REVIEW: Nobody's Sweetheart Now by Dale Smith

Dale Smith has somehow managed to write the perfect novel for me. There aren't very many people who would call a Goodnight Sweetheart pastiche/crossover with the periphery of the Doctor Who universe their perfect novel, but I am one of them. Stuart Douglas, head honcho of Obverse Books and commissioner of this novel, is another. Presumably, so is Dale Smith, and potentially, given the book's dedication, so is Richard Herring.

Nobody's Sweetheart Now is the third book of The New Adventures of Iris Wildthyme, which you can tell, because it's got the number two on the spine. The previous book, Courtney Milnestein's Mother, Maiden, Crone, was an unnumbered special and came out almost six years ago; book one, The Polythene Terror, by Iris's creator Paul Magrs, came out in 2019. I'd assumed this series had ended almost as soon as it began, so I'm very happy to see another book, by the brilliant Dale Smith, no less. 

Goodnight Sweetheart is an old favourite of mine, a cosy nineties sitcom with a fantasy bent. Nicholas Lyndhurst, as Gary Sparrow, travelled through time via a redbrick alleyway, walking happily between the 1940s and the 1990s, engaging in transtemporal bigamy. It got a bit more sci-fi towards the end, but mostly it was about the difficulties of leading a double life and the amusing situations that then arise. It was a fun series with a great cast, even when both of Gary's wives regenerated into new actresses halfway through.

Nobody's Sweetheart Now starts as an obvious parody, barely changing the character names. Gary Sparrow is now Trevor Tern. Ron is now Don. It's been moved from London to Manchester, but otherwise it seems like a pretty straightforward riff on the TV series, aside from the raucous presence of Iris Wildthyme. The truly inspired part is that both Gary's – sorry, Trevor's – wife and girlfriend are incarnations of Iris, the latter going by Ursula but actually being a rarely seen regeneration of the transtemporal adventuress. 

As it progresses, though, the book becomes something far cleverer than a mere pastiche. It's approximately 750% gayer, for a start, which becomes clear from the moment Trevor sets foot in the wartime pub and only develops from there. From the outset there's a clear theme of the dangers of nostalgia – especially the second-hand kind of nostalgia for a time one never lived through. Rose-tinted glasses aren't good for your eyes, it turns out, even if they do look fabulous. The deeper, more affecting theme, though, is the importance of being true to yourself, of embracing who you really are, whether you're a closeted man living an unsatisfying life or a time traveller who gave up the right to their name. 

This book is a very funny, joyfully silly and rather beautiful piece of work. Please, Obverse, don't let this be the last New Adventure for Iris.