Books 2015 - Briefs Encountered by Julian Clary
Whoever said the afterlife would be easy? The new inhabitants of an old house in deepest darkest Kent are about to discover the previous owner - a certain Mr Noel Coward - never quite left the building...
This was an impulse-grab from the library, and I was prepared to be hugely disappointed by it, as a book written by a celebrity, but in fact I very pleasingly indeed thoroughly enjoyed this. Julian Clary turns out not just to be lightly amusing about things, but to be able to write characters and places rather nicely too. It wasn't at all a slapstick comedy either, which I'd half expected, it was written from that perspective where you have to half-laugh at everything that goes on in the world - just what I like.
It's actually two stories - that of almost-retired successful actor Richard who moves to a house in the Kentish countryside formerly owned by both Julian Clary and Noel Coward (and that bit's apparently based on truth - it was Clary's house), and then also of Noel Coward himself, his lover Jack, and their time in the same house. I'm usually a bit so-so about books that flick between two different stories - just tell me one at a time! *g* - but Clary made it work, and I didn't ever mind pausing the one to carry on with the other. I also rather liked the occasional cameo of Clary himself in the book - they were also completely light-hearted and just fun.
My only complaint is that it did get unexpectedly dark in places - when Clary has someone tortured, they're tortured - which clashed a bit with the tone of everything else. Oh no - I have two more complaints! I cannot for the life of me see what the title has to do with any part of the story (though it's admittedly witty - apparently thought up by Clary's publishers - and I can't see what the front cover has to do with the story either. But the story kept me reading, and I shall keep my out for more books by Julian Clary. *g*
Oh I fib - there are four - four complaints! The roads, the bathhouses, central heating... The final one lurks rather on the serious side too - women did not come out of any of the stories well! They were either crazy dominatrixes, nagging or whinging and treating their menfolk badly, jealous murderers and blackmailers, or beautiful but insane drunks. There were women enough in the story, and they looked on the outside like decent rational people, but by the end - my gods, only one was left standing! Which makes me worry a bit about Clary's experience of women, and hope it's not been as awful as it sounds!