Dawn French Achingly funny. Without doubt it should win next year's Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for the best comic novel, even if my own novel is in contention as well

Diary of a Somebody - Seven Dials Playhouse Cast Announced for Diary of a Somebody - Seven Dials Playhouse

Glorious. I will be astonished if I read a more original, more inventive or funnier novel this year. Is there anything better to sink into than a good comic novel? Is there anything harder to pull off? They look easy, but how many good ones have you read this year? Any year? This debut novel by and about Brian Bilston, the purveyor of supremely self-aware parody poems, is a welcome reminder of the joy to be had when you put yourself in the hands of someone who knows their way round both a joke and a bittersweet narrative. Set almost exclusively in the room shared by the two men, the design centred around the partners’ shared single bed. Designed by Valentine Gigandet, the set, though clearly on a tight budget, worked well against the whirlwind of action, with faux classical statues staring blankly at the audience. The walls were covered with Halliwell’s decadent and unprosperous collages, being at once contemporary and a little creepy. Hilarious….the balance of daftness and topical comments is so spellbinding I read the diary in one sitting. ​

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I am a big fan of Brian Bilston and really enjoyed his poetry collection You Took the Last Bus Home (2017). Glorious. I will be astonished if I read a more original, more inventive or funnier novel this year.' - Adam Kay, author of This Is Going to Hurt You probably get the picture that Brian makes a few mistakes during the course of the book, but it's impossible to do anything but like him. Taken verbatim from Joe Orton's private and often explicit diaries, this raucous and poignant new production is directed by Nico Rao Pimparé (The Start of Nothing, 2020; Rainer, Arcola Theatre; Candy, King's Head Theatre). The cast is completed by Jemma Churchill (Doctor Who, BBC; Birthdays Past, Birthdays Present, New Vic Theatre; NATIVITY! The Musical, UK tour), Jamie Zubairi (Cucumber, Why The Lion Danced, Yellow Earth; The Letter; Wyndham's Theatre), Sorcha Kennedy (Rainer; Arcola Theatre, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Comedy of Errors - Sam Wanamaker Festival; Shakespeare's Globe) and Ryan Rajan Mal, making his stage debut. It's all well-trodden ground these days, but it still hurts knowing what fate awaits Joe, so full of life, and Ken, so trapped in his own neurosis, unable to arrest its descent into psychosis. But, as alluded to above, it's not all quite the same as it was.

Diary of a Somebody | christophermatthew Diary of a Somebody | christophermatthew

Imagine a mash-up of John Cooper Clarke, Ed Reardon’s Week and James Joyce, and you’re about halfway there. In a shared flat somewhere in west London, bachelor Simon Crisp has started work on a diary that strikingly resembles in wit and style the Grossmiths’ Diary of a Nobody, published 120 years ago. Brian's resolution is to write a poem every day; poetry will be his salvation. But there is an obstacle to his happiness in the form of Toby Salt, his arch nemesis in the Poetry Group and rival suitor to Liz, Brian’s new poetic inspiration. When Toby goes missing, Brian is the number one suspect. Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.

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He has written short stories for BBC Radio 4 and his radio plays include A Portrait of Richard Hillary, Madonna's Plumber, [6] and A Nightingale Sang in Fernhurst Road. I would have given up by September if it wasn't for the mystery of Toby Salt's disappearance, which did inject variety, and it was only the need to discover Toby's fate that kept me going. I have long envied artists who draw and sketch each day; who are able to transform ordinary visual experience into art – I imagine it to be a joy. After a year spent teaching in a girls' finishing school in Switzerland, Matthew worked as a copywriter in various London advertising agencies including JWT, before becoming a full-time writer in 1970. I place Christopher Matthew’s Somebody next to the Grossmiths’ Nobody in my abiding affection. Simon Crisp belongs with Pooter, the Provincial Lady, Samuel Pepys and Adrian Mole in the gallery of memorably funny English diarists. Keith Waterhouse, Daily Mail

Diary of a Somebody by Brian Bilston | The National Review: Diary of a Somebody by Brian Bilston | The National

add in multiple humourous mini plots - book club where he never finishes the monthly book, year long efforts at completing Christmas cryptic crossword, neighbouring psychic who sees death in future, neighbour's struggles with getting the bins out for collection, his son's turnaround of youth football team with step dads motivational lines, corporate speak non-sense So, to borrow from Jorge Luis Borges, the exact same words sound very differently to different ears - this both diminishes and extends the appeal of the play.

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BBC - Freedom Pass Special - Media Centre". Bbc.co.uk. Archived from the original on 7 August 2019 . Retrieved 5 August 2019. It’s January 1st and Brian Bilston is convinced that this year, his New Year’s resolution will change his life. Every day for a year, he will write a poem. It’s quite simple. The brilliant thing about this whole structure is the way the banalities of life are turned into rhyming ditties and entries in the diary which are so wonderful to read. Most people's diaries would be quite boring I suspect, but Brian's life is just so fraught with calamity and misunderstanding that the banal becomes interesting, even though it's not dramatic. He just ploughs on hoping for the best.

Diary of a Somebody by Brian Bilston review - The Guardian

Jemma Churchill who played Orton’s agent, Peggy Ramsey, and voiced Edna Wellthorpe (Mrs), occasionally stole the show, and certainly had the biggest laugh of the night with the line ‘my vagina has come up the size of a football’. The rest of the chorus followed with some impressive character work, especially Jamie Zubairi as Kenneth Williams and Sorcha Kennedy as Miss Boynes. The direction, by Nico Rao Pimparé was well thought through, although some scene changes felt a little laboured.If you like a) laughing or b) words which rhyme with each other, you will love Brian Bilston' - Richard Osman, author of The Thursday Murder Club