Review: Doctor Who: The Shakespeare Notebooks

Doctor Who: The Shakespeare Notebooks by Justin Richards
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Shakespeare Notebooks was a birthday gift from a dear friend of mine, who knew that I liked the works of Shakespeare, and who has also had to suffer me talking about Doctor Who theories with her, when she had little interest in the show. Well, she's watched it occasionally, and enjoyed maybe a couple of episodes, but I wouldn't think she'd call herself a fan. However, she knew my birthday was coming up, and found this book, and got it for me, with a note saying that she thought it was perfect for my interests. She was really very right.

The cover alone lets the reader know what type of thing you are getting yourself into here when you pick up this book. A loving, if silly, look at some of Shakespeare's finest works... if the Doctor just so happened to pop along and insert himself into them every so often. Meaning pretty much all of them. And nearly all the Doctors as well. Some more often than others - Eleven and Six seem to be particularly favoured in this, along with the Tenth going by his section at the end of the book. But let's not talk about Doctors. Let's talk about what this book is about.

According to the preface, this is the secret notebook that Shakespeare kept while working on all of his great plays. It has not survived the ages very well, with some bits and pieces all missing. Of course, they keep up an academic tone throughout the book whole - questioning if this book is indeed Shakespeare's. The running themes of this 'Doctor' that Shakespeare had appeared to become obsessed with are also discussed, especially considering this person's - or persons - influences and appearances in his works. Sometimes as Magicians, or physicians, or referred simply to as 'The Man' or 'Him'. The aim of the publication of the Notebooks, it would appear, is to help to settle the debate as to whether Shakespeare was indeed the creator of his own works, or if someone else wrote them for him. The Notebook shows him conversing back and forth at times with this mysterious stranger who seems to have influenced much of his work. Towards the end, it can only be assumed that whoever this person was, they were surely important to have effected Shakespeare so solidly.

And out of universe? It's a book that inserts the Doctor - various versions of him - into Shakespeare's life during points at which he is working on one play or another. Some appearances in the play write's scripts are overt, some are subtle. The sonnets in particular are quite interesting, but would need to be read to be believed, truth be told. The book has love within it's pages; a love of the works of Shakespeare, and a love of Doctor Who, and that combined worth makes for a read that will find you giggling at very random moments - like when they turn Romeo & Juliet into a comedy because they think it's "a bit dark."

It's sort of exactly the thing you can see the Doctor doing on a day he felt particularly bored, or just wanting to visit an old friend, which is why I have this fondness for it. It reads as two friends sort of having mini "fights" over one and others work, but ultimately understanding the other's viewpoint and helping them along the way.

I'd say it's a must read for a Doctor Who fan, as we rarely do get anything like this - a way to show how the Doctor knows a historically famous person. Personally? I'm hoping we get something similar with Winston Churchill as I'd love to see the different plans he came up with to try to steal the Tardis...

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