Goodnight Sweetheart story to continue via new novel
- A Kickstarter campaign is underway to fund a novel which continues the story of Gary Sparrow from TV sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart
- Many Happy Returns will see Gary having to try and avoid the lies he has told being revealed, like that he has written all The Beatles songs
- Writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran comment: "Like our fans, we want to know what happened next to Gary Sparrow and his two families"
Comedy writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran are writing a final chapter in the Goodnight Sweetheart story.
A Kickstarter campaign is underway to fund Many Happy Returns, a novel which will share storylines from the unmade seventh series of the hit TV comedy.
Goodnight Sweetheart launched on BBC One in 1993 and starred Nicholas Lyndhurst as television repairman Gary Sparrow. He discovers that he can travel between the 1990s and the 1940s at will and soon develops a double life and begins committing adultery. The show ran for six series up until 1999, returning in 2016 for a one-off special.
The fundraising page explains: "In 2016, Goodnight Sweetheart was re-booted for a one-off reunion episode called Many Happy Returns as part of the BBC's Landmark Sitcom Season. The audience figures were huge [3.71m viewers in the overnight ratings], the reviews were enthusiastic, the fans were ecstatic - everyone felt sure a new series would follow... but inexplicably, Series 7 was never commissioned! And to this day, hordes of Sweeties continue to wonder what happened to Gary Sparrow now that 'normal service has been resumed'... until now."
Marks & Gran have teamed up with Idiot Box Books on the project, which is fully licensed by Fremantle Media and "serves as the seventh series of Goodnight Sweetheart that might have been".
Publisher Dave Crichton explained to BCG: "I'm hoping to publish a few different UK comedy titles - books that traditional publishers typically wouldn't touch. I'm doing it through crowdfunding to start with then, if successful, distributing them in the normal way through book sellers. First up is a new Goodnight Sweetheart book."
The Kickstarter page explains: "The book can only be published if enough fans support the project on Kickstarter. So, if you've been shouting at the TV for the past decade, willing the series to return, now's your chance to support the project and help to bring back Goodnight Sweetheart.
"The new book will begin a little before the events of the 2016 televised story, Many Happy Returns, because though Gary's life since the end of the war has been mundane, in the spring of 1962, things are starting to heat up when Marilyn Monroe sings at President Kennedy's birthday party in that skin-tight dress.
"When Gary first met Phoebe, he told her the girl he left behind in LA went by the name of Marilyn Monroe. It was just his little private joke. It had never occurred to him that he would be living in the past, married to Phoebe when Marilyn became an international sex symbol in the 1950s. For years, every time Phoebe's seen Marilyn on the silver screen, her insecurities have overwhelmed her. What if Gary were to go back to Hollywood to regain the love of his life? That is, until Marilyn's shock death at the age of 36, which brings all of Phoebe's old feelings back to the surface.
"Gary always tried to persuade Phoebe that his Marilyn worked in an office, and this Marilyn - whose real name is Norma Jean Mortenson - must have adopted his ex's name, but Phoebe never believed him, because obviously that song he wrote, Goodbye Norma Jean, is dripping with unrequited love, just like those Mills and Boon romances Phoebe loves to read.
"If the Marilyn Monroe issue isn't enough to give Gary sleepless nights, there's also the grim knowledge that in a couple of months' time, The Beatles will emerge from Liverpool en route to conquering the world. Gary has no idea how he is going to explain away all the Lennon and McCartney songs he supposedly wrote twenty years ago.
"Then Gary has a stroke of good fortune. His old neighbour, Noel Coward, invites him to a party to celebrate the imminent release of the first James Bond film, Dr No, based on the novel by Noel's friend, Ian Fleming. At the party, Gary is introduced to another of Noel's acquaintances, a young Liverpudlian businessman by the name of Brian Epstein, who is trying without success to get a recording contract for his protégés, The Beatles. Gary knows that if he can persuade Brian that there's no future for guitar led pop groups, Brian might give up on the boys, and Gary will never be exposed as a time traveller.
"While Gary is exploiting his good luck, bad luck lurks. Phoebe takes an immediate dislike to the snobbish Ian Fleming. She thinks he looks down on her type - and she's right. When Fleming boasts that his James Bond books are rooted in his time in the Secret Service, Phoebe can't resist retorting that her Gary was a top spy an' all. Fleming is curious. More than curious, he's suspicious, and determined to find out if Gary Sparrow was a spy and if so, for which side?
"Just when all these crises are coming to the boil, Gary finds himself in the disorienting, futuristic world of the 21st century where he's having to come to terms with the fact he's got a teenage daughter called Ellie. He desperately wants to get to know her, but Yvonne warns him that if he breathes a word to her that he's her dad, she'll have him killed. And as Yvonne is now a powerful and much-feared tycoon, her threats aren't to be taken lightly.
"Can Gary handle resuming his double life? Or should he choose between the past or present?"
Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran comment: "Of all the shows we have ever written, Goodnight Sweetheart has the biggest and most devoted fanbase. We were thrilled at the audience response to the 2016 special. Like our fans, we want to know what happened next to Gary Sparrow and his two families. And now, Idiot Box are giving us and you the chance to find out!"
They talk more about the project in this video:
The Kickstarter campaign, which ends on 25th July, has a £30,000 goal. Reward levels include the eBook for £15 and a paperback book for £22. The highest reward level is £1000, which features dinner with the authors. Find out more via Kickstarter
Below is a promotional video: