Sue Townsend is also the author of "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole".
Sue Townsend was born in Leicester in 1946. Despite not learning to read until the age of eight, leaving school at fifteen with no qualifications and having three children by the time she was in her mid-twenties, she always found time to read widely. She also wrote secretly for twenty years. After joining a writers' group at The Phoenix Theatre, Leicester, she won a Thames Television award for her first play, Womberang, and became a professional playwright and novelist. After the publication of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾, Sue continued to make the nation laugh and prick its conscience. She wrote seven further volumes of Adrian's diaries and five other popular novels - including The Queen and I, Number Ten and The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year - and numerous well received plays. Sue passed away in 2014 at the age of sixty-eight. She remains widely regarded as Britain's favourite comic writer.
In the newest political farce from Townsend (Adrian Mole), Prime Minister Edward Clare finds himself detached from the concerns of his voting public, so he dresses in drag and ventures into the British countryside to see how the lower millions lead their daily lives. Along for the ride is Constable Jack Sprat, his personal police officer. Throughout the journey, the prime minister's disguise causes a number of common cross-dressing mishaps-e.g., he is propositioned by an unsuspecting truck driver-but it rarely inspires any fresh humor. The novel uses the tour of the countryside to target the government's impotence in everything from reforming the National Health Service to overhauling England's inefficient railroads. However, while fellow satirist Jonathan Coe creatively weaves such issues into his narratives, Townsend tends to announce their presence; frequent soliloquies by Jack Sprat spell out political critiques rather blatantly. Other characters-e.g., Ed's fiercely intellectual wife and Jack's makeup-caked mother-are sketched with wonderfully quirky detail, making one wish Townsend had put her talent for storytelling and characterization to more use here. As it stands, the story cannot carry the weight of its political ambition. An optional purchase.-Julia LoFaso, Long Island City, NY Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
In Townsend's latest British farce (after 1993's The Queen and I, which put the British royal family in public housing, to hilarious effect), the prime minister, known by much of his public as "that pratt Edward Clare," sets out to get in touch with the masses. Speaking at a press conference, Edward is caught unprepared by questions on the price of milk and the last time he took public transportation; the little fib he tells makes him a laughingstock. Edward decides a trip across the country will reacquaint him with "the concerns of the majority of British people," and under the watchful eye of Jack Sprat, an intellectual but street-savvy police officer, Edward begins his journey-as Edwina. (It's reasoned that his wife's clothes, and later his own enthusiastically chosen ensembles, will allow Edward to remain incognito.) Edward and Jack visit the grave of Edward's mother, and they endure the pain and humiliation of public transportation before hiring a Pakistani cabdriver, who takes them to visit a poverty-stricken single mother in Leeds. Here, Edward suffers something like a heart attack, which lands him in the hospital-as ill-run as public transportation-and then the psychiatric ward, where he is described as "pathologically unable to commit to an opinion for fear of displeasing the questioner." In the meantime, Edward's loopy wife, Adele, quits taking her medication and gets a nose job, and Jack's mother opens her humble home to a bevy of crack addicts. The three story lines are masterfully and hilariously interwoven, and the book's delightfully absurd characters (especially Edward, and Jack's mother, Norma) are unforgettable. (Nov.) Forecast: This madcap romp through England is sure to delight Anglophiles and the many fans of Townsend's beloved Adrian Mole books. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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