to try it.
5:26
And we all tried it. But I said, well, yeah, You
5:28
know, the nature of an Oracle is such that it has a certain
5:32
wisdom in every prediction, which, if you'll put on the
5:36
spot, you can somehow relate to your own life and.
5:38
It will feel real and. True, that was great.
5:42
But I started to think a little bit more because the the kind of
5:45
woo thing behind the E chip was that everything in the universe
5:49
is interrelated. And if you could make the
5:51
falling of the arrow sticks or the tossing of the coins just a
5:54
little bit more. Complicated.
5:56
You can somehow get a little bit closer to the kind of
5:59
complicated relationships of the universe and somehow get to some
6:04
kind of truth. And I thought, well, if you're
6:05
in this space and the universe is really just you or whatever
6:09
you brought with you and you know anybody else who happens to
6:13
be there at the time, but there is a hugely, kind of greatly
6:17
depleted material universe with very little in it.
6:20
Then surely those relationships get more simplified and the idea
6:24
that you could actually navigate or negotiate by, by, by the toss
6:28
of a coin becomes a little bit more credible than it otherwise
6:32
would in a bigger and more complex universe.
6:33
So that went in as well. So that's how that's where we're
6:37
at. And at that point I sat down and
6:40
I started writing drafts and I delivered the drafts and
6:45
everybody seemed happy. Chris Big Mead and, and, and
6:48
Paul Joyce, the director took them off to work on them.
6:51
What I did realise was just how savagely they were cutting them
6:54
down to make them actually usable for television because I,
6:58
I come in as a radio writer and I'd overwritten scripts hugely.
7:03
But at that point Chris Bigmead said to me, well, you know, what
7:06
the writers tend to do here is turn the scripts over to
7:09
Terrence to turn into a novel. You know, you can get a little
7:12
bit of money for that. I said, actually Chris, you
7:14
know, I'd do my own novelisations.
7:16
I, I worked in local radio. I did my own novelisations for,
7:21
for Corgi books. So I'd quite like to do this for
7:24
myself, please. And you know, everybody was
7:27
perfectly happy with that. It wasn't a law that you had to
7:29
turn over to Terrence, although it sometimes feels like it.
7:32
And I went off and from my drafts I wrote a novelisation of
7:40
what by this standard become Warrior's Gate.
7:44
When I delivered it to WH Allen, my editor, there was Christine
7:48
Donagher. Christine has gone on to another
7:51
career. She's a a translator now.
7:54
She translated possibly the the best ever English language
7:58
version of Les Miserables published by Penguin Classics, I
8:02
believe, and very highly recommended.
8:04
But back then she was a kind of fairly kind of low level editor
8:09
in WHL. And she'd been assigned the the
8:12
Doctors and cycle books to to work with.
8:15
The manuscript that I turned in was over length.
8:18
And she said it was over length, she said, but I quite like it,
8:22
she said. So I've had a word with the
8:24
production department and we're going to produce a bigger book.
8:27
You know, they, they, they've said it's OK and we'll, we're
8:30
going to absorb the length. So they went ahead and started
8:34
typesetting, at which point John Nathan Turner waited him because
8:38
he had to give approval to all the localizations.
8:41
And he went through and he wasn't happy.
8:43
He wasn't happy because I'd done a lot more than the TV version
8:48
now contained. And there were some differences
8:51
between what I'd done and between what Chris and Paul had
8:55
done with my scripts. And he would, John's policy, I
9:00
suppose it was, was, was that the, the novelisations had to be
9:04
an accurate reflection of the of the TV stories.
9:09
So this was the 11th hour. I mean, the thing was going to
9:12
press. So I had to take the original
9:15
manuscript and a copy of what was now the the production
9:20
script and I had to do a literal copy paste job.
9:24
Mind you, bear in mind this is kind of 19791980.
9:29
No computers. The whole thing was banged out
9:31
on my old electric paddle. A typewriter.
9:35
I literally had to cut up the original manuscript and paste in
9:39
new dialogue, paste in new descriptions and discard stuff.
9:44
I kept all the stuff I discarded in an envelope.
9:48
Not quite sure why I did that, just kind of retention I
9:51
suppose, but it would prove quite valuable later on.
9:55
And I delivered the the cut and pasted version.
9:59
Did my usual thing of sneaking up to the to the the copy office
10:03
in Granada after hours when everyone had gone home and did
10:05
all my duplicating there story about that, but we'll not go
10:09
into it. And delivered the shortened
10:13
version of the novelisation. Over the years there became this
10:18
kind of myth that grew up of the great lost novelization of
10:22
warriors Gate. And I've got to say it wasn't a
10:24
great lost novelization. It was an envelope full of bits
10:26
and some other ideas. But I was quite happy to hear it
10:30
because it meant, you know, that the story gets alive.
10:32
And every now and again somebody would come up with the, with the
10:36
proposal to say, if you give me the bits and the original script
10:40
and the scripts of the novelisation as it stands, I
10:43
will try and do a, a complete re edit and put the whole thing
10:46
back together again. A restoration, if you will.
10:50
And I would say yes to this and then nothing would happen.
10:54
Because to be honest, it was a bit of a complex job.
10:57
And it was, it was, you know, something that defeated the
11:01
three people who all volunteered one after another to do it.
11:04
And the envelope would go back, go out, and the envelope would
11:06
come back to me and it would sit there.
11:09
And it was when Gareth Kavanagh, the guy behind Cutaway Comics,
11:14
got in touch with me and said then he was the latest one to
11:17
say, you know, shall we have a go?
11:18
Shall we? You know, I would volunteer to
11:20
edit this, but for a fee. And I said, well, yeah, you
11:23
know, as long as I'm not paying a fee, then I'm perfectly happy
11:25
for this to happen. And we pitched it to BBC Books.
11:29
And BBC Books said, well, yeah, we're interested, but we're
11:33
busy. You know, we've got too much on
11:34
at the moment. You know, we, we can't consider
11:38
it. But we did get, or I did get
11:41
about six months later, a contact from BBC Audio and BBC
11:46
Audio said, well, you know, I know BBC Books aren't really
11:49
quite like it. So what happened was BBC Books
11:52
passed on it, BBC Audio took it on, Jon Coulshaw read it and it
11:56
came out as an audio book. The restored the restored
12:02
Warriors Gate, but it wasn't restored by Gareth.
12:04
It was restored by me because there was no budget to pay an
12:07
editor. So one week, another.
12:09
I'm going to have to bite the bullet for this one.
12:12
So I took photocop, paid for photocopies.
12:16
This time I took photocopies of the original script the the
12:21
novelisation, which I didn't actually have a copy of.
12:24
So I had to find a pirated version online, download and run
12:28
it through optical character recognition in order to get a
12:31
copy, because I wasn't going to sit there and type the whole
12:33
thing again. So I had those two, and I had my
12:36
envelope full of bits, and I copied everything onto different
12:39
colored paper so that I could keep track of everything.
12:42
On one Easter weekend, I sat there but a table in the Lake
12:48
District. I remember the weekend clearly.
12:50
Everything's spread out on the table in front of me.
12:52
I started about 10:00 in the morning and by 6:00 we have the
12:56
restored Warriors gate all together in, in one, in one
13:00
place. So BBC Audio, John Colshaw read
13:03
it. Couldn't ask for the better
13:04
unless you were going to get Tom himself doing it.
13:08
And then I still had this kind of ongoing conversation with
13:12
Gareth. And you know, Gareth said, well,
13:16
we weren't able to do the novelisation, he says.
13:18
But I've got this comic venture going.
13:19
Would you be interested in writing something from the
13:22
Expanded Doctor Who universe for Cutaway Comics now?
13:26
The Expanded Doctor Who universe is something that you need to
13:29
everybody who works on Classic Who.
13:33
I've heard from from a more recent one called New Who, I've
13:36
called it called Welsh Who. But Classic Who is everything
13:40
from before the hiatus, because before the hiatus, those of us
13:44
who wrote on it retained the copyright in anything that we
13:47
added to the show. So I owned a copyright of the
13:50
Farrells. I owned a copyright of the
13:52
Gundam. I owned a copyright of the
13:53
Gateway. I did not own the copyrights of
13:56
the Doctor or the assistants or, or or of the TARDIS or anything
14:01
of the the ongoing elements of the show.
14:03
But I own things that I've brought to it.
14:06
So with Gareth and I, I wrote the I work with Martin Garrity,
14:11
classic Doctor Who illustrator, and we produced a graphic novel
14:16
called Faustine Princess of Barrow.
14:20
And I'm really proud of that. And you know, I urge you to to
14:23
go pick it up. If you go on their website, you
14:25
can get it for 499 with an ability that comes with a DVD
14:30
that includes a commentary, an audio commentary to run
14:34
alongside Warriors Gate, which is me, Matthew Waterhouse.
14:38
I think they've got one from Paul Joyce as well, but they
14:41
don't tend to put us in the same room together these days.
14:46
So that that was an ongoing thing with Gareth.
14:48
And then subsequently I thought, well, let's have another go at
14:51
BBC Books because there's the thing, you know, BBC Books and
14:55
said, well, you know, the authorisation went quite well.
14:59
Would you be interested in doing a 10,000 word Nadella for one of
15:03
the the assistants? And over the years I'd I'd been
15:08
making the argument to mostly deaf ears that if you wanted a
15:12
female doctor. And this is something that came
15:14
up every now and again long before there actually was a
15:16
female doctor. But if you wanted a female
15:18
Doctor, you have one because at the end of Warriors Gate,
15:21
Romana, K9 and one of the Farrells walk off through the
15:25
gateway together. The gateway is kind of like a
15:28
TARDIS in that it is a portal to any place in space or time that
15:32
you may want to choose. So you have a Doctor, you have
15:36
an assistant, a parallel assistant, then you've got K9
15:39
for continuity. At any point you could have done
15:42
a spin off series with Ronana and you didn't need to
15:45
necessarily use La La La. You could have you could have
15:47
passed any actress because that's what time laws do and
15:50
that's what time laws are like. But no.
15:53
So all of the the the kind of thoughts that have been swirling
15:57
around to to lead to, you know, to lead to a female doctor went
16:04
into the 10,000 word novella that I wrote for BBC audio and
16:07
that's called the Kairos ring and that's available as a
16:11
download or ACD. And when I came to pitch again,
16:16
the Warriors Gate novelisation to, to, to BBC books, I said
16:22
what I've always really kind of wanted to do would be to see the
16:25
two of them in print together. Because the car Ross Ring
16:29
follows on from Warriors Gate. It picks up that relationship
16:33
and, and extends it. So Steve Cole, who, who is the,
16:37
the auditor on, on the line said, yeah, we, we'll, we'll go
16:40
for that. He said, but we'll need
16:42
something new as well to, to just make the, the package that
16:46
a little bit more worthwhile. So I had recently rewatched the
16:51
the Paul Mcgahn TV movie and thought it was terrific, thought
16:55
it was more terrific than I thought at the time when I'd
16:57
first seen it. You know, I could sort of
16:58
realise his qualities. Now, as I said, I would like to
17:01
do something for Paul Mcgahn's doctor.
17:03
So I wrote a short story to add to the Kairos Ring and continue
17:09
it further and to round off the situation that was left hanging
17:12
at the end of Warriors Gate. So that's what happens and
17:15
that's what occurs in, you know, that's what you get in the in in
17:19
the republication. So I'm just going to read you a
17:23
little short piece of it. And in the spirit of of of
17:27
feaching, I thought what I'll do is I'll not prepare as as you
17:31
can tell, I'm not prepared. I thought what I'll do is I will
17:36
just dip in at random and whatever I land on at random
17:39
will be the passage that I read and and the universe will will
17:43
guide me on this one and the universe will choose something
17:46
suitable and bugger me. Yes, it did.
17:50
And can I just say that an alternative to suicide the the
17:54
radio player that kind of kicked off the whole thing.
17:57
I got a call from Andrew Carmel through through blue sky the
18:02
other day saying, Oh, congratulations on that bit in
18:04
Radio Times. And I said what bit in Radio
18:07
Times he said about An Alternative to Suicide.
18:11
Martin Jenkins, the producer of An Alternative to Suicide, had
18:14
told me way back early in his life that the master tape had
18:19
been wiped and that it was no longer available.
18:22
And the only copies that you could ever get were pirate
18:25
copies that were floating around on the net.
18:27
And it was a lost, it was a lost Saturday Night Tears.
18:31
And the piece in Radio Times was that it was, it was going to be
18:35
the first in a series of recovered lost radio plays.
18:40
So a collector's club, AB collector's club, I think we
18:44
called had restored high quality off air recording to the BBC
18:51
archives and it was being broadcast.
18:53
So there's Michael Jason, you know, there's my entire cast, 40
18:59
year old broadcast back on air. I believe it's still on iPlayer
19:02
for about a week. So, so by all means seek it out
19:07
if you're that curious. And I'd just like to finish on
19:11
on this little passage from Warriors Gate, which is the one
19:14
that the universe has delivered us.
19:16
And if you're not happy with it, then don't blame me.
19:18
Blame the universe, OK? Beroc stood in the gloom of the
19:23
hall and looked upon for the lost glory of the Pharaohs.
19:27
He knew that he was in the midst of a legend, but it was a legend
19:29
of defeat, no more than an echo of the greatness that had
19:32
preceded the enslavement of the race, the fall which had
19:35
scattered them throughout the thousand Systems to live as land
19:39
grubbing beggars while they waited for the hunters to drop
19:42
from the sky. All around him lay evidence of
19:46
the final struggle at his feet along Death Barrel.
19:49
No more than. Fur dried onto a skeleton pinned
19:52
under the capitated shell of a robot warrior.
19:56
The head lay where it had rolled some distance away, a skull mask
20:00
grinning through the protective mesh of the battle helmet.
20:03
Wires, relays, and the snapped central strut showed in the open
20:06
neck. The robot was coated with us,
20:09
but otherwise seemed barely touched by the ages, while the
20:12
Pharaoh's decay was almost complete.
20:15
That had never been the way in the days of the greatness, the
20:18
days when the Pharaohs rule all of time.
20:21
By what tragedy had they failed to foresee their own defeat?
20:25
Biroc stepped over the two bodies and moved through an
20:28
archway. The door was beyond.
20:30
It was a perfect mirror. No dust had ever touched its
20:33
surface, or ever wood. Biroc regarded his reflection.
20:37
A pitiful state for one of the race of kings.
20:40
But no matter. The warrior's gate would belong
20:44
to the Clarels again. Thank you.
20:46
You. Steve Cole is next and he's
21:13
going to, well, Confessions of a Target book editor.
21:19
We're all going to try and keep every talk from now on as quick
21:22
as we can. I am so sorry about it being so,
21:25
so warm. Imagine if we'd done it last.
21:27
Week. Hello.
21:37
Hello. We'll keep it quick.
21:39
The Wheel of Tara. What the hell does that mean?
21:43
Was my question to James Goss when he told me it was the title
21:46
of my talk, which I suspect was because James didn't want a talk
21:50
entitled The Giggle and Lux, their part in my downfall.
21:55
But we're talking about the Wheel of Tara because I also,
21:58
I've edited manuscripts by authors sadly no longer with us,
22:02
with David Fisher, who did his 2RE novelisations of Terrence
22:07
Styx's novelisations of the Androids of Tara and Stones of
22:10
Blood. And as well as having edited
22:14
Terence's books when he was alive many times back in the
22:17
90s. I got to edit the recent
22:19
giveaway of the Wheel in Space, which was with Doctor Who
22:22
magazine recently. And that was, I was an
22:26
interested one because it kind of bit it's you know, it makes
22:29
you sort of think about your relationship not only with the
22:33
authors when you when you know them, but also with the books
22:36
themselves over the years. And like pretty much everyone in
22:39
this room, I imagine, I was always a fan of the Target
22:41
books. When 1977 I was 5 3/4 when I
22:46
filled, I got my mum to fill in the little bit at the back to
22:49
join the Target Book Club, in which not only did you win a
22:52
Target badge, get a Target badge, you see the chance of
22:55
winning a year's supply of Target books.
22:58
But then I panicked. I didn't want my copy of Doctor
23:00
Who and the Side Men to have a missing Backpage, so that was
23:03
never sent. I had to.
23:05
I had to wait 40 years until I finally got a year's supply of
23:08
Target books when Albert so wonderfully brought back the the
23:13
new Target range and asked me to edit those those books, which of
23:17
course was ferociously exciting. How long do I have left, James?
23:20
5 minutes. 5 minutes. OK, I will crack on.
23:23
I know you hover. I think we all doing well.
23:28
Oh, no, it's, it's, it's a hard ask.
23:29
It is, but there. Now we did the target novels of
23:34
Stones of Blood and Andrew's Atara by David Fisher, because
23:37
of course, although they've been done as audio books, they hadn't
23:40
been done in print form, so why not do that?
23:44
And it gave me an opportunity to to come to grips with something
23:49
that has always, always slightly irked me with the Androids of
23:51
Tara, because I loved the story very much.
23:53
Only on Monday I was at Leeds Castle, standing in front of
23:56
Prince Reynard's lodge, thinking, hang a banner on it
23:59
and it would look exactly the same as it is in 1978.
24:01
But there's that bit towards the end of Part 3 when the Doctor
24:07
and Romana remain like they and Grendel comes along and he's,
24:11
and he's piling with them all under flag of truce and all the
24:13
rest of it. And the Doctor and Romana walk
24:18
into a back room inexplicably. And then the only the Doctor
24:21
comes out and continues the rest of the conversation.
24:24
This is so Romana can be kidnapped while no one's
24:27
noticing and, and chucked away on a horse.
24:31
But I, I kind of wanted to know what that was about.
24:34
So I was interested to to find out, you know, the the different
24:36
sort of takes on this. And so David Fisher says the
24:45
count is risking a lot by coming here alone.
24:47
The doctor murmur to Romana. Perhaps you could go to the rear
24:50
of the house and keep watch just in case he's brought company.
24:53
A surprise attack. It wouldn't surprise me, said
24:56
the doctor as Romana slipped away to find a vantage point.
24:59
Now, isn't that satisfying? And it's satisfying because I
25:02
wrote. It.
25:06
Says David Fisher. But in the little essay at the
25:08
back, I do admit to having done it myself, because originally
25:14
it's not commented on at all in in the audio version, Romana is
25:17
still in the scene. We don't have to see her
25:19
vanishing into a backroom because it's on audio, but she
25:21
remains silent and passive throughout, which didn't feel
25:23
very Romana to me. And I checked what, what Terence
25:27
did in, you know, in his version, and he's a very, very
25:31
patrician Dr. telling Romana, you know, oh, Brenda's got no
25:35
love for you. You'd better hide away so he
25:36
can't get you. Yeah, that worked out well.
25:39
So yeah, that was, that wasn't so good.
25:41
But the difference between the the two authors, Terence and
25:45
David, are brought into sharp relief by reading their
25:49
novelisations respectively, and never more so.
25:51
I don't know we've even got 2 minutes or so now than in The
25:55
Stones of Blood when we see the the hapless camping couple eaten
26:01
by the Stones of Blood. It's a moment that Russell T
26:04
Davis has said is like, you know, absolutely integral to his
26:06
ongoing love of Doctor Who. That that illustrates the, the
26:09
wonder and the horror and the terror and everything that can
26:13
happen. And the others handled it very
26:15
differently in his novelisation. Terence keeps things typically
26:21
and definitely succinct. They weren't very experienced
26:24
campers, in fact, it was their first time under campus.
26:27
Newly married, too hard up to afford a proper holiday, they
26:30
had brought the little tent and set off for the Moors.
26:35
So we don't even find out what the the guy's name is in that.
26:37
But David Fisher, on the other hand, gives us rather more of
26:44
this. Pat Blount and Zach Hardcastle
26:46
have been an item ever since their first day in Miss Gilby's
26:50
class at Reservoir Rd. Primary.
26:52
And it goes into a lot of detail, giving us lots of
26:54
wonderful back story. And it sort of covers not only
26:56
the eating of the of the campers in a much more horrific way as
27:00
their limbs are actually brought into the rocks.
27:02
And then the the guy, his back is sort of like attached to it
27:05
and he's sucked in. And then the stones of blood
27:09
with a small Arctician kick out the bone and the shoes and the
27:14
clothing and the bits they couldn't eat, like owl pellets.
27:17
And you see so clearly the difference because David Fisher
27:20
has conceived of the ovary and he knows that although there's
27:22
stones of blood, they must also be able to sort of like, munch
27:25
on some muscle and some veins and all the rest of it.
27:28
But you know, the bones bit is not for them.
27:30
Terence ends simply with the screams of the campers.
27:33
And the ovary had found their food, which again, is a a superb
27:39
weighty line that leaves so much to your imagination.
27:43
You sometimes have to put the books down and run off back to
27:45
your seat before you throw up. And that's where I'm going to
27:47
stop today. Thank you very much and enjoy
27:49
the rest of your target. Time.
28:07
So we're now going to do something very exciting with a
28:12
lost, lost, lost text. I'm very excited about this one.
28:18
Good luck. I pocketed the text.
28:22
Don't. Test that.
28:25
Shit. OK.
28:27
Oh, I see. Yeah.
28:28
Well, good luck. Thank you.
28:32
Pot of water. I'll see if you need it.
28:33
That's fine. So as many people know, Terence
28:39
Dix was big on education and using target novels to get
28:43
people into reading. Many people grew up learning to
28:47
read through his target novels, but he was not the only one for
28:51
whom education was a priority. Pip and Jane Baker were also
28:55
very keen on this, and whilst Terence Dix famously said kids
29:01
start with Dicks and work their way up to Dickens, Pip and Jane
29:04
Baker were also massive fans of the works of Charles Dickens, as
29:09
this quote from The Ultimate Foe quite clearly shows.
29:14
Erect. Betraying not a hint of fear,
29:16
the Doctor was reminded of the fine prose that brought A Tale
29:19
of Two Cities to a noble climax. Clearly Pip and Jane Baker were
29:27
fans as well, and their approach to educating children and
29:31
teaching them to read was more nuanced than Dix's because they
29:36
were obviously incredibly down with the kids.
29:37
Who could forget their incredible segment on open air
29:41
where they bravely put themselves out to be challenged
29:43
on their stories by Doctor Who fans and responded essentially
29:46
with you're wrong, our stories are good.
29:51
So they wrote in the late 70s, a series of reading games which
29:55
were designed to be used in schools to teach children to
29:58
read, children roughly between the ages of five and eight.
30:02
When I found this out, it was quite a difficult journey to
30:06
track down the reading games. It turns out no copies are
30:10
available to buy online, although they're listed on the
30:12
Waterstones website. They're completely out of print.
30:16
I went to various libraries and every single one returned.
30:21
Nope. The only place we have this is
30:23
in the British Library. So this is what Pip and Jane's
30:27
reading games look like. And it was this massive box of
30:31
assorted board games and things that taught kids how to read.
30:37
It wasn't really what I was expecting.
30:38
It was a set of games that had been tailored very specifically
30:42
to kids of the era. And it even features on the
30:45
cover a sketch of what could just about be Pip and Jane Baker
30:52
off on a lovely holiday. They show up again later.
30:56
So they they wrote this incredible introduction about
31:00
the games, you know, quite an encouraging message.
31:04
They'd clearly done a lot of research into this.
31:05
They'd worked with kids. They'd workshopped it.
31:09
And it also gives a rare glimpse into their early prose style.
31:13
In there is is the phrase lethargy and resistance give way
31:17
to enthusiasms. A child's competitiveness is
31:19
directed to useful and constructive ends, and it later
31:22
evolves into a sort of really aggressive seeming.
31:25
There are no born losers. Even teacher can be beaten.
31:30
Encouraging. Right?
31:32
Now we've got that out of the way, let's have a look at the
31:34
first game. The garden game is described as
31:37
a consolidation game, amalgamating a number of
31:40
processes already met and practiced in the other games.
31:43
Self-reliance, accuracy in reading, and individual decision
31:45
making are paramount. This game, as well as all of the
31:48
reading games, was designed to be played on a game board.
31:51
I unfortunately haven't got any photos of that, but I've got a
31:54
couple of examples for things in the game.
31:57
The board was sort of designed like a garden and you made your
32:00
way around. I was going to read out the full
32:02
instructions, but I I think I should keep this brief.
32:07
So it was just simple. Think of words beginning with P
32:11
and ending with G. I've got an example from Mark of
32:14
the Rani here. It's nothing.
32:19
It's it's just the word plug in the phrase.
32:23
The Rani was at her scanner with bleak disapproval.
32:25
She saw the master take out the box of maggots he had filched
32:28
from her. She had seen enough.
32:30
Fretfully she ripped out the plug blanking the screen.
32:33
The imbecile had ruined everything, and it also had some
32:37
some fun sort of exercises to try and fill in the sentences
32:41
Mother was doing. What to the driver?
32:51
I will also just take a brief moment to talk about the rules
32:54
of the Reading games, because there were a lot and they're not
32:57
always easy to follow. I mean, some of them are just
32:59
quite bizarre. The Stepping Stones game
33:01
features a rule where players must sequentially roll the dice
33:03
to determine their next move and how many spaces they're going to
33:06
move. Unless they roll A2 or 4 or a
33:08
six. Because to add some fun to the
33:10
game, if you rolled an even number, you missed your turn.
33:15
I'm I'm not an expert in game design, but it just seems a bit
33:17
counter intuitive. They also sort of had this quite
33:21
brutal get what you're given attitude in the pyramid game in
33:25
which you have to read a card aloud to progress and build your
33:28
pyramid out of cards. It weirdly, there were some
33:32
cards that just said do not move.
33:37
So then let's have a look at the life cycle.
33:41
Yeah, again. Now this there we go there are
33:44
Pip and Jane maybe on their holiday.
33:46
This had some simple three letter words.
33:48
Can we try some audience participation?
33:51
So it's just three simple three letter words.
33:53
Just shout out what it's going to be bat bat.
33:57
We've got bat there, we've got sun.
34:01
It's Austin run fog clearly and. Yeah.
34:11
Yeah, Now, when the sequel to Reading Games came out just a
34:16
year later, Pip and Jane decided to kick things up a notch.
34:22
Not content with teaching kids phrases from the first game such
34:25
as dustpan and brush, hot water bottle, toothbrush and other
34:29
household objects and appliances, they switched
34:31
towards a slightly higher level. So they began they they wanted
34:34
children to be as verbose as they were themselves.
34:37
So the game collecting words too, begins with just some some
34:40
words that it could be often confused if you're between the
34:43
ages of five and eight, which I get, I'll just remind you was
34:46
the age group that these were designed for.
34:47
So, you know, these are Angel versus angle, science versus
34:51
conscious conscience, even chef versus chief.
34:54
And then it gets gets a. Little more.
34:57
Complicated when you move on to grotesque, furtively, etcetera,
35:03
etcetera. And then there were some example
35:05
sentences. The cupboard contained a
35:07
miscellaneous collection of supplementary readers.
35:12
The tempestuous singer impatiently banged her fist on
35:15
the foot. I should have written these down
35:16
somewhere. I'm just going to angle it.
35:18
And then spontaneous applause greeted the triumphant arrival
35:21
of the handsome driver. These quite nicely gear us up
35:25
towards the kind of prose style that Pip and Jane used in time
35:28
in the Rani, where on page 75 we have this glorious sentence.
35:32
His voice was drowned out by a composite gin of gurgling engine
35:35
wine and staccato cracks from the catalyst as the simmering
35:38
glutinous liquid ooze through the elaborate arrangement of
35:41
tubes and transparent pipes on its journey into the spherical
35:43
chamber. It's good, you know, good that
35:46
they were sort of warming people up for it.
35:49
I think that's. Yeah.
35:50
Again, there's just some more here on finding words.
35:54
The old statue was very delicate.
35:56
I think some of their frustrations with having to
35:58
teach kids how to read came through in some of these.
36:02
Trying. Trying to hide my
36:05
disappointment, I congratulated the winner and her tremendous
36:08
success. The cruel tyrant urged his weary
36:10
army onward. And then this one, I think a bit
36:12
of a giveaway. The teacher was forced to help
36:14
the students. So basically, to sum up, reading
36:22
games is this sort of slightly insane way of teaching 5 to 8
36:24
year olds. I mean read just getting them
36:26
ready for the kind of prose that would arrive, you know, between
36:29
5 and 10 years later in their novels.
36:33
It's arguably it's success is is more lasting than it might
36:36
appear because in I think 2018, Twinkle, the educational
36:41
publisher actually teamed up with the BBC to do some key
36:45
stage two and three Doctor Who books.
36:47
It might be tenuous to suggest that this is directly a
36:52
descendant of reading games, and so I won't thank you very much.
37:27
So I just read it. Yeah.
37:29
OK. Wednesday the 17th of May 1995,
37:33
the Powell Estate, London. Rose Tyler was trying to sleep.
37:36
She often found it difficult to sleep because her brain was
37:39
always making her think. Missus Flanagan said it was
37:41
because she had a brilliant imagination tonight.
37:44
It wasn't her brilliant imagination that was keeping her
37:46
awake, it was her mum, because Wednesday night was the night
37:49
mum had the girls round. Rose always found it incredibly
37:52
silly and very annoying because from her bedroom she'd hear
37:54
Auntie Susie or Auntie Bev saying something totally,
37:56
completely not funny. Like he could fix my engine and
38:00
they'd all just start screeching and cackling.
38:03
Rose thought they sounded like geese.
38:05
Rose's brilliant imagination was picturing her mum as a goose
38:08
when suddenly something scary started to happen.
38:11
The door handle on her bedroom door was moving.
38:14
Other girls would have closed their eyes because they were
38:15
scared, but Rose was brave and kept her eyes wide, wide, wide
38:19
open. The door began to push open,
38:21
orange light shining through from the living room.
38:24
A shadowy figure slowly entered the room.
38:26
It was, of course, her mum. Rose sighed as her mum tottered
38:30
over towards the bed. She was doing that happy and sad
38:33
thing that she often did after drinking too much wine.
38:36
She was smiling her big, beautiful, best mum in the world
38:38
smile, but Rose could tell she was nearly crying.
38:40
She tiptoed over to the bed and stroked the side of Rose's face.
38:44
She told her that she loved her so, so much.
38:46
Rose Tyler was a clever girl. She knew why her mum was so
38:49
happy and sad at the same time. One of the Wednesday girls was
38:52
Auntie Sarah, who Rose loved very, very much.
38:54
But Rosie's daddy had died at Auntie Sarah's wedding and that
38:57
made her mum sad. Her mum stroked her face and
39:00
told her again that she loved her so, so much, and Rose said
39:02
that she loved her mum so, so much too.
39:05
Her mum leant down towards her. She smelled of chips and
39:07
vinegar, which Rose loved, and wine, which Rose did not love.
39:11
Oh Rose, my darling, don't you ever, ever leave me.
39:13
You promised me. Rose nodded and as her mum
39:16
tottered back out to the girls, Rose closed her eyes and hoped
39:18
that the geese in the living room and that her brilliant
39:20
imagination would finally all be quiet so she could finally get
39:23
some sleep. Friday the 17th of January 2003,
39:27
Nafferton, East Yorkshire. Barry was cold.
39:31
Barry had never really been cold before.
39:33
His home, which he shared with his family, had always been
39:35
warm. It had always been safe.
39:37
But Barry wasn't at home anymore.
39:38
He had run away. Barry was creeping through the
39:41
field, making sure to stay hidden by the corn.
39:43
He crept and he crept, and after what felt like ours, he found
39:46
himself in the small forest at the edge of the field.
39:48
He waited. Barry had always liked to sneak
39:51
out for late night walks, and everyone else was asleep.
39:53
He'd always found it difficult to sleep because he was always
39:55
thinking about the world outside, the world his family
39:58
had no interest in seeing because his family were really
40:00
very boring. All they ever looked forward to
40:02
was going to the market. Three nights before, Barry had
40:05
been out for one of his late night strolls when he
40:07
encountered the strangest man he'd ever met.
40:10
At first he had to admit he'd been quite scared.
40:12
But then they'd started talking. Barry had told the man about how
40:15
he wanted to see the stars. The man had said that he could
40:18
take Barry to see the stars. He told him how he'd run away
40:20
from his home as well. He told Barry about all the
40:22
wonderful places he had seen. The man had then said to Barry
40:25
that he'd come back in three days time and asked Barry if
40:28
he'd like to explore the universe with him.
40:30
And so for the longest 3 days of his life, Barry had waited.
40:33
He'd not told any of his family what he was doing.
40:35
He would come back one day with stories and gifts, he'd tell
40:38
them about the magic of the universe.
40:40
Do you want to come with me? Asked the voice from the
40:42
shadows. Barry looked up as his new best
40:44
friend stepped up from between the two trees.
40:46
The man stepped into the moonlight and Barry ran towards
40:48
him. Unlike the other humans Barry
40:51
knew Ducasse fell. Fotch Passimer de Slavine was 7
40:54
feet tall and as green as the leaves on the trees.
40:57
Are you ready to come with me? He asked Barry.
40:59
Barry snuffled his smelt and looked down at his trotters
41:01
before looking back up at Jupassa.
41:03
He smiled and he oinked. Barry was ready to see the
41:05
universe. And we're going to start with
41:32
Gareth Alpal giving a reading from the well.
41:51
Hello. If I'd known I was coming to a
41:56
sauna I would have worn a towel. I'm reading from the well and
42:05
I'll start with the prologue and we'll see how far we get.
42:10
If I do it really quickly you might get the whole thing.
42:15
The prologue is called Waiting for the Humans.
42:20
The presents have been alone for 400,000 years, haunting the
42:26
caverns and rock fissures deep beneath the blasted surface of
42:30
its ruined world. Once Upon a time, millennia ago,
42:35
other creatures came from beyond the sky in ships made of metal
42:41
and plastic and fire. They called themselves humans,
42:47
and while they were able to wield great technological power,
42:51
they were also fleshy and vulnerable and unable to survive
42:55
on the surface without their machines.
43:00
At first, the presence stalked the periphery of their
43:04
settlement. It watched the comings and
43:07
goings of their little vehicles with Caterpillar tracks and
43:11
covered windows. When it felt ready, it found a
43:15
way inside. The humans were unprepared, of
43:19
course. Before they even suspected what
43:23
might be happening, the presence clawed its way into their soft
43:26
and pliable minds and began to feast upon their fear, devour
43:30
their anger, and burst in the nourishing purity of their
43:34
hatred. In their bright, vibrant
43:37
memories, it caught tantalising glimpses of other worlds beyond
43:41
this desolate wasteland. 1,000,000 worlds, each filled
43:45
with billions of other such creatures.
43:48
A trillion opportunities to grow and learn and play and feed.
43:54
In that moment it hatched a plan to escape this radioactive hell
43:58
hole of a planet and spread itself across the stars in an
44:02
endless frenzy of conquest and predation.
44:06
It would have been glorious, but it had been stopped, prevented
44:11
by the very creatures it had sought to subjugate, cast back
44:15
into exile and solitude. Now it paced restlessly in its
44:21
subterranean confinement as it had done for the past 400,000
44:26
years. Slytherin.
44:28
Through scenes in the rock, crawling through cracks and
44:31
fissures as it seized with rage and resentment, waiting for
44:35
another chance to escape and wreak a terrible vengeance on
44:39
those who had so unfairly imprisoned it.
44:43
Waiting for the arrival of more weak, unwitting humans.
44:48
Waiting for another chance to feast.
44:51
But most of all, waiting for the creature that called itself The
44:57
Doctor. Chapter 1 Swatted by a giant
45:03
moth. Why did time travel have to be
45:07
so complicated? There were so many brightly
45:10
coloured knobs, switches, levers and dials on the main TARDIS
45:14
console that sometimes the Doctor wished he had more than
45:17
one pair of hands. That's what friends are for, he
45:21
thought as the blue box creams through the fiery time vortex.
45:25
He helped Belinda wrap her fingers around two of the most
45:28
important switches and then moved around to the opposite
45:31
side of the control console, because of course the controls
45:35
he needed to operate were odd. Opposite sides.
45:38
It was going to work this time, he told himself, gripping the
45:41
lever. It had to work.
45:44
He began to countdown. 5 On the other side of the console,
45:49
Belinda, resplendent in a wide skirted yellow swing dress, bit
45:53
her lower lip in concentration. 4 He saw the muscles in her
45:58
forearms tense, ready to pull her switches. 3 Distracted.
46:04
For a millisecond or two, the Doctor tried to recall if he'd
46:07
ever met any Time Lords who had grown an extra pair of arms,
46:11
maybe a few extra pairs. He was sure at least one of them
46:14
must have tried it. These old Type 40 models had
46:18
originally been designed to be flown by six Time Lords, all
46:21
working together. Surely the Time Lords could have
46:24
found a way to replace the entire console with a glass
46:27
touched screen that one person could operate without having to
46:30
stretch themselves around like they were playing Twister.
46:34
In fact, they could probably have just made the whole TARDIS
46:37
entirely automatic if they'd wanted to.
46:40
But where would be the fun in that time travel?
46:43
At least the way the Doctor did it was more an art than a
46:47
science, more intuition than skill, more luck than judgement.
46:52
2 Here we go. One as instructed, Belinda
46:59
through her switches. At the same exact instant, the
47:02
Doctor yanked down the thick silver handle that initiated the
47:05
landing sequence. Please Work, he pleaded
47:09
silently. Please work.
47:12
The glowing lights in the console's central column moved
47:15
up and down. The engines wheezed and groaned.
47:19
Come on, you magnificent machine, come on.
47:22
Oh, mood lighting. They were almost there, almost
47:31
there, but then the TARDIS shuddered and bounced, the same
47:36
bounce as last time. No, The Doctor cried in dismay.
47:39
No, no, no, no. He didn't know why his precious
47:43
ancient ship kept flinching away every time he tried to take
47:46
Belinda home to London in 2025. And if there was one thing the
47:51
Doctor hated, it was not knowing something.
47:54
It was almost as if the universe had placed an impossible
47:57
invisible barrier around the entire planet on that date,
48:01
causing the old ship to glance off every time he tried.
48:05
Could the fault be internal? Despite the shiny new appearance
48:10
of the control room, the TARDIS had been an antique when he'd
48:13
stolen her from Gallifrey. Since then, he and the old
48:17
machine had been through a lot together, travelling back and
48:20
forth from one end of the space-time continuum to the
48:23
other, from the Revenant stars to the Glisten Cascade and
48:27
beyond. And maybe, just maybe, it was
48:31
starting to show its age. In the last three hours he'd
48:35
stripped down and reassembled the time circuits half a dozen
48:38
times, and still the TARDIS stubbornly refused to
48:41
materialise on Earth on May the 24th, 2025.
48:46
And he couldn't work out why. Having failed again, they were
48:49
now spinning randomly through the time vortex.
48:52
It was madding. To his knowledge, nothing
48:55
momentous was supposed to happen in 2025.
48:58
No huge disasters or alien invasions, certainly nothing
49:02
that could cause the entire Earth to get time locked.
49:07
So if it wasn't a time lock, what was it?
49:10
Surely nothing good. From the other side of the
49:14
console, Belinda saw his consternation and it worried
49:17
her. So if we can't get home, She
49:20
said nervously. And if the TARDIS isn't broken,
49:23
that means what? Planet Earth is broken or 2025
49:27
is broken. The Doctor didn't respond.
49:30
He was beginning to fear the same thing because there were
49:35
only a finite number of reasons the TARDIS might refuse to
49:38
materialize somewhere, and the utter destruction of that
49:41
somewhere ranked fairly high on the list.
49:45
It had an instinct for self preservation that caused it to
49:49
avoid materializing inside. Exploding stars, hazardous
49:53
paradoxes, or erupting volcanoes.
49:57
What if there wasn't a barrier around the Earth?
50:00
It was just that the world had somehow become so dangerous in
50:03
2025 that the TARDIS was refusing to return.
50:09
Have we been invaded? Belinda went on, sounding
50:11
increasingly worried. Or hit by a meteor.
50:13
Or spotted by a giant moth. That last one caught his
50:17
attention. Snapped from his reverie, the
50:20
Doctor's irritation vanished like the sun coming out from
50:22
behind a cloud, and his eyes shone with delight.
50:26
Imagine a moth that big. He'd seen some moths in his
50:30
time, no doubt about that. Tiny little brown ones that ate
50:33
his socks, huge, colourful ones with impressive wingspans and
50:37
furry legs. And then there had been that
50:39
gigantic one in Tokyo that had been a monster, bigger than
50:46
skyscrapers, with wings wider than city blocks.
50:50
But he'd never encountered one large enough to swat an entire
50:53
planet. That would certainly be a sight
50:56
worth seeing. Imagine how many socks it could
50:59
eat. But really?
51:02
Belinda begged, almost on the verge of tears now.
51:05
Because my parents are back home and if this is Friday, then they
51:08
go to this bar with their mates and dad sings and everyone
51:10
laughs and then the whole place ends up singing every Friday
51:14
night. Is that still happening, Doctor?
51:16
Are they safe? I hope so.
51:18
The Doctor muttered, meaning it, but still preoccupied by his
51:22
malfunctioning TARDIS. And thoughts of moths the size
51:25
of nebula with wings spun from shimmering Starlight.
51:30
You hope? Tears filled Belinda's eyes and
51:32
her hands shook. The Doctor jerked from his
51:36
reverie. He hadn't realized how upset she
51:38
was. Sometimes it took him a moment
51:41
to notice things like that. Hey.
51:44
He pulled her into a tight hug. Hey, hey, come here.
51:49
Thank you. Right, OK, I'm going to get
52:12
through this as quickly as possible because everything that
52:14
is coming after this is brilliant and exciting.
52:20
This right Saturdays. Sorry, not at all.
52:36
The audience participation has begun early.
52:38
I see. Can I?
52:53
You're keeping us all in. Saturdays at Lizzie's Place were
53:00
a ritual. The living room wasn't very big,
53:03
mainly due to all the books. Lizzie liked books, even though
53:07
they took up a lot of space. She had a friend who claimed he
53:10
only had space for seven books and when he bought a new one,
53:13
got rid of 1. Lizzie didn't like that idea
53:16
that you could have enough books.
53:20
So there they all were, meeting at hers, somehow squeezing into
53:23
the living room. They weren't a podcast or a
53:27
religion. No, this was important.
53:30
They were almost like a secret society.
53:34
There were three of them in their little club.
53:36
That's what her mum called it. How's your little club?
53:39
When's your little club getting together?
53:42
I'm 29, Mum. Lizzie Thorpe.
53:44
Stop making it sound unreal, like I'm having a tea party with
53:47
my toys. God knows how they'd found each
53:51
other. Sort of IRL, sort of the
53:53
Internet. But there they were, popped into
53:55
existence as a group. They all had lives outside that
53:58
little club. All loudly told each other that
54:01
they did. Especially Robin.
54:03
She was always saying I'm too busy for this or I don't have
54:07
the time. Usually in six minute voice
54:09
notes that made group chat heavy weather anyway.
54:13
They met on Saturdays. Hassan had said that if you
54:16
turned up late, you wouldn't be admitted.
54:18
It was a rule. Hassan was always inventing
54:21
rules to make sense of the world.
54:23
The No Latecomers rule had petered out pretty quickly,
54:26
though, because they were always ended up waiting for Robin.
54:29
In theory there was a direct bus from Hearst to Liz's, but in
54:32
practice it always involved a change in the Ting Ting Casino
54:35
car park, where a mother with a pram would stand shooting
54:37
daggers at Robin's wheelchair, silently promising a fight over
54:41
the single accessible space on the next bus.
54:43
Normally the pram won as the 72's rarely had the ramp.
54:47
So rules are no rules. They'd wait for Robin, but
54:50
sometimes be an hour late. Lizzie understood then why Robin
54:53
was always saying how she didn't have the time.
54:56
Anyway, here they all were again, only a little bit late,
55:00
the new episode all loaded up and ready to go.
55:04
This was it. This was their ritual, their
55:08
secret society. She'd put out a few crisps.
55:13
One of Lizzie's many more than seven books was about children
55:16
who spent their summers catching smugglers and then having
55:19
Scrummo midnight feasts. Lizzie had always thought that
55:22
sounded nice, so she tried laying on a midnight feast last
55:25
year. Turned out no one really fancied
55:27
Scott eggs and trifle at knocking on for 1:00 AM.
55:30
So just the crisps. Lizzie always bought the crisps,
55:34
even if Robin always chose the flavours.
55:37
This wasn't quite one of her sans rules.
55:39
He was 19. He'd eat anything.
55:41
But Lizzie had learned not to put out anything that Robin
55:43
wouldn't eat, as then the bowl would be pushed loudly about the
55:47
coffee table for an hour, like a planchette across a Ouija board
55:50
summoning an undead gob. Robin was later than usual and
55:55
it had been raining, so she arrived steaming like a
55:58
microwaved Christmas pudding. Hassan had been there fidgeting
56:01
on the sofa for an hour, telling Lizzie his new theories.
56:04
Hassan always had theories about what they were going to watch
56:08
Wild and extravagant Fine Spunner's wedding cake
56:11
decorations and frequently based on nothing more than a deleted
56:14
post or the. Corner of a jpg.
56:17
Normally, Robin would shoot him down in flames.
56:20
Whatever Internet Robin had always turned out to be right.
56:23
Hassan never ran out of theories.
56:26
He had a lot for today's episode.
56:29
He'd heard from someone in confidence.
56:30
He'd heard from someone he didn't actually work on the
56:32
show, but had seen something on the phone of someone who
56:34
absolutely did, and this meant that they were all in for a
56:37
surprise halfway through. What was the surprise?
56:44
Hassan didn't actually know, which meant it was a rubbish
56:47
surprise. Hassan didn't like surprises.
56:49
He didn't know in advance, but he could make an educated guess.
56:54
It'll be the Rani. Guess who had no script access?
57:02
I'll never say it will be the Rani.
57:09
It was always definitely going to be the Rani.
57:13
It never was. Hassan was obsessed by the Rani,
57:20
which was odd as Lizzie had once suggested they watch one of the
57:23
stories with the Rani in it, and Hassan had pulled a face.
57:27
The same face Robin wore when Lizzie bought out onion rings
57:29
again. Anyway, Hassan knew for an
57:32
absolute top secret fact that something was going to happen
57:34
half, or at the most 3/4 of the way through.
57:37
Something that would break their world forever, obviously.
57:41
About that, thought Lizzie tipping more crisps into the
57:43
bowl. Hassan couldn't get enough
57:45
crisps tonight. Maybe just once he could buy
57:47
some, but he was 19 and he had no money, allegedly, even though
57:51
he did have that new scarf he was taking selfies in.
57:54
Lizzie fussed around the room, getting the lighting just so
57:58
Hassan asked to have the remote checking for the third time.
58:01
That should absolutely turn motion smoothing off.
58:04
This was, he still maintained why they'd not got Legend of the
58:07
Sea Devils the first time. Robin sat there, pushing the
58:16
crisp ball around in search of her dead Gran.
58:19
Lizzie had bought a different brand as it was on special.
58:22
Robin had a bit of new information.
58:25
She had heard the episode was being novelized by the guy who'd
58:28
done the giggle, which had been all right.
58:31
Robin said, but a bit playing up for company.
58:36
Lizzie made a note of that. She wouldn't find space for that
58:38
one on the shelves. There they all were.
58:42
All ready to watch the next episode of their favorite TV
58:45
show. The best show that has ever been
58:48
made, even if they didn't sometimes like it very much,
58:52
because the show was the thing that their entire lives revolved
58:56
around. As Robin picked as a Shard of
58:58
Crisp jabbing in her gum, Lizzie snogged into her favorite
59:01
cushion, and Hassan wielded the remote silence.
59:06
There would be no talking for the next 44 minutes and 16
59:09
seconds. Maybe a groan, a laugh, or
59:12
sometimes a no, but no talking. That would come after lots of
59:19
it, but for now, the highlight of their week.
59:22
Sometimes you pour your soul into what you're watching, and
59:25
sometimes it pours its soul into you.
59:29
Has sound clicked a button and brought the screen to life.
59:32
Let's get this over with.