The Book Tower

Another recent television adaptation has had me rifling through piles of old paperbacks to find the original. This was the BBC’s slick new version of John Wyndham’s short story Random Quest starring Samuel West.

Following an accident during an experiment, a scientist wakes up to find his familiar world a little different. The most startling surprise for him is that he is now a successful author and married to a girl he has never met before called Ottilie. Eventually returned to his own world, he sets about finding his new wife. Even though she appears not to exist in his universe, this doesn’t put him off…

I eventually found my book of John Wyndham short stories called Consider Her Ways and Others, first published in 1961. Random Quest is set in 1954, and the differences that Colin Trafford notices between the two worlds are somewhat quaint:

I added soda to the brandy, and took a welcome drink. It was as I was putting the glass down that I caught sight of myself in the mirror behind the bar….
I used to have a moustache. I came out of the Army with it, but decided to jettison it when I went up to Cambridge. But there it was – a little less luxuriant, perhaps, but resurrected. I put my hand up and felt it. There was no illusion, and it was genuine, too. At almost the same moment I noticed my suit. Now, I used to have a suit pretty much like that, years ago. …
I had a swimming sensation, took another drink of the brandy, and felt, a little unsteadily, for a cigarette. The packet I pulled out of my pocket was unfamiliar – have you ever heard of Player’s ‘Mariner’ cigarettes – No? Neither had I.

In the 2006 version, unexpected military moustaches, Army life, smart suits and cigarettes are all jettisoned. What’s different here is the gleaming white space age apartment and attempts to be futuristic on a low budget. Trafford’s party guests stand around looking like extras from Space 1999. Where the 50s Trafford reads about the new universe in copies of The New Statesman to discover that the Second World War hasn’t taken place, the 21st Centrury Trafford watches BBC News 24 to realise there has been no fall of the Berlin Wall. Condoleeza Rice and Tony Blair receive appropriate namechecks. There’s nothing like a modern pesrpective to sketch out your alternative universe.

What’s striking about Random Quest the short story is what’s ultimately odd about the new television version. Parallel universes are old hat in 2006, but Wyndham’s story must have come across as a very fresh and original premise in 1961. One of the conceits of the new BBC film is that our hero, momentarily trapped in the parallel world as the sci-fi author version of himself, proposes a new book about a scientist – you’ve guessed it – who is catapulted into a parallel universe. Everyone thinks this is a very original idea for a book. In fact, nobody has thought about parallel universes in this world, but perhaps this is an alternative Earth that’s missing Star Trek, Doctor Who, Sliding Doors and countless other film and television science fiction. And, most importantly, what possibly influenced all of the above – John Wyndham.

Footnote: The new version was a disappointment, although Random Quest was previously filmed in 1971 as Quest for Love with Tom Bell and Joan Collins. I haven’t seen this film for years, but putting the seventies production standards aside, I’d imagine it’s still a very enjoyable film.