Completely unexpectedly the Gamesmaster: An Oral History book turned up at my house on Friday – I don’t think I Kickstarted it, but I got on board with the second round of pre-backing I think. I can’t remember now.
Spent all of yesterday afternoon devouring it – it’s absolutely unputdownable, even if you could basically reduce it to “look, I was in my twenties, I had an extremely successful TV show, yes I was a bit of a nob.” It has the skinny on everything – the red jacket, Dexter Fletcher (who contributes, gamely), that episode from series six, it’s not disappointing. There are also tales of high debauchery.
A couple of fun take homes for me – that Atlantis is set in the same church they set Hell in, and that series seven wasn’t meant to happen, they only discovered they were commissioned a few weeks before broadcast because everybody forgot to tell C4 at the end of S6 they weren’t going to make it anymore and most execs at C4 didn’t bother watching the show to pick up on the cues.
It’s quite expensive, but it’s a properly bound hardback. You can buy it from booksellers if you want, or Amazon.
It strikes me that there is probably good Oral History potential for quite a lot of Hewland International’s output, actually.
I can’t wait to read it at Christmas. My family think I’m difficult to buy for so they intercepted my copy as a Christmas gift!