So far we’ve had two decent adaptations and one pretty poor one. Which way will this one go?

Sacrilege from page one

What could be worse, I ask you, than an adaptation of Five Go Adventuring Again that takes place in Autumn?

Well, it’s an adaptation of Five Go to Smuggler’s Top that begins with the Five approaching Smuggler’s Top because they’re going for a nice holiday.

To me it’s not Smuggler’s Top without the storm and the ash tree falling on Kirrin Cottage so that’s an unforgivable omission even when there’s a need for abridgement.

The unrecognisable-ness of the story continues, sadly. The Five have caught the bus Castaway Hill but it’s too dangerous for the bus to cross the flooded path. Instead Tinker arrives in a truck (which he has driven!) to collect them. Mr Barling is also around – though where he came from is anyone’s guess. Tinker says they are taking him home with us, so a page or so later when they arrive at a big house I initially thought that was Smuggler’s Top and couldn’t fathom why he was hosting them. That would be a really big change to the story! Then I realised his earlier reference to an interrupted journey meant they were dropping him at his house on the way to Smuggler’s Top.

George refers to the village as Smuggler’s Top which further confuses things and Mr Barling refers to the village of the cursed rock and magnetic storms which plague the marshes.

On the plus side I like the way they’ve depicted Castaway Hill (or whatever they’re calling it).

The problem of Timmy

In the book the trip to Smuggler’s Top is arranged at short-notice, and yet there’s still time for it to be made clear that Timmy is not welcome there. As they are coming for a simple holiday this time, how is it that Timmy is with them and George doesn’t know that dogs are a problem until they arrive?

There is still the secret passage they smuggle Timmy through, but now it leads to a small sparsely furnished room which opens into Sooty’s room. There’s a regular sized door connecting the rooms, so it’s hardly a secret space. This is where the buzzer is, though, and it seems to alert Sooty if someone enters his room while he’s in the small room. It’s all very weird.

The problem of Mr Barling and Block

Having stuffed the Five up with tales of smugglers and magicians and cursed rocks Mr Barling is next seen through his window (by all of the Five) talking to Block. The bad guys generally get very little coverage in these books, abridged as they are, but I feel here that the Five don’t really have sufficient reason to think there’s something funny going on. They’ve decided the pair of them are suspicious before they see the flashing lights in the tower.

There’s not even any clear indication that Uncle Quentin and Mr Lenoir want to drain the marshes or that Mr Barling needs the marshes for his smuggling.

Block does put a fake pillow body in his bed, but George discovers it the night of the signalling from the tower, so that mystery barely lasts a minute!

The problem of Uncle Quentin

Uncle Quentin doesn’t even arrive at Smuggler’s Top, he and Mr Lenoir are due to arrive back but don’t, therefore are assumed missing.

For no reason at all they then find a secret passage in Sooty’s room (there’s no shadowy figure in the night, Sooty is not kidnapped, there’s no screw found) which leads them to… the same passage that Mirabelle’s trap door leads to. It very much feels like they wanted to stick to the book here and so had them find the window-seat passage, but there’s no need for it. There’s no mystery of how Uncle Quentin was taken from that room. It’s not helped by the strange illustration which shows what looks like a trunk sitting below the window instead of a built-in window seat.

All’s well that ends well?

Down in the catacombs Five and Sooty (armed with golf clubs) find Mr Barling and Block threatening Uncle Quentin and Mr Lenoir.

Timmy goes off, but instead of falling into the marsh he finds a room out of a Scooby Doo episode (or indeed, straight from the 90s Secret Series tv show where they too had to add weird science and/or supernatural elements to the episodes). This is where the magnetic storms are created.

Then time/pages are wasted as they find the old canal and a barge boat which has been used for smuggling. Timmy jumps in, but as it’s just water it’s fine. There’s also the nonsense of the Mr Barling’s myth about the curse being broken by a hand and a finger of the pure of heart which they decide means the Five plus Sooty. There were much better things they could have included in the story – the ash tree, George trying to get to Timmy, getting locked in her room and climbing out the window, Sooty and Uncle Quentin being kidnapped, Timmy getting stuck in the marsh…

Overall

This is probably on par with Five Go Adventuring Again in terms of quality. There’s just too much filler nonsense and not enough of the original story.

The Five aren’t particularly well-characterised either. Anne bursts into tears just hearing Mr Barling’s story. Dick goes on about eating a dozen times it feels and comes across as greedy rather than just having a good appetite. The Five tease each other in rather more unkind ways than they do in the book, which wastes more time.

For example, in the catacombs Anne hears a drip and is able to find water for Uncle Quentin. Dick is gleeful (it seems) about telling her she’s too late and he’s awake already. Anne is the smug when the water is drunk by Mr Lenoir.

I found it unhelpful that Sooty was given the same colour and very similar style of hair to George. As a neutral side-note I noticed that the vehicles are all left-hand drive!

There also seems to be a mistake in the translations or perhaps the original writing. Beyond Sarah becoming Renee, the boys see the lights flashing at the top of the tower, but Sooty warns them that a spiral staircase leads down to the dungeon and the steps are narrow and steep. I brushed that off as him meaning “don’t fall down it”. However, the light-flasher (dressed ridiculously in a red cape like a vampire) runs off and Julian says Let’s try the dungeon, he might have left a clue. They are then drawn in what is clearly the top of the tower but the text says They took the spiral staircase down to the dungeon.