REMEMBER HIM?

Series 8. Level 1/3.

HONESTY BARTRAM

          This character really was one of the less glorious aspects of the rushed, disjointed mess that was the blink-and-you-miss-it series 8. With his tradesman’s cart, sackcloth robes and two-coloured hat, Bartram was clearly designed to be a kind of successor to Julius Scaramonger, in that he could sell useful objects and spells to dungeoneers if he chose to do so, but his quick-talking sales patter, combined with his allegiance to Lord Fear, meant that any dungeoneer who found that they needed something from his cart would not have an easy job in acquiring it.

As it turned out, only two dungeoneers met Honesty Bartram in the end, and due to the shortness of series 8, Bartram never got a chance to develop as a character, particularly as most of actor Bill Cashmore’s time was taken up with playing Snapper-Jack. Honesty Bartram was given several “amusing” lines (Don’t tell your dad; You’re not Dishonesty Daniel/Naughty Nathan, are you?) and a slight stutter in a very obvious attempt to make him comical, but it just wasn’t happening.

My main objection to series 8 is that the production team tried to fit too much new stuff into too short a series. What with the introduction of a whole new antechamber for Treguard and Majida, the much-hated Reach wand, the Mire World, Lord Fear’s new costume and castle, excessive numbers of new creatures (skeletrons, miremen, snapdragons, mire-trogs) and the redesigning of the entire Dungeon (except a few chambers from Goth) there was far too much happening in series 8, and not enough time to accommodate it all effectively.

Honesty Bartram is just one of the characters (along with the likes of Bhal-Shebah, Motley, Hordriss, Smirky, Hands, Sidriss and even Treguard, in my opinion) that got ingloriously absorbed into this disappointing mess of a series, which (combined with the fact that only Daniel and Nathan met him in the entire series) makes him a very forgettable part of Knightmare.

Fear Factor: 3 With the knowledge that he was in Lord Fear’s pocket…

Killer Instinct: 4 Certainly part of Daniel’s losing slump in level three.

Humour Rating: 7 Made several jocular remarks, none of them amusing.

Oscar Standard: 5 Sadly, there wasn’t much to do with the character.