Review: Day of the Clown novelisation

The last in the second batch of Sarah Jane Adventures novelisations is Day of the Clown, written by Phil Ford, who also scripted the two similarly-titled television episodes on which the book is based.

A new family - the Chandras - have arrived on Bannerman Road, after the departure of Maria Jackson and her father. However, Sarah Jane Smith is determined that young Rani Chandra won't be swept up in her alien-fighting antics in the same way that Maria was. But local children are vanishing, and Rani has repeatedly been visited by a mysterious clown who seems to be connected, so there's no choice but for her to become involved. And to save the day, Sarah Jane will have to confront one of her greatest fears...

With a new main character entering Sarah Jane's world, this story is a good jumping-on point for newcomers to the series, and the book capitalises on this. In the first chapter, Ford concisely recaps everything that's happened so far, and we see a lot of the story from Rani's perspective. If you're not familiar with The Sarah Jane Adventures, picking up a copy of this novel would be a great way to start.

As well as being accessible, it's a pretty good story in its own right. The villain is creepy, the plot unfolds at a gentle pace, tension builds nicely towards a peak in the middle of the story, and Rani is a good new character. She's similar enough to Maria that she doesn't shake things up too much, but she's also different enough to make her own mark, and alter the group dynamic slightly. She's a little more inquisitive than Maria, perhaps slightly stronger and more confident, and her early interactions with Luke and Clyde at school are especially brilliant.

Admittedly, there are one or two things that don't work so well in print as they did on screen. The marked differences between Bradley Walsh's two characters aren't quite so noticeable or effective without his impressive presence, for example, and Rani doesn't make quite as strong a first impression without the marvellous Anjli Mohindra selling some of the dialogue. And a couple of the source material's weaknesses remain, too - at times, the second half of the story is a bit sedate and wordy in comparison to other adventures, the conclusion is sudden and relatively weak, and the magnificently sinister villian Spellman is slightly underused.

However, Ford compensates in other areas - the conclusion of the story here feels far more satisfying than on screen, and he's added extra insight into the characters just as he did with Eye of the Gorgon. There's a confidence and underlying sense of fun to his writing, which makes Day of the Clown working as a decent standalone children's book, on top of being a good Sarah Jane Adventures novelisation.

As a whole, then, this is another good read, although some of the successful individual elements of the book don't quite come together. Most of the time, Day of the Clown is the same brilliant fare we've come to expect from this series, but there are moments when it's a little bit less enjoyable than both the original television story, and the other three novels in this set. Definitely worth a look, but perhaps not the strongest of these releases.