Mad Dogs and Englishmen

This is billed as being the 100th Doctor Who Novel in "the record-breaking BBC Worldwide series". Not sure what records they've broken, but it does give them an excuse to put a shiny gold logo on the cover. Mm, lovely.

Paul Magrs

for the defence: Who-wise, absolutely nothing. On the other hand, the well-read Si Hart rates Paul Magrs' non-Who work very highly.

for the prosecution: The Scarlet Empress (the worst Doctor Who book ever written); The Blue Angel

You wouldn't believe me if I told you!! Well, OK - Noel Coward uses his time-travelling pinking shears and his ability to compose a hugely-successful song about a poodle, to help restore the Princess Margaret to the throne of the Dogworld. I did say you wouldn't believe me...

Having absolutely loathed Magrs' first EDA (The Scarlet Empress) it's fair to say that I wasn't exactly looking forward to this one. However, although it still has moments that smack of undisciplined self-indulgence (for example the passengers on the train in chapter 24), and although the plot doesn't stand up to much scrutiny (having the three regulars in three different time zones is nice, but makes no sense)... despite all that I sped through this one, and other than the gratuitous nudity early on I really enjoyed it. An utterly ludicrous, appallingly silly, yet somehow cheekily delightful bit of nonsense!

No smoke without fire, and unfortunately no Magrs without his wretched creation Iris Wildthyme. She appears here under the pseudonym of Brenda Soobie, a Scots cabaret singer. Since she's still breathing I have to assume that she is one of the four remaining Timelords mentioned by the Master (maybe) in The Adventuress of Henrietta Street. Although Fitz remembers Iris (he met her, albeit when she was in a different incarnation, during The Blue Angel) and Iris remembers Fitz, and although Iris of course remembers the Doctor, the Doctor has no idea who she is! Iris mentions that she stayed with him during the 1980s (which was mentioned in passing during Father Time) but I think we have to assume she was in a different body, since it still doesn't jog the Doctor's memory.

In respect of the Doctor's sojourn on Earth (from The Burning to Escape Velocity, keep up there) he mentions living in a house in Kent. Whether this is the same one the seventh Doctor owned during the NA range of books, or an entirely different house in Kent, is unclear, but apparently while living there the Doctor helped to teach some escaped wild boar to speak. This accounts for why a boar is the Manager of the futuristic space Hotel where the TARDIS first arrives... Would this be a good time to direct your attention back to the phrase "undisciplined self-indulgence" above?

There are a few run-of-the-mill name checks, including Anji's Dave, the Doctor's Miranda, and the Venusian's aikido. Magrs also overdoes the same in-joke, by having the TARDIS arrive with a "vworp, vworp" (as per the DWM comic strip) and then later having Iris' bus depart with the same noise. The bus leaving is ALSO described as being with "a wheezing, groaning sound"...

There are also quite a few nods to the TV series - on page 129 Professor Tyler is described as being "a man who can see round a corner or two", a description applied to the Doctor in Terror of the Zygons. On the very next page, the Doctor's cover story for infiltrating a group of would-be authors is that he is himself writing a book about "terrible shape-shifting aliens who have lived beneath Loch Ness for millions of years." As a throwaway line, it's OK, although it does raise the question (again) of whether or not the Doctor really has forgotten his former life - twenty pages later, at the authors' meeting, he spins another yarn which appears to merge the storylines from The Android Invasion, The Brain of Morbius and Planet of the Spiders. It must be contagious, since a minor character called Johnson is writing a story about "silver Vikings who are frozen in a tomb..."

Moving on to even more obscure TV references, the Doctor muses over having come from somewhere in Southern Ireland (originally proposed as the location of Gallifrey in The Hand of Fear) and Mrs Tyler is reading a book called "The Slaves of Sutekh"... Lastly on the TV front, BBC Three gets a mention on page 72 - the real BBC Three didn't debut until 2003, so this book, published in early 2002, is harking back to the mythical station devoted to archaeologists, as seen in The Daemons.

The Doctor, by the way, is still bearded, and this brings me to one of the main problems that the book has, not of itself, but in terms of the ongoing series. There is no mention, from any of the characters, of the Doctor's having had his heart removed, or how that has affected him, or what Fitz and Anji make of it. That's not the author's fault, and stylistically at least the contrast between the previous very heavy, very doom-laden and enigmatic novel, and this light and frothy romp, is very successful - but as consecutive elements in an on-going series (at this time the books were still being published monthly, so it's not unreasonable to think that some readers will have moved straight from one to the other as I have) the effect is very jarring. Shame on the editor, that's what I say!

And finally, royal clothes designer Norman Hartnell gets a mention towards the end of the book. I believe he had a cousin in the acting profession...

The Doctor here is your fairly straightforward hero, which I must say makes a nice change after the vague, elemental force of the previous book. Here he seems to be enjoying himself immensely, several times ingratiating himself into people's favour with an almost effortless charm.

There are some nice touches, reminding us of the Doctor's current status, but without hammering it home. His convivial mood vanishes when Mrs Tyler asks where he comes from. And when Iris leaves at the end of the book, and the noise of the departing bus causes the Doctor to belatedly realise that Iris is another Timelord, he marvels that "I'm not alone" (although that doesn't really sit very well with his alleged conversation with the maybe-Master in the previous book).

The Doctor's violent streak is also touched on with Noel Coward pointing out that the Doctor is using "strong-arm tactics rather a lot these days" (how does he know - has he been reading the EDAs?). The Doctor demurs on the why, although Coward theorises that it is simply impatience on the Doctor's part.

There's a very interesting description of the Doctor on page 129, by Cleavis, one of the would-be writers in the group: "this man could see straight into him. He could somehow and, at a glance, read in Cleavis everything he had ever committed to paper. And not only that, he could read there, in his face, everything he would ever write, until the day he died." The suggestion that the Doctor can somehow see an individual's future stretching out before them was one of the intriguing features of the 1996 TV Movie ("remember, answer the second question...")

This Book: Well, as with the previous book (and if I may momentarily look into the future, the next one) I paid £4.17 all in for a fine second-hand copy from Ant Williams. However, at an improbability reading of 387 to 1 against (possible much higher) I also got a brand-new copy from my daughter for Christmas. So I'm going to consider this one a freebie, and claim a saving of the whole £5.99.

As for the duplicate copy, I think I'll give it to my brother. I'm sure that in his never-ending battle to convince his wife that Doctor Who is an entirely appropriate interest for a grown man in his thirties, a pink book with a picture of a poodle on the front will be a great asset...

Running Score: £51.76 against RRP to date.