Which fictional world would be the most fun to vacation in?
Camelot. No hesitation.
Not necessarily the historical Britain in which some real warlord called Arthur may or may not have lived, but the gloriously fictional Camelot that writers, painters and filmmakers have been constructing ever since: part Malory, part Tennyson, part Pre-Raphaelite painting and part Hollywood.
I want the full romanticised version of medieval England: brave Knights of the Round Table riding out on quests, gorgeous maidens looking wistfully from castle windows, tournaments, feasts, forests, banners and armour — with Merlin doing magic somewhere in the background and Morgan le Fay almost certainly plotting something unpleasant in a tower.
I could choose Tennyson’s dreamy Idylls of the King, T. H. White’s funny and melancholy The Once and Future King, Disney’s The Sword in the Stone, Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave singing their way through Camelot, or even the gleaming, slightly unhinged medieval vision of Excalibur. Preferably I’d mix them all together and leave before anybody discovered the Holy Grail, committed adultery or brought the kingdom crashing down.
There is another reason Camelot has an unfair advantage for me, though.
I’ve already been there.
In the summer of 1978 I spent my entire summer holiday at Alnwick Castle, transformed into King Arthur’s court for Disney’s The Spaceman and King Arthur — released in America as Unidentified Flying Oddball. It was Disney’s science-fiction spin on Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, following the earlier major English-language film versions of 1921, 1931 and the 1949 Bing Crosby musical.
And I wasn’t merely visiting Camelot.
I was one of the King’s Guard Specials.
So, technically, I’ve already spent one summer holiday in my favourite fictional world. The obvious thing is to go back — preferably this time without having to stand around in chain mail waiting for someone to shout “Action!”
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