Shada. The Book.The EpisodesThe Video. The DVD. The Bueray Steelbook.The Holo Pill.

How nervous Gareth Roberts must have been when it came to sitting down and actually contemplating the huge task of adapting Douglas Adams script for the unfinished, but by now,totally accepted notion of a Doctor Who classic era story. He must have giggled at the sheer implied hubris, then got over it when he realised, surely at some point, that he is an extremely talented writer himself and could bring oh so much to the table himself. which is what Gareth Roberts does in spades. He has taken an unfinished sculpture and bashed out a thing of beauty and a joy forever.
            I am gushing, I know, but this book has so entertained me over the last three nights. I am prone to the blues as the dark nights creep over us and this lovely book has so far proved an antidote to that melancholy shade. Not only a great story well retold it also manages to smuggle a host of wee knowing treats within the text. For instance the great Dave Gibbons gets a mention among a list of great artists named as those whose genius are not recognised within their lifetime. (.Pssssst, Dave, we all know.)
            Its a era that is never so very far away from my thoughts. Probably in part because of a framed painting I have on a wall at home of Romanna as played by the lovely Lalla Ward, painted for me by a chap named Roger Shore. In the photo below you will also see a painting by Paul Holden of Leela, signed by Lovely Loise Jameson. Hope these ladies do not mind me prefixing their first names with the descriptive " Lovely." In truth they were and remain so. Lovely, luminous beings.And any friend of The Doctor is a friend of mine.
            Shada was to be Douglas Adams swansong on Doctor Who. What a bitter sweet thing it is to see it out there in the public shared cultural zeitgeist about to find a host of new admirers. I almost envy the sense of discovery of coming across the work of Douglas Adams and his time on Doctor Who. I say almost because I would not want to perhaps have foregone sitting through those episodes on dark Saturday tea times oh so long ago on a sofa far, far away as they were originally broadcast.