About six weeks ago, I wrote a post on Grant Morrison's prescient 1990s interpretation of Dan Dare: a wartime symbol traduced by a fascist government of a Britain in a food crisis. As the ghastly Brexit farrago stumbles on, driven by public schoolboy hubris and a greasy streak of Brit racism, it seems a horribly contemporary story.
A far longer interval- more than a year- has passed since I first listened to Big Finish's audio drama portrayal of the Pilot of the Future.
In the first play, Voyage to Venus, with his discredited dad on life-support, test pilot Dan, played by Ed Stoppard, is easily manipulated by Geoffrey McGivern's Digby. In this version, the Yorkshireman is antagonistic at first, even a bit sinister. He even swears.
Dan is convinced to use alien technology to lead an exploratory mission to Venus, accompanied by Digby and Peabody ( Heida Reed's scientist sounds faintly Scandinavian or European, which is a little jarring)
They soon become prisoners in the Mekon's floating city and are infected with a plague virus which prevents them returning to Earth but they make an ally in their alien benefactor, Sondar.
The second disc features The Red Moon Mystery, an abridged version of which I read in my early 70s Dan Dare annual from Fleetway. Investigating the extinction of life on Mars by a species of space locust, Dan is shocked to uncover the treachery of his Uncle Ivor. The trio are assisted by some ardent starship troopers, one of whom is in a same-sex marriage.
The final disc is an adaptation of Marooned on Mercury. Dare and his team discover the passive, noble savages of Mercury are slaves and subjects of the Mekon's fiendish fungus experiments. Use of an experimental matter transmitter leaves the team on a time-travel cliffhanger. How far into the future have they been projected?
I've listened to this box set twice now but I find the marriage of old and new doesn't really work. The sensibilities clash. As in Morrison's work, Dare is too true-blue and naïve but here, these are presented as virtues rather than flaws. Ed Stoppard's Dan is very square and the tone is too militaristic, too Brexit, for me.
Nick Briggs has often spoken of his love of Brit-flicks about our brave boys in WWII. Many of my generation seem to have convinced themselves they lived through the Blitz or hung out washing on the Siegfried Line, rather than growing up with Punk, the launch of Channel 4 and Britpop. Plucky Blighty's self-regard and rosy view of its imperial past makes me bilious but the self-styled Brits will probably enjoy Brexit rationing and a sing-song in the shelter.
This box set might've been more effective tonally, it were staged faithfully a Fifties adventure. I was disappointed by how gung-ho and hollow it seemed. Where I've persevered with other BF productions, such as Dark Shadows, I think I'm unlikely to buy the second set unless it's a substantially reduced price.
Today, the planet Mars is at the point in its orbit where it's closest to Earth- and in fact the closest it's been since 2003. So, the next couple of posts will look at the Red Planet and its inhabitants.
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