Stern Plastic Owl Still Available! (plus other less obvious news)
Stern Plastic Owl Still Available!
It's been a year since its release and, yes indeed, you can still buy it. Has my book made waves? No. But that's okay. It's just a slim volume of absurdist vignettes and a few (im)practical Idler pieces at the end. It's a serving of sit-down(-and-shut-up) comedy for anyone tired of midbrow bestseller swill. It's portable, cheerful, and does not require batteries. In fact, it is a battery. Of pure wit.
Why am I mentioning this now? Well, the British Comedy Guide has published a surprisingly in-depth and unedited interview with me about the book.
The interview was done by comedian Gabriel Featherstone after-hours at the famous Stand Comedy Club. I remember the first time I saw young Gabby: he was roaming the streets of my neighbourhood in a top hat. He looked like a miniature Artful Dodger and, despite every instinct in my body that told me to avoid this likely-dangerous urchin, curiosity got the best of me and I was soon close enough to hear him excitedly talking about an experimental comedy night in which someone had dressed as an ant. Much later, I bumped into him again at Simon Munnery's 30th Anniversary Show in Edinburgh (where I was selling copies of You Are Nothing) and decided to talk to him. This is when I found that he really is a miniature Artful Dodger and I'd been right all along. Despite our amusing differences in height, we became friends and, since he'd just got done with journalism school, I roped him into my latest bid to stardom.
So, read Gabby's excellent interview if you'd like to hear about the writing process and where I steal my jokes from.
And, if you'd be so kind, please like and/or RT this tweet so that the nice people at the British Comedy Guide don't think (okay, find out) that I'm a no-account duffer who nobody's interested in. Thank you.
Current Projects
I may as well give you some updates on how things are going generally. I'm sorry I've been so quiet. I've been working unusually hard on things (hypocrite idler, etc) but little has come to fruition yet. It'll probably all manifest at the same time and even the most loyal of the Wringham-tolerating public will be thinking "urgh, him again" even though I've been silent for a year.
But never mind! There's the novel of course, promised long ago. It's my top priority and will remain so until it's in the hands of the sixty or so people who backed its development on Kickstarter. The novel itself is COMPLETE and I'm shopping for publishers now. I'm not sure how long this process will take but something will happen, I promise, and you'll hear about it here and in the Kickstarter updates.
Meanwhile, 2022-23 seems to be the year of collaboration. I'm working on a book with the Iceman. It's almost finished and I'm starting to think about how to publish it. This book has come together very quickly but is really something special. It consists of photographs, paintings, and some clever journalism that tells a brilliant story. More news, as usual, when I have it. This will be my second volume of fringe comedy history. If it happens to come out before the novel, my career will look pleasingly symmetrical and temptingly complete since the pattern of my books will have been: comedy history > funny essays > escapology > escapology > funny essays > comedy history. I cannot let that happen!
The other "collab" (as we twats call it) is with my old friend and frequent New Escapologist artist, Landis Blair. It's probably too early to announce this really, and these words might jinx the whole project but I BELIEVE IN IT, so who cares? It will happen. I cannot yet give clues as to what it's about though.
And finally, if you clicked any of the 'comedy history' etc links above, you might already have noticed a new look to my website. What do you think? Pink? Correct. But I've also added all of my Idler columns for you to read for free along with some cherry-picked favourite shorts from various places and an updated bio for what that's worth (it's actually from Stern Plastic Owl). There's a relatively new blog post for your attention too.
New Escapologist ticks along quietly (okay, very quietly) in the background, though maybe I will have more thoughts to communicate about it next time.
Um, what else? Oh, the Queen died. Her Royal Madge Highness. Sorry to be the one to break the news to you, but I thought you'd want to know.
Ah well. Remember to check out that interview if you want to, and if possible, do something positive with the tweet.
Thank you my friends,
Robert Wringham
www.wringham.co.uk
www.newescapologist.co.uk