The Annotated Afterlife

1. To Sleep Perchance to Dream

Quote
The quote for this chapter is from the famous "To be or not to be" soliloquy in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Howard Moon, played by Julian Barratt, recites these lines in the prologue scene of the episode "Bollo" on The Mighty Boosh TV show, the inspiration for this novel.

Hamlet is something of a touchstone in Between Life and Death, and will be mentioned again. These lines offer a bit of a clue to the plot – in fact, more than one clue. I know, the story hasn't started yet, and I'm already giving you clues! So get out your little notebook to write clues in, and put it down.

Have you bought a little notebook in which to write down clues? If not, why not?

The Taxi
Being transported to the Afterlife by taxi comes directly from "Bollo" in The Mighty Boosh, when Howard, played by Julian, is taken there via London cab (white instead of the traditional black). It's clearly meant to be an updated version of Charon rowing the dead across the River Styx in Greek mythology, as you pay a taxi driver the same way you pay the ferryman. In fact, the word taxi literally comes from the ancient Greek for "payment".

Incidentally, Chris De Burgh, who sang the 1982 song, "Don't Pay the Ferryman" was a character in Series 3 of The Mighty Boosh. He was played by Ray Fielding, Noel Fielding's father.

The Afterlife taxi service is called Death Cabs in the script for The Mighty Boosh. I'm pretty sure this is a reference to the 1967 song "Death Cab for Cutie" by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band which appears in The Beatles film, Magical Mystery Tour. (Yes, this is where the indie rock band got their name). It feels like a joke, as Howard/Julian is the "cutie" picked up by the death cab. 

Taxi Radio Song
Julian hears the 1977 song "Paradise by the Dashboard Light", written by Jim Steinman and performed by Meatloaf, on the radio in the taxi. Later chapters suggest that the choice of music in the taxi is not a coincidence.

The House of Healing
The idea that people need to be healed after death comes from the 1969 New Age book, Testimony of Light: An Extraordinary Message of Life After Death by Helen Greaves. It purports to be a series of messages telepathically passed on from the Afterlife by a former Anglican nun named Frances Banks, who died in 1965.

The book explains that the first thing which occurs after death is being taken to a place of healing, which is physical, mental, and spiritual. It struck me as a very interesting thought, and as some readers have pointed out, the House of Healing is like the Afterlife version of palliative care, where, rather than being given comfort as you prepare for death, you are helped to become strong enough for life after death.

Everything is green in The House of Healing because it is meant to be a colour of healing. Studies have shown that the colour green helps people feel calmer and more focused, and can help them heal faster.

Accents
Julian's Healer, Mary Gideon, has a faint accent which he cannot quite identify. It struck me that just as people often begin to lose their accents when they move to another country, which might happen after only a few years, they would surely lose their accents after being dead for decades, or centuries. Mary's accent is still detectable, so perhaps she died only a century or so previously (although some people's accents are shown in the story to be more resilient than others). 

The surname Gideon is used in several countries, making Mary's origins mysterious. However, if you cross-reference countries which use the surname Gideon and those which use the name Mary, and take into account Mary's apparently European appearance and not instantly recognisable accent, you end up with Norway.

Mary as Mother Figure
You can see Mary Gideon as something of a mother figure, her name even reminiscent of the Madonna, the Virgin Mary. You will notice several other mother figures in the story, as Julian is missing his own mother so badly. Julian's girlfriend, Julia Davis, has said that all male comedians have "a mother complex". Whether that applies to Julian as well is a matter of speculation.   

Characters

Phil the Taxi Driver
Based on Phil the Reaper who appears in "Bollo", and is played by Noel Fielding. Like his other Cockney characters, Phil is most likely based on Noel's grandfather. He drives the taxi which takes Howard to the Afterlife – like the traditional Cockney drivers of black London cabs, except that the Afterlife taxi is white. I only realised while writing these notes that I made the taxi black in the illustrations, and never mentioned its colour in the story. 

Mary Gideon 
Based on Mrs Gideon, who is a zookeeper in The Mighty Boosh, played by Victoria Wicks. She wears a green uniform, just as Mary Gideon does in the show. Mary Gideon is an idealised version of Mrs Gideon in appearance, and like her, has a faint accent (Mrs Gideon's sounds slightly Russian to me, which makes sense, since Julian has a keen interest in Russian literature). I gave her the name Mary because it sounds solid and practical, yet also caring and maternal. Mrs Gideon is not given a first name in The Mighty Boosh. Some readers have seen Mary as like a midwife - helping people into the Afterlife, just as a midwife helps a new baby enter the world. 

Write What You Know
As a child, I spent some time in hospital being treated for a life-threatening infectious illness. I didn't respond to antibiotics straight away, and I fully credit my amazing and caring nurses for saving my life. They kept me strong enough to survive until the antibiotics eventually kicked in and did their thing.

Did I give them any thanks at the time? No, I was a whiny pain in the arse who was sick, unhappy, and desperately wanted to go home. So this story is my attempt to belatedly pay them a little tribute.