B&B host plots comic endings
FUNNILY enough, Ian Moore is a Brit in his 50s who owns a B&B in rural France.
I say “funnily” because the main character in his comedy crime novels, the latest being Death And Fromage, is a Brit in his 50s who owns a B&B in rural France.
They differ in other respects, mind you. Ian is also a stand-up comic, broadcaster and expert chutney maker (yes, really).
All that, plus a successful writer, of course, currently “chiselling away” at book four in his popular Follet Valley series.
But, yes, his inspiration was definitely the B&B he and his wife Valerie run.
“I’d serve breakfast, then sit outside plotting ways my guests could meet their demise,” he jokes. For much of the past 17 years (they were attracted to France by the different attitude to life, plus the fact that the perfect house they found was dead cheap), Ian commuted weekly to the UK, gigging here from Wednesdays to Sundays.
He’s since stepped off the circuit (“It became too much, physically and mentally”) – but still does corporate gigs.
And Ian knows he’ll always have great material to rely on.
“There’s no-one else doing jokes about goats and making chutney,” he points out.
Talking of reliable material, what also makes Ian stand out is he is a lifelong Mod. This doesn’t mean he’s never out of a fish-tail parka but merely that he favours “classic British tailoring”.
Yes, even in rural France. “At times it goes beyond absurd,” he concedes, “such as when I go to our boulangerie (bakery) in an Edwardian frock coat. Customers look at me as if I’m Doctor Who.”
While he still sees himself as “90% British”, Ian acquired French citizenship in 2018.
“It came through two days before France won the World Cup,” he tells me.
“So I’d go on stage and say, ‘I never thought I would see my country win a major football tournament.’
“Seriously, the abuse I got.”
● Death And Fromage (Farrago, £14.99) is available now.