Adventures With The Wife In Space

In 2011 Neil Perryman set himself a colossal task - one which many a Doctor Who fan has tried and failed (usually by the time The Sensorites comes up) - the challenge to watch every episode of the classic series in order (including the recons of the missing episodes). He decided to blog about his experiences and, just to add another layer of difficulty, he also decided to do it alongside his wife, Sue - who was not such a fan of the show!

Adventures with the Wife in Space - Living with Doctor Who is not just a paper copy of the blog, however, which is what I thought I would be reading when I picked up this tome. Instead, Perryman had decided to take a more personal angle, framed through playground games, parental break-ups and wince-inducing rugby injuries, and sharing his love with his significant other. All of this will resonate strongly with the mostly male, 40-somethings out there, desperately trying to balance a love which until recently was regarded as deeply uncool with an unimpressed life partner. In fact, it so strongly resembled the life story of my own husband - right down the diversion from fandom to dally with the temptress that is the ZX Spectrum - that I wondered aloud several times if he was in fact Neil Perryman in disguise! The book then moves on to discuss the blog itself, with lots of interesting bonus graphs for the stat-nerds amongst us breaking down Sue’s scores, plus there is a bonus epilogue where Neil and Sue have a chat about The Name Of The Doctor.

The issue for me, however - for someone who was mostly interested in the story behind the blog itself rather than the life story of one Mr. Neil Perryman - is the fan memoir is a subject that has been well documented, with Nick Griffiths writing 2008’s "Dalek I Loved You" and Toby Hadoke's "Moths Ate My Doctor Scarf" stage play being two very high profile examples. It's fully two thirds of the way through the book before you get to the stuff about the blog itself. While it's nice to know about Perryman's "secret origins" if you will it's just not so unusual or compelling as to necessitate devoting a majority of the book to it.

It's where the book touches on Neil and Sue’s relationship this this volume really succeeds. My husband and I are both Doctor Who fans (him, a life long fan, me since 1994 thanks to UK Gold repeats) we met when I joined his local fan group, our first date was at a Doctor Who location, we walked down the aisle to music from the show. Needless to say Doctor Who is a big part of our lives so the notion of rewatching the whole series with him isn't an odd one. However I'm not sure what I'd do if, for example, my hubby suddenly rediscovered his love for bus spotting and decided to write a blog where he takes me to look at buses! At the beginning of the book Perryman writes "I love my wife, I love Doctor Who. I believe my wife loves me. My wife does not love Doctor Who. I think I can make her change her mind about the latter without upsetting the delicate balance of the former. But do I have the right?" Looking back on the blog in the company of the book it seems his decision was more than vindicated. One of the the most interesting things to note for me is that Sue seems to found that her appreciation of post 2005 Doctor Who (which she seemed to like quite a lot independently of  her duties for the blog) has only increased. Contrast with Neil's constant griping in the epilogue! If I had to guess who of the couple got the most from this marathon, I'd say Sue is the clear winner. I also found anecdotes such as the time Sue managed to upset John Levene in a botched attempt to get him to do some audio for a podcast unbelievably funny - this is what I'm coming to this book for.

Overall, if you're a fan of the blog and want to know all the behind the scenes nitty-gritty this book is a must have, however if you're a newcomer to The Wife in Space then I'd recommend checking out the blog first before diving into this book.