Rylan John Cavell is Utterly Bewildered

    My brain is full of possible story ideas. Constantly. Endlessly.     I had a dark retelling of Mary Poppins planned for a great long while. Many years, in fact. Originally written as a musical, all blues and jazz. But I never found the time to write the songs or work with anyone to bring it to life below a proscenium arch. Poor Mary. Or as I renamed her; Sally Rattles.     I also had a dark retelling of Peter Pan planned. This would be a rock opera, in the style of Tommy, told from Captain Hook's perspective. The script for this only ever had one scene written.     I looked at these two tales I had sat there, awaiting the spark of life, and wondered what other tales I might like to rework in my own special way. I have read lots of the Grimm's fairy tales. I love the stories of Hans Andersen, and I adore the camp gothic stylings of the Hammer Horror films. And so I decided to create a compilation. A collection. A book for au...

     The story of Professor Calamity started off as a series of doodles and notes for a TV series I'd love to make. It was a blend of Doctor Who, Farscape, Blake's 7, Star Trek, Star Wars, The Avengers and so much more! The series was a pastiche, an homage, a fusion of all the elements I held most dear about each of those shows. It was my love letter to science fiction through the ages.      Over the years Professor Calamity almost became a radio drama twice, but I never quite managed to get it together enough to complete it. Something about the scripts I had written wasn't quite right. It was used as the backdrop to my play Rehearsal Space , set behind the scenes of a low-budget sic-fi show in the 60s.      In the spring of 2020 I was asked to contribute a short story for a compilation. I picked a freestanding Calamity episode idea, reworking it to fit the characters and the brief, and to a very tight word count.      Insp...