Present laughter, or not
Alan Coren
It is a bit bloody peculiar, reviewing books which will never be read by the per- son to whom the review is addressed. Normally, when a hack sits down to assess a book, he bears in mind the putative soul who has forked out for the journal in which the review is to appear, so that he can determine how best to encourage him to read — or discourage him from reading volumes which the literary editor has pre- selected as being of likely interest to his target customer.
But comedy annuals are not bought to be read, they are bought to be given away; and while I can, I think, cobble an approximate identikit of The Spectator reader, I do not have the faintest idea of what his mum is like, let alone what she reads. I do not know what, when they turn briefly from the hurly-burly of the chaise-longue, his mis- tress chooses to snatch up and gobble, nor what, in the deep peace of the marriage bed, his wife is unable to put down. I do not know if his children, these days, can read at all, or whether his employees would not prefer socks or scent to words, or whether his maiden aunt requires of a book nothing more than that it be of a thickness ideal for the short leg of a wobbly daven- port. And as for what all these people like to laugh at . . .
To be of any use to you in the matter of this year's funnies, therefore, let me simply and briefly guess whom these offerings might suit, so that, if you have a whom like that at whose Yuletide premises you do not wish to turn up empty-handed, you will know what to buy.
For example, 101 Uses For A John Major (Deutsch, £4.99) is for people who like to go 'Hnergh-hnergh-hnergh!' Written and drawn, though dully, by Patrick Wright and Peter Richardson, it will do for undemand- ing sniggerers. It is not as good as The 2nd Secret Diary of John Major (Corgi, £4.99), cobbled by various Private Eye hands, but as this is not as good as its predecessor, give h to those for whom it isn't a sequel; but not if they've seen Rory Bremner's John Major, because if they have, they'll Wonder why Private Eye still bothers. As for The Best of Private Eye (a risky title, shurely?), this £4.99 Corgi is for sniggerers who also like the odd cackle. These will go 'Haw-haw-11ml', though not often. Those who want more meat on the politi- cal funnybone will prefer to receive Out of Order (Century, £6.99) by Tony Banks and Jo-Ann Goodwin, a rough guide to the House of Commons and the dingbats who scuttle its corridors of impotence. Giving it, moreover, will reflect well on you, since recipients will be pleased to be thought of as politically, er, concerned, but with a redeeming fancy for the wry. If, mind, you have gifts to find for those who enjoy rolling around helplessly not at the whimsi- cal exaggerations of Westminster life but at the incalculably more hilarious. comedy of its actual doings, splash out £14.95 on Look Behind You! (Robson Books), the collected parliamentary scourgings of that Really Chief Whip, Matthew Parris. Since your circle will doubtless include a sprinkling of the pretentious dumb, let me recommend a few cartoon books. Prime among these is Space Dog (Deutsch, £6.99), drawn by Hendrik Dorgathen, who studied communication design at the Volk- wangschule in Essen, but not, in my view, for long enough; also, a seminar or two on humour wouldn't have hurt him, though not, perhaps, in Essen. The book, which notionally tells the sans-paroles story of a dog in earth-orbit, is a curious cobbling of cartoon-homage, media criticism, a boot- faced social satire, and should go down a treat with the more desperate Pont de la Tour dasheutter. Since he/she will now feel fashion's irresistible call to move on from Posy Simmonds, you might also get him/her Nicole Hollander's The Whole Enchilada (Bloomsbury, £9.99), one of those hard- nosed hard-arsed post-Feiffer jargonised veneer-strippers which American cartoon- ists admittedly do rather well, if rather too often. Personally, I shall keep giving Posy Simmonds, whose latest, Mustn't Grumble (Cape, £9.99), is not only immeasurably better drawn, but also drawn from immea- surably better observation.
Finally, let me do you the credit of assuming that you know some nice bright jolly folk who demand nothing more of comedy than that it makes them fall about. For their cartoon book, buy them John Callahan's Digesting tThe Child Within (Statics Books, £5.99), an anthology of, for the most part, straightforward traditional gags whose engagingly old-fashioned milieu can suddenly be shaken by wonkyforward untraditional ones; and for texts to curl up with among the empties and the turkey shards, go for the wondrously assorted cor- uscations of Craig Brown's Greatest Hits (Century, £9.99) and the really remarkable admixture of pertinency and boffo jokes of Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation (Methuen, £7.99).
And were you thinking of buying a little something for me, may I suggest P.S. My Bush Pig's Name is Boris (Corgi, £6.99) by James C. Wade III? Naturally I already have it, or I wouldn't know I wanted it, but what I want it for is to send to everyone who doesn't have it. I want them to love
me for giving them quite the funniest book they will have read in many a long Christmas.
Alan Coren's Toujours Cricklewood is Published by Robson Books at 112.95, and his Sunday Best, collected columns from the Sunday Express, also by Robson at £7.99.
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