The Book, the Film, the T-shirt - Softcover

Beaumont, Matt

3.72

333 ratings by Goodreads

9780007127689: The Book, the Film, the T-shirt

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007127685 ISBN 13: 9780007127689

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2003

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One week in the making of a TV commercial for car tyres – as told by the inimitable Matt Beaumont, author of e

What does a successful adman do when he realises the stars of his new commercial want to kill each other, his director has walked off the set and his client has turned up in the wrong T-shirt?

How does one of these stars react when he’s asked if it’s true that he’s packing salami in his shorts? Why on earth does the other one think that dueting with a Chinese Elvis impersonator could be a smart career move? What does the adman’s pregnant, swollen-ankled wife do when she realises the cheating bastard just happens to be shooting an ad with a rubber-clad Hollywood nymph? And how could any of the above possibly have a connection to the world’s most useless drug smuggler?

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Review:

Fans of Matt Beaumont's hilarious first novel will pick up its successor The Book, The Film, The T-Shirt with some trepidation (can he pull it off again?), but rarely has a follow-up been so sharp and enjoyable. And not only has Beaumont triumphantly bucked the "disappointing second novel" trend: this sardonic and grimly funny book many not be as innovative as its predecessor, but it's every bit as cutting-edge, with just as diverting a cast of larger-than-life characters.

The central premise here is the following of one week in the filming of a tyre commercial. Greg Fuller has negotiated the dangerous waters of the ad business for some time, and he's convinced that the script he has come up with to sell his client's round chunks of black rubber will blow everyone away (not least as he has been setting up some prestigious Hollywood stars to appear in the ad). But (of course) things quickly go pear-shaped. The director is a volatile primadonna, the client is as much of an idiot as everyone who has hired Greg in the past, and the two stars, a much-loved TV couple, cordially detest each other. The recipe for disaster is in place, and, boy, does Matt Beaumont deliver. Ten years ago, readers turned to Tom Sharpe for the kind of bitter, sexually graphic humour that informs every paragraph here. But Beaumont is Tom Sharpe for the modern age: his cold-eyed, all-stops-out vision of the media world and its denizens is an absolute scream. And how many books can boast a talking foetus? --Barry Forshaw

Review:

'Beaumont is the sort of writer you wish would knock books out quicker.' CLOSER

‘Beaumont...is a technical whiz at his craft...He succeeds. Humour, feelgood factor, mild suspense...it is one airport novel that is definitely designed to take off’ Guardian

‘Delicious knockabout comedy...this is funnier [than e] and easier to follow’ Bookseller

‘This is Jeffrey Archer with irony...you’ll be highly amused.’ Daily Mail

‘Toe-curlingly good...makes you laugh out loud’ Campaign

‘It’s very funny from first to last. Infectiously enjoyable and energetic’ Time Out

Praise for ‘e’

‘A brilliantly plotted comic novel...it gave me more sense that literature is alive and kicking than anything else I’ve read in these 12 months’ Humphrey Carpenter, Sunday Times Review of the Year

‘Lively, viciously funny and about as switched on as a novel can be’ Mirror

‘Hilarious’ Cosmopolitan

‘The key characters are beautifully crafted. This is a fantastic read’ Marketing

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