Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
To imagine being part of a significant part of history is to recognise the problem with self-importance, we cannot help but play the hero, our ego insists we are placed at the revolution to either save lives or take them, we believe in these scenarios because we cannot understand how we would be a passive observer during chaos, change, and alteration.
The observer though pays closer attention to the detail than the ones who wish to place themselves in direct action, they understand that everything is eventual, that the world must continue as if we were but sentimental ghosts marking time, that for the vast majority of us it is not what we do that changes history, it is how we witness it, how we allow the emotion to shape our memory and how we report it, like amateur but dedicated diarists, our words alone can change the future.
In one of the most direct episodes that confronts consequences of altering past events, Doctor Who’s The Fires of Pompeii is a tale of that echoes throughout history, the folly of humanity in believing that it is control and in command of all that is dominion over, when we are in effect like ants in a glass container in the hands of a psychopathic child who gets a thrill by shaking the receptacle violently; that is what we are in effect, insects in the hands of a violent seething mass, earthquakes and volcanoes, there but for History go we into the unknown without warning.
Adapted from James Moran’s own televised episode during David Tennant’s era, The Fires of Pompeii is a classic example of what makes the series spark the imagination, and in which its novel adaption adds more linguistic colour than what sometimes television allows, what it can only offer a passing nod to.
The beauty of Mr. Moran’s tale is that even the tiniest addition, the smallest supplement, adds a fortune of imagery to the delight of the reader; and whilst the story is pretty much unblemished in its delivery, these small specks of information create worlds in which to watch as an observer, of the keen-eyed watcher, cannot help but take to their hearts.
It is impossible to read anything that contains the tenth incarnation of The Doctor without hearing his voice, but it is in the fire and compassion of his companion, the erstwhile Donna Noble, that the story comes alive fully and with intrigue. Whist the televised portrayal showed Catherine Tate at one of her most endearing peaks in her time in the Tardis, in the novel there is a belief of her humanity that shines through, that she understands what it means to be an observer, but that she doesn’t have to be quiet about the crisis unfolding in Pompeii and all those who live under Vesuvius’ shadow.
A classic tale, one that asks the reader to see, to envisage themselves not as the hero, but as the recorder of events, that the truth of the passage of history, in this case one of the most destructive forces to ever threaten the human race, is one to be observed fully.
Ian D. Hall