Fortune's Fools
Page 42
I’m sure I didn’t see myself as a Shakespeare fan either, but I was for-tunate to be taught by teachers who seemed to have a genuine love for the Bard. Jenny Carter managed to get us to see past the difficulties of the ‘olde worlde’ text through to the story and the emotion – she did this in part by explaining the dirty jokes and insults Shakespeare snuck in there. A Midsummer Night’s Dream was the first one we read; Hamlet was the first of the plays I saw performed live, at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre: Polonius reminded me of Sir Humphrey Appleby from Yes, Minister and made me laugh out loud. And the actor who played Hamlet was cute, which always helps. I was hooked at that moment, and still am.
The title of this story is from the quotation “O! I am Fortune’s fool,” from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. I also borrowed his theatre, and a few other things.
My interest in fools and jesters may also have been sparked by Shakespeare. There is bit of Danny Kaye’s The Court Jester in these pages too. In the summer of 1984, I found a copy of Beryl Hugill’s book Bring on the Clowns in a local library, and the notes I made from that were the earliest research I did for this book.
At some point in the 1980s, I heard the BBC Radio production of Tom Stoppard’s play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which Wikipedia describes as an “absurdist, existentialist tragicomedy” – I didn’t know that’s what it was, but I really liked it. The 1990 film adaptation starring Tim Roth and Gary Oldman is definitely worth a look if you’ve never seen it. The travelling players from that found their way onto the stage behind the Siren’s Head, I think. And the rivalry of Anton and Edison owes something to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, with a nod also to Bruce Robinson’s black comedy Withnail and I (1987).
For two slightly crazy years in the early 1980s, Rick Wright was my co-conspirator in various enterprises, artistic and otherwise. I was the serious, uptight one and he was the lunatic who thought all boundaries were there to be pushed (or ignored). Maybe we were good for each other. By one of those curious co-incidences that life throws our way, Ricky and I reconnected as I was finishing up the edits on this book. I’d been struggling to figure out who this book should be dedicated to, as it spanned two very different eras of my life. When he sent me that Facebook message, it was immediately obvious whose book this was.
Richard Carpenter’s Robin of Sherwood and other versions of the Robin Hood legend were a definite influence, as was Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. Re-reading Fortune’s Fool now, it looks as if the villain Sheldrake was modelled on Alan Rickman, but he was created long before Rickman’s incredible performance as the Sheriff of Nottingham: I originally saw Sheldrake as a combination of Richard Wyngarde and Fu Manchu.
Edric Edison’s appearance was based, in part, on Sky guitarist Kevin Peek, and a cover painting for Alexei Panshin’s novel Masque World. His character was almost certainly inspired by Errol Flynn with a dash of Burt Lancaster. There is probably a hint of Dirk Benedict’s Starbuck and Faceman in there too. He’s the handsome rogue I longed to be, but knew I never could. I listened to Sky LPs when I wrote the first draft – I can’t play anything with lyrics when I’m writing – and I listened to the same albums as MP3s during the last rewrites. Along with Craig Armstrong’s soundtrack for Plunkett and Macleane.
Grimwade, in my ideal ‘virtual movie’ version of this story, would be played by Charles Laughton. There are elements of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, obviously, but there is also something of his Captain Bligh and other roles too. I was also inspired by a couple of pieces of artwork from the 2000AD comic, one in – I think – ‘The VCs’ which was based on Laughton, and the other the Otto Sump from ‘Judge Dredd,’ who also owed a little something to the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
The impresario Doran Jarrett is Orson Welles playing Falstaff. Captain Meg was inspired by someone I used to know, and on every female character who has put on men’s clothes and proved herself better than any man: I’m not sure, but I think we’ll see more of her.
The ‘assassins’ Gosling and Bryn we met previously in Slayer of Dragons. Gosling is who you’d get if you morphed Lee Van Cleef and Dudley Moore and threw in a pinch of Spike Milligan. Bryn was inspired by those paintings of muscular too-handsome barbarian ‘warriors’ that adorn fantasy novels and romance novels, and by those 1980s vain Hollywood actors with perfect teeth and beautiful hair, who played ‘tough’ heroes in dangerous places, and never chipped a nail.
If you had other actors in mind – living or dead – for any of the charac-ters in this story as you read it, drop me an e-mail and let me know who your ideal cast would be: paul@paultomlinson.org
It was strange re-reading the 1980s versions of chapters of this story: it was written by a me who was thirty years younger, and it was written when – in some respects – the world was a different place. In the UK in the early 1980s it had seemed like attitudes towards homosexuality were changing for the better – performers like Boy George put androgyny in the spotlight, and people seemed to be okay with it. But things took a major step backwards with early reports about AIDS, which referred to it as the ‘gay plague,’ and there was a government-sponsored campaign that scared the hell out of a lot of us. My feelings from that time are reflected in the early drafts – although my ‘alter ego’ Anton Leyander was always gay, attitudes towards gay men in the story were not positive. I had accepted the view that there was something ‘wrong’ about being gay; that it was usual for gay men to be persecuted; that being gay was something that ought to be kept secret if you wanted to be successful in life... I reject all of that now, and I have created a world where those attitudes do not exist. In the real world things have moved on to some degree: my 1984 self would probably be surprised that we have gay marriage in many places in the world – though the attitude of ‘the church’ to it wouldn’t surprise him. There is no ‘organised’ religion in Thurlambria – and I think it’s a better place for that: personal faith I have no issue with, but I don’t believe it needs dogma, wealth, or political power. I would like to say that attitudes towards homosexuality have changed worldwide since the 1980s, but recent events in Chechnya – and the fact that homosexuality is still ‘illegal’ and punishable by imprisonment, flogging, or death in too many countries – show otherwise. I remain hopeful that things will continue to improve during the next thirty years.
The writer of the early draft of Fortune’s Fool was also guilty, unintentionally, of misogyny: it was probably more pervasive in the culture of the 1980s and 90s than it is now. I don’t think I’ve entirely eradicated it from the 2017 version – that would have required removing elements that I don’t want to remove. I have tried to make Griselda seem deserving of the indignities visited upon her, but we all know the truth of it. I suspect that Griselda would be played by Les Dawson in drag. This is probably a reflection of the fact that my own attitudes towards women require further work. I will try and do better in future.
Finally, I want to say thanks to all those who participate in the Smarter Artist Facebook group: you’re my virtual ‘work colleagues’ who make writing seem a much less lonely business. Thanks especially to Susan M. King, Joel Quinn, Edward Antrobus, Linda Adams, and Matt Mozi O'Connor who answered questions I posted about military ranks, and saved me from the mistake of mixing up commissioned and non-commissioned ranks. And I still hate the word ‘lieutenant’ because English people pronounce it wrong...
About the Author
Paul Tomlinson was born in 1966, and has lived in Nottinghamshire for most of his life. He is the author of the science fiction novel Robot Wrecker; the 1930s murder mystery novel The Sword in the Stone-Dead; and the contemporary crime novel Who Killed Big Dick? Fortune's Fool is the sequel to his first fantasy novel, Slayer of Dragons. That’s five novels in four different genres, which may seem like too many genres for one author, but all the books have common elements – bizarre characters, macabre humour, and a skewed world-view.
You can get in touch with h
im via the Contact page on his website www.paultomlinson.org or you can find him on Facebook @paultomlinson.org
In the third novel in the Thurlambria sequence, Dead of Night, Anton and Edison seek refuge from a storm in an old dark castle and find themselves the main suspects when a murder is committed.