Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be, goes the old joke; in actual fact, nostalgia is in rude health, and the rehabilitation of the 80s as a period worthy of retrospective visitation provides Bob Fischer with ample raw material for this engaging book. Sub-titled Daleks, Death Stars and Dreamy-eyed Nostalgia at the Strangest Sci-fi Conventions, Wiffle Lever to Full! is in part a memoir about growing up in Middlesbrough in the 80s, with a particular focus on the influence and effects of various science fiction TV shows on the author’s tender young self; in that respect, it feels very reminiscent of Andrew Collins’ Where Did It All Go Right?. The clear-eyed nostalgia provides a jumping off point for Fischer to embark on a summer of visiting the conventions and fan-meets that relate to his favourite shows, where he and his friends see the actors and their seriously committed followings. We also get plenty of background on the featured shows along the way, in many cases enough to make me want to go and watch them again!

I am only a few years younger than Bob Fischer, and we certainly have a lot in common as far as seminal TV viewing experiences go – I remember the first time I saw Star Wars on TV; I rememebr going to see Return of the Jedi in the local cinema; Peter Davison was my first Doctor in Doctor Who (the author’s was his predecessor, Tom Baker); I watched Robin of Sherwood on ITV, read Fighting Fantasy adventure books, found the first Star Trek movie boring, just like Bob, and pined for the toy of the Millennium Falcon (which I never got, just like Bob). I therefore fall squarely in to the target audience for this book, and it certainly unlocked a few forgotten memories from my own apprenticeships into geekdom.

Fischer’s point, though, is that most us grow out of our childhood obsessions; we cast off our interest in the fantastical, perhaps in a bid to seem more grown up and impress the opposite sex. The people who go to the conventions attended by the author certainly don’t seem bothered by any of that – they live and breathe their fan-dom. They think nothing of dressing up as their favourite characters; they ask the stars of their favourite shows impossible questions about the finest points of plot and back-story; they play games, pay through the nose for autographs, and generally take the whole thing very seriously. What we learn, however, is that they can be warm, welcoming, friendly, and, just like much of the population at large, seriously committed to the use of beer as a social lubricant.

Fischer goes to conventions for, among other cults, The Prisoner, Robin of Sherwood, Blake’s Seven, Doctor Who, Discworld and Monty Python, and it must be said that despite the lack of glamour of many of the locations (a Red Dwarf convention in a Holiday Inn in Peterborough, anyone?), he has a great time, meets loads of fairly mad-sounding people, spends a fortune on memorabilia (including some knitted Robin of Sherwood dolls that seem to be cursed), and generally has a wonderful, if rather exhausting series of experiences.

Wiffle Lever to Full! (the title, by the way, comes from a Blake’s Seven star who had a habit of making up vaguely technical gibberish whenever he forgot his lines) is an enjoyable romp through the late seventies and eighties, taking in many of the cultural touchstones shared by people of my generation (including, in some cases, the appropriation of earlier TV cults to be our very own). The number of conventions that take place across the country every year, and the enthusiasm with which the stars and creators of the shows participate, was a real eye-opener to me, and the whole book was an enjoyable mixture of memoir, cultural history and travelogue. If it makes me think one serious thought, it is this: in our multi-channel age, with the growth of YouTube et al, will the kids of today have any common cultural memories to get together and share over too many pints of beer? Time will tell, but I suspect that their lives will be the poorer for it if they do not.

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