COMIC FICTION
CHOP CHOP
EAT out much? Then brace yourself for this lively, amusing and alarmingly informative novel about life behind the scenes of a gastropub in North London’s Camden Town.
This kitchen- stink drama is narrated by Monocle, so nick- named because he has newly graduated with an Eng Lit degree that has led to a job as a kitchen dogsbody.
Monocle’s, ahem, colourful colleagues include Racist Dave, the chef who works a hundred hours a week; Ramilov the scurrilous Albanian; and Bob, the sadistic boss who burns staff with hot spoons and locks them in the walk-in fridge.
The grafted-on plot is increasingly melodramatic, but it’s the horribly plausible cast and the foul-mouthed mania of kitchen life — described by a former chef who knows what he’s writing about — that gives this book its energy and its best laughs.
REGGIE: A STAG AT BAY
A FIRST comic novel by someone who’s al r eady a much-loved comic figure, the actor who’s best known as Boycie in Only Fools And Horses.
John Challis has published a couple of volumes of autobiography; with his foray into fiction, he offers a jolly rural romp.
Our hero is Reginald ffinchLeigh, squire of a mansion in deepest Shropshire. But despite the house and salmon-coloured cords and the silly surname, Reggie is far from posh — he’s a Cockney geezer who made a pile then bought one near Ludlow.
But Reggie has been swindled and, being ‘boracic lint’ (skint), he has to return to the ducking and diving, only now with country stuff — antiques, horses and finally 200 moles for export to Ireland.
Nice one, Boycie.