More than nostalgia

The Rotters Club, Jonathan Coe

The first predecessor to Coe's recent Middle England (although more like a prequel to me given I'm reading them in the wrong order), The Rotters Club is a simply brilliant evocation of the political and cultural zeitgeist of England in the 1970s. Filtered largely through the lives of teenagers at high school (all middle-aged, appropriately enough, in Middle England), it's also - by turns - searing and hilarious on this formative life stage. While there are occasional nostalgic interludes, the novel has bigger fish to fry, with the trades unions and Tories, race relations and the IRA all in its sights. But much of its entertainment value comes from recognition of the teenaged incomprehension, self-importance and angst of its primary characters. While more heightened than my own "skooldaze", I definitely recognised the agonised feelings and the japes, and even some of the characters (our Harding was called Haig). And I also had a shuddering familiarity with the general complicity towards racism painfully traced out. On these facets, it's particularly excellent, but it's much more of a solid all-rounder. The steady buildup of its labour relations backdrop, that completes with the ascension of Margaret Thatcher, is another highlight. As does the infusion of the dark IRA thread, and the timely spectre of the Yorkshire Ripper. Overall, it's a novel that's impossible not to recommend.

Finally, one distinction from Middle England is that this book was written from a position of hindsight, while Coe's Brexit novel is practically reportage. This lets the political scaffolding of The Rotters Club sit half-finished, because we know what calamities happen next. It'll be interesting to see how the future treats the later novel. Except for the fact that we'll have to live through it first.

Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris

A Christmas money purchase this time inspired, in part, by hearing Sedaris read out his now-famous (it has an article on Wikipedia ...) piece, The Santaland Diaries. It's not part of this particular collection, but it didn't need to be, there's plenty more comedy gold in here. A little less on the pathos that Santaland sometimes touches on, but plenty of the laughs. Sedaris has real skill in recounting short tales from his own life that must, at times, be quite mixed experiences into something we can be amused by, while deriving some insight and understanding from. He is, to be fair, often helped by his family, his sister, Amy, in particular. So an excellent read - the super-short Big Boy is almost worth it on its own (if it weren't already available online).

Loss of loss

As was implied by yesterday's rather short review, and doubtless confirmed by this similarly short one, my pile of books that have been read but not cogitated has grown again. Olympics, holidays, but mostly laziness can be drafted in to serve as excuses, but the bedside table needs to have space for my glasses, so here I am again. Today's hasty summary is for Kate Atkinson's 2006 crime novel One Good Turn, a sequel to her earlier career-direction-change novel, Case Histories (which I was a big fan of).

As with its predecessor, this novel is centred around the character of ex-army sergeant, ex-police officer Jackson Brodie, now also adding ex-private detective to his growing c.v. Finding himself in Edinburgh during the Fringe on account of his girlfriend's sporadic acting career, it isn't long before trouble - of the criminal variety - finds Jackson. When he intervenes in a seeming road rage incident (one good turn ...), it's not long before he's drawn into a chain reaction of murkily-connected events. His fellow passengers include Martin Canning, a successful but troubled crime writer; Gloria Hatter, the millionaire wife of a crooked property developer; and Louise Monroe, a local detective sergeant who finds herself bumping into Brodie suspiciously frequently. Plus an entourage that includes a violent fixer, a pair of seeming Russian twins, and a mild-mannered man who has a military-issue gun for some reason.

The funny thing about this novel is that is has almost everything that made its precursor such a memorable book. Funnier (not "ha ha") is that though it's missing what I think elevated Case Histories above its genre trappings, namely its deep consideration of the human cost of loss, it still works perfectly well, and is still a very enjoyable and satisfying read. This omission certainly makes it a far less complete novel, indeed it makes it difficult to separate this novel from the crowded background of other crime tomes, but I was still almost wholly pleased with my time spent with the wry Mr. Brodie. Atkinson has made one thematic addition that somewhat raises One Good Turn from much of the genre, namely some very clever self-awareness about the crime genre, worked in via the successful but hollow writer, Martin. However, I'd still rather have had deeper themes to ponder (though I am a sucker for such post-modernism).

Still, notwithstanding the foregoing, I will definitely be returning to Ms. Atkinson in the near future. Even shorn of her literary sensibilities, she's still eminently worth reading.

It's only a model

Out last night to (finally) catch Spamalot, Eric Idle's reboot of the 1975 Monty Python film, at the Mayflower theatre. I say "finally" because the (presumably unexpected) success of the show in London led to its run being prolonged there (that cash isn't going to rake itself in), and to the cancellation of the Southampton portion of its national tour. Much to our annoyance. Anyway, after being prompted by an e-mail flyer last week, which also offered 1/2 price tickets (a feature of many a Mayflower visit for us), we've finally caught, done and dusted the show.

So, any good? Definitely. But I couldn't shake the feeling that, fundamentally, it's a somewhat unnecessary affair that, while certainly entertaining for Monty Python fans (so we were happy), mostly serves to keep Monty Python alive for the "youth of today". That said, that's still a much better rationale for existence than many other shows have, so I shan't complain further. As it happens, and contrary to what I expected going in, the best parts of the show are actually the new bits that Idle et al. have added. These include a series of big musical numbers that very effectively pastiche and satirise the clichéd and overwrought songs of mainstream musicals (e.g. Act 2's "Whatever Happened To My Part?"). Largely sung by the semi-token female character, the Lady of the Lake, these were right on the money, and certainly the highlight of the show for me.

Overall: recommended. But don't go in expecting something to trump the film. That was excellently silly enough without extended musical numbers. And, I should add, the film has the benefit of the Bridge of Death scene.

Fantastic

Having just caught it this evening, I can wholeheartedly recommend Fantastic Mr. Fox. I wasn't entirely confident that subject material written by Roald Dahl and centred around the antics of a suave, anthropomorphic fox was quite suited to the director, Wes Anderson, but he pulled it off brilliantly. Although animated, it's probably not ideally suited for children given the at times wry humour, but I imagine that it's still visually engaging enough to hold their attention. And great voice acting too, not least from the ever reliable George Clooney (can this man do no wrong?). It definitely lives up to its titular adjective.

Mark Thomas

We took a rare trip to "Beastly" last night to catch the campaigning comedian Mark Thomas at the Point. He's currently on his "It's The ^^Stupid Economy Stupid" tour, with a sideline to promote his recent book about Coca Cola, Belching Out The Devil.

I've watched Mark Thomas on the TV for years, so was wondering what he'd be like in front of a live audience. With non-live TV, there's a lot of scope for post-hoc editing and for careful scripting of jokes. As it turns out, his live performance was largely the same as his appearances on TV. He's a good stand-up comedian, with lightning quick responses to audience feedback.

As it happens, this was especially important in this show which centres around audience participation to generate a manifesto for Thomas to campaign on. Basically, prior to the show, and during its interval, the audience is encouraged to submit manifesto ideas which Thomas then vets and discusses on stage. At the end of the evening, once all of the crazy ideas (some of which were brilliant) have been filtered out, the audience votes on a small subset, the winner from which is one that Thomas then picks up and runs with. Previous shows in this tour have selected ideas such as Thatcher paying for her own state funeral and a FTSE-style league table of MP performance metrics.

After an initial selection of about ten ideas, last night's proposals were whittled down to: 1) solar panels on all new-builds, 2) a maximum wage, and 3) a shortening of the period of time that government material can be held secret for. In the end, maximum wage won out (I actually voted for shortening the secrecy period), and this has been duly added to Thomas' list of proposals for his manifesto. Part of the show dealt with progress Thomas has already made on the proposals selected at other tour dates. On the Thatcher proposal, a downloadable standard letter has been prepared so that individuals can register their outrage (in various comedy fashions) with the Queen. On the MP league table, Thomas has hooked up with the New Economics Foundation to make use of already collated data to produce the tables.

Aside from the manifesto portion of the show, Thomas ranged over a number of campaigns that he's been involved with recently, as well as plugging his new book about Coca Cola. As with his TV show, this translated into a series of "sketches" about his adventures with the police (mostly), politicians and lawyers. Also much as with his TV show, these stories (illustrated by PowerPointed photographs) were quality items, and Thomas did a great job extracting maximum humour from tales of the destruction of his fingerprint record and his appearance in front of a House of Commons Select Committee. What he does especially well, and very playfully, is to use due process to expose absurdities in law or in enforcement agencies. And some of the examples are pretty absurd.

What I'd forgotten about Thomas is how infectious his enthusiasm for justice, fairness and equality is. By the end I was really stoked up by the issues he spoke about. Unfortunately, the decay term for my enthusiasm is dispiritingly high, but judging from the audience reaction, a lot of people left primed for direct action.