Neurotic fears behind TV’s funny woman
HUMOUR IMPOSSIBLE THINGS BEFORE BREAKFAST by Rebecca Front (W&N £16.99)
Corseted up in the period drama doctor thorne or cracking us up in sweary political satire the thick of It, rebecca Front is an actress who seems to have one eyebrow arched, inviting her audience to share her amusement at — and exasperation with — life’s absurdities.
In her first memoir, Curious, the oxfordeducated daughter of a children’s author (mum) and illustrator (dad) revealed herself to be as funny and short-fused on the page as she appears on screen.
though some readers were disappointed she didn’t take us behind the scenes of crime drama Lewis, in which she played Chief superintendent Jean Innocent, most critics loved her quirky anecdotes about eccentric family and acute analyses of the ongoing neuroses that saw her prescribed Valium at the age of 11. I enjoyed Curious so much that I earmarked Front as one of my fantasy dinner-party guests.
But readers of her second book will learn that the ‘antisocial’ author is no fan of dinner parties. After exhausting herself making polite chit-chat on tV sets, she’d rather curl up in her dressing gown and play online scrabble.
Unfortunately, her gregarious television producer husband Phil has other ideas.
When he’s not gathering friends around their family table to enjoy his cooking, he’s chatting to complete strangers in restaurants. Front affects irritation with this habit, but what actually emerges from this book is her total fascination with the lives of others. ‘I watch people all the time,’ she admits, ‘and I’m an inveterate eavesdropper.’
so the vignettes in this book often begin with peculiar snatches of overheard conversation, which Front then spins into more thoughtful observations on modern life.
she covers her dad’s hilarious dIY disasters, her attachment to Jewish rituals, the cape she wore as a teenager and stargazing with her son.
on the West Coast of America, Front is seated near a family at a blazing hot beach and listens as the father (‘fully dressed for the office in a short- sleeve, stay-pressed shirt, long trousers, socks and street shoes’) warns his wife and young daughter of the catastrophes lurking on the fringes of their day out.
Dehydration, riptides, jellyfish, even tsunamis. ‘You know what to do if the water gets sucked out, right? You run like hell.’
Eventually, his wife and daughter are beaten down by his gloomy monologue and pack up their buckets and spades.
Although Front feels for the child’s spoiled fun, she relates to the man who sees peril beneath every grain of sand.
A later chapter explores the hypochondria that has caused Phil to confiscate Front’s medical dictionary.
She’s frank about the terror that sees her Googling minor lumps and bumps in the small hours and hilarious on how her craving for a GP’s reassurance is at odds with her very English horror at the thought of unnecessarily taking up anybody’s time.
She was so stressed at the thought of a recent colonoscopy that she could barely eat for a fortnight beforehand. ‘And while it’s perfectly reasonable to have a colonoscopy because you’ve had a sudden, dramatic weight loss, it’s not reasonable to suddenly and dramatically lose a lot of weight because you’re having a colonoscopy.’
When the kindly nurse asks what kind of music she would find most relaxing, Front ends up with a camera snaking through her intestines to the sound of the Hallelujah Chorus. You have to laugh.
Although no fan of selfhelp literature, Front does try to find herself a mantra: ‘MOST PEOPLE DON’T THINK I’M WEIRD.’ One day out walking through town, she decides to practise it aloud.
‘The roar of traffic that had emboldened me had also concealed the fact that a woman was now standing next to me at the crossing. She shot me a look and swiftly began to cross the road, even though the pedestrian light was red.’
These days, she just whispers it.