The novel “The Showstoppers” by Jonathan Cooper was published for the first time in 2016.
Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart has a lot to think about, and that certainly doesn’t include a new TV show. He would never have said that his military career would include a level of bureaucracy like the one he has been facing lately and he hopes changes for the better will come soon. When he meets a former comrade who works as a stuntman for television and talks to him about strange events connected to actor Aubrey Mondegreene, the issue seems a distraction, but he and Anne Travers realize that something strange is indeed happening.
Harold Chorley is trying to understand why he has completely forgotten what happened to him over the course of many days and is convinced that Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart is behind his problem. When he tries to get information, he instead ends up embroiled in a strange conspiracy story.
The Lethbridge-Stewart series tells the adventures of the character who became famous in the “Doctor Who” TV show when he works without the Doctor. The stories start from the period immediately following the debut of Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart in the TV show and then extend the period covered. These stories include some characters that appeared in the TV show, some invented for other productions connected to it, and others that were created specifically for these novels.
Journalist Harold Chorley already appeared in a previous novel in this series, “Mutually Assured Domination“, and has a complicated relationship with Lethbridge-Stewart. Anne Travers is an almost regular character in these novels, as she often helps Lethbridge-Stewart as a scientist, more or less the Doctor’s job, but she’s less of a protagonist.
Typically, the tone of the novels in this series echoes the tone of the classic “Doctor Who” series, mostly dramatic with occasional lighthearted moments. From this point of view, “The Showstoppers” is out of the ordinary, as it concerns in particular the world of British television of the time with satirical tones connected to various conspiracies.
An introduction to the novel is about conspiracies focusing on the one to kill John F. Kennedy while also mentioning the movie “Doctor Strangelove”. The author is David George, the son of Peter George, the author of the novel “Two Hours to Doom”, later published as “Red Alert”, which inspired Stanley Kubrick’s movie. You should keep that in mind when plot development is about Aubrey Mondegreene, a decidedly over-the-top actor who seems to have the ability to play multiple characters at the same time.
The plot development tends to the surreal, and probably to fully enjoy this novel you need to know not only “Doctor Strangelove” but also certain British television programs of those years. My knowledge about them is scarce and the novel often seemed bizarre to me in a negative sense, perhaps because I didn’t get those references.
The plot consists mainly of the protagonists trying to solve the mystery around the television program with Aubrey Mondegreene as the protagonist, but practically until the end, it seems that nobody can understand anything. Only in the final part a sort of explanation, at least partial, is offered. I wouldn’t look for too much consistency, also thinking that the story is included in a larger framework.
Partly because of my difficulty in recognizing the references, partly because it’s an anomalous type of story, “The Showstoppers” never really sparked my interest. It’s a type of novel that, more than ever, generates subjective reactions. You might like it if you are familiar with the British television of the time and appreciate this type of surreal and over-the-top stories.
