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Agent Lavender

I got up to Ashdown 007 almost catching Wilson
except there's been an accidental Tianenman Square that radical student Peter Mandelson was at
. Never mind going
"wait what's this about Stone--THAT'S ALL REAL?!"
 
Charles EP M. said:
So I knew the very premise was audacious when I started reading but I didn't expect to read what really happened to Lord Lucan or James Bond showing up except he's
Paddy Ashdown

Bloody HELL.
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By describing the published version as audacious, you are now opening the floodgates for a zillion loony fans complaining that the first draft was better.

(Myself, I can go back and forth, but I am slightly saddened that the different - more plausible - take on what happens to Labour meant that we lost the line "...no, Tony").
 
Me: "Well, this surely can't come up with anymore stunning real-world espionage or conspiracy-theories-we-made-real plot twists with politici--"

Agent Lavender:
"Wilson's interrogation is passed to Tom Driberg, MI5's man on the inside of the KGB"

WHO WILSON THEN GIVES A HEART ATTACK
 
And now Mountbatten's gone to Dublin.

I love there's so clearly an anti-democratic government in charge run by a military figure, and there's grubby acts behind the scenes, but the symbol everyone in-universe uses for dictatorship is the tanks, a genuine accident.
 
Charles EP M. said:
And now Mountbatten's gone to Dublin.

I love there's so clearly an anti-democratic government in charge run by a military figure, and there's grubby acts behind the scenes, but the symbol everyone in-universe uses for dictatorship is the tanks, a genuine accident.
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We chose to do that based on the “the dead went unburied” myth of the winter of discontent - a single cemetery having issues for a week became a totem that survives to this day. Thus the same fate for a wrong turn.
 
Everyone loves Enoch Powell, the complicated political figure that despite his very right-wing views is against authoritarian takeover and loves milkshakes!

Chapter 32: He's still a racist who wants to repatriate people
and now he's got a new party to get himself back into power.
 
I've sometimes mentally compared Agent Lavender to the Coen Brothers' Hail, Caesar!, which has a sort of comedy secret-history plot that boils down to "Joe McCarthy was right and the Communists were trying to control Hollywood" - complete with Herbert Marcuse as leader of the treacherous cell.

In both cases, the satirical element should make it clear to the audience that the authors don't really believe in the conspiracy theories that inspired the story, but I think @Meadow and @Lord Roem did so more successfully than the Coens did. Having Wilson as a somewhat-sympathetic POV villain and a big cast of characters with different perspectives makes it clearer that Agent Lavender is a more nuanced exploration of the era with a fun thriller plot, whereas portraying real-life corporate thug Eddie Mannix as a noirish hero, even if it's as a subtle joke, does kind of make Hail, Caesar! look like an uncritical paean to the conservative Americana values of Olde Hollywood. (Having Marcuse as the leader of the commies is also probably a subtle joke, seeing as he actually worked for the US government for a while and was critical of the USSR, but I don't think your average filmgoer is going to know that much about the guy.)

I'm not a big believer in fiction's need to Be Responsible and I don't think authors ought to worry too much about what people with poor reading comprehension think of their work, but in terms of communicating authorial views on historical conspiracy theories - which is a very fun subgenre to play with but is ripe for controversy and misinterpretation! - I think Agent Lavender does a much better job.
 
BClick said:
I've sometimes mentally compared Agent Lavender to the Coen Brothers' Hail, Caesar!, which has a sort of comedy secret-history plot that boils down to "Joe McCarthy was right and the Communists were trying to control Hollywood" - complete with Herbert Marcuse as leader of the treacherous cell.

In both cases, the satirical element should make it clear to the audience that the authors don't really believe in the conspiracy theories that inspired the story, but I think @Meadow and @Lord Roem did so more successfully than the Coens did.
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Yes, but did supposed thespian Tom Black pause his plot for an elaborately homoerotic Gene Kelly musical number? Point to the Coens.
 
I remember reading Agent Lavender and being surprised and delighted at the mention of Sea Palling where I spent many of my childhood holidays.
 
BClick said:
Pretty sure someone wrote a tracklist for Agent Lavender: The Musical in one of the old PMQs threads - it can still happen!
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One thing I remember from the original thread was @Meadow suggesting a song wherein Powell regrets that the Indian shopowner is no longer speaking to him, but decides that he doesn't quite regret it enough to renounce his racialist doctrine.

The whole scene where he and Mountbatten save British democracy is still one of my favourite AH moments though-I did like the touch of only using uniformed beat cops to arrest the junta.
 
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