Heide: I’m worried about something though.
Iain: It’s just too darn good?
Heide: Er, no. My problem is that the book is a “Heide and Iain” makeover of a novel I wrote by myself some years ago.
Iain: That must have been a long time ago. It’s hard to envisage a time when I wasn’t always in your life.
Heide: I know. That’s possibly quite frightening. Anyway, I’m worried that some people might accidentally buy the new version not realising that, and they’ll get angry that they already know the story.
Iain: But the new version’s got loads of extra material. Luminous dogs! Silliness in public toilets! SAS at a fashion show!
Heide: Shh! Spoilers!
Iain: Sorry.
Heide: Of course it’s different — it’s twice as long, for one thing. But the concept is the same: a dress that can be configured so that the wearer can have any kind of body that they want, in any kind of style that they want.
Iain: I think you’re worrying too much about it. All we’ve done here is the very common practice of doing a ‘remake’.
Heide: Like a movie remake. I guess…
Iain: You’d be surprised how many films are remakes or indeed get remade. Often remakes are better than the originals.
Heide: Really?
Iain: The Jeff Goldblum version of The Fly is excellent. The Thing with Kurt Russell is a superb sort-of remake of The Thing from Another World. And I LOVE the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers — my favourite of the FOUR versions of that film.
Heide: Sensing a horror theme here…
Iain: Okay. What about Little Shop of Horrors? A lovely comedy musical remake of the Roger Corman horror film. Or what about Dirty Rotten Scoundrels?
Heide: Oh, I do like that film.
Iain: Based on the film, Bedtime Story from 1964. Same writers both times. And it got remade in 2019 as The Hustle with Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson.
Heide: That one is very much my cup of tea.
