Hello everyone,
Holy mackerel, New Escapologist Issue 19 is out now, as is a lovingly-restored tenth-anniversary paperback edition of Escape Everything!
If you’re on this list because you’re interested in New Escapologist, I thank you! I’d also like to check, however, that you know about the main list for Matters Escapological. Wringham Wreview will always have some New Esc content but it’s mainly about my other stuff — novels, speaking events, our film — plus some cultural recommendations and FUNNY JOKES. As we say in New Escapologist, you’re free to leave, but hopefully you’ll stick around. Here goes.
Melt It! summer tour
It is with immense satisfaction and mild disbelief, that I can announce the Melt It! UK tour. We’re screening the film in ten incredible venues: the kind of venues I’d only dreamed of playing before we had this film to show off.
Most of the screenings will be followed by an in-person Q&A from me and the director, plus a special guest host. In Dundee the host is Phill Jupitus. In Glasgow it’s the mighty Gabriel Featherstone. Chris Evans (not that one) joins us in Cardiff and The Iceman himself will materialise in St. Leonards. Please come to see our work and to say hello.
DUNDEE
Sunday 12th July 2026, 2:30pm, DCA
Screening and live Q&A with self, Cartwright and PHILL JUPITUS. Tickets.
GLASGOW
Monday 13th July 2026, 8:20pm, Glasgow Film Theatre
Screening and live Q&A with self, Cartwright and GABRIEL FEATHERSTONE. Tickets.
SHEFFIELD
Wednesday 15th July, 7:30pm, Showroom Cinema
Screening and live Q&A with self, Cartwright and TBC. Tickets.
LIVERPOOL
Thursday 16th July 2026, 7pm, Hot Water Comedy Club
Screening and live Q&A with self, Cartwright and TBC. Tickets.
CARDIFF
Friday 17th July, 8pm, Chapter Arts
Screening and live Q&A with self, Cartwright and CHRIS EVANS (NOT THAT ONE). Tickets should be on sale soon but we’re waiting for the Welsh translation. Tidy!
BIRMINGHAM
Saturday 18th July 2026, 7:30pm, Birmingham MAC Cinema
Screening and live Q&A with self, Cartwright and TBC. Tickets.
ST. LEONARDS-ON-SEA
Sunday 19th July 2026, 2pm, Kino-Teatr
Screening followed by self and THE ICEMAN flogging books and artwork in the lobby. Tickets.
EDINBURGH
Saturday 8th August, 2:30pm, Cameo Cinema
Festy screening and live Q&A with self, Cartwright and TBC. Tickets.
NORTH LONDON
Sunday 23rd August 2026, 7:30pm, The Bill Murray
Screening and live Q&A with self, Cartwright and TBC. Tickets.
KENDAL
Saturday 19th September 2026, 7:45pm, Brewery Arts Cinema
Screening and live Q&A with self, Cartwright and TBC. Tickets.
Breakfast Joke 1
What did the egg say to the tattie scone?
We’re on a roll.
Tether
My novel, Tether is available in paperback, hardback, and digital formats from the indie queens at P&H Books.
“A very personal, very open, very moving book. I enjoyed it. But I was also thrilled that it was short.”
— Reggie Chamberlain-King, author of The Black Dreams
“A sparkling new story with a unique premise”
— John Robinson, OutsideLeft
Breakfast Joke 2
What’s seedy and goes up and down?
A bagel in a kangaroo.
Current Reading
I recently turned the final pages of How Not to Die (Too Soon) by Devi Sridhar on whom I have a crush. It’s extremely good. She’s made it look like a self-help book to attract the kind of people who need to hear her plea that the world itself be better optimised toward health instead of killing people. She means clean air, safer roads, gun control, access to fruit and veg. That sort of thing. Here are the parts that captured my imagination. Bloody book killed my supply of sticky notelets.
Significant shout-outs to a great bunch of lads 🌭:
John Patrick Higgins - Teeth, arch essay about JPH having his horrible teeth expensively replaced. Followed by Spine, which I haven’t read yet but presumably involves JPH getting his horrible spine expensively replaced. A-
Jack Hilton - Caliban Shrieks, inadvertently camp and almost Polari-like rediscovered pondlife classic. A+
Charles Boyle - Invisible Dogs, exceptionally well-written micro-published novel in the form of a postcolonial travelogue. A-
Did you know that you can see what I’m reading at any given instant here? If you’re feeling lonely, just amble over to the nearest internet-connected device to have a look at what I’m reading and achieve a palpable sense of connection. It’s what the Internet is good for. Please don’t tap the glass.
Breakfast Joke 3
What do you call a sausage with a little smiley face?
Meat cute.
Culture Corner
At the GFT recently (support your local arts cinema), I saw poultry-based Buster Keaton homage Hen (2026) and dull boomer immortality bid The Balloonists (2026). I liked them both!
I have tickets to see Frank Skinner’s Edinburgh Festival WIP in August. It’s £12, which seems impossible these days let alone to see a living legend in their natural habitat.
The eyebrow-raising investigations at The Nerve by Cadwalladr and Company are, as Stouffer might say, very strong. Get informed and resist.
State of the Desque
Friend Landis ends each instalment of his own Substack newsletter with a “state of the desk” update. I’m nicking that idea. Here’s what it looks like today.
Thank you everyone. Hopefully you welcome these emails and do not despise them or me. Please come to our film if you’re able.
Diolch a ffarwel,
Robert Wringham
www.wringham.co.uk
