Number 10

Townsend, Sue

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1569473498 ISBN 13: 9781569473498

Publisher: Soho Press, 2003

Edward Clare, England's Prime Minister has a problem. This once popular political leader has fallen out of public favor for failing to know the price of a liter of milk.
Determined to get back in touch with the common man he sets out to tour Britain, accompanied only by Jack Sprat, the bobby who usually guards Number 10, Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister. And what better disguise than to go in drag?
The odyssey begins in Edward's childhood home city, Edinburgh, and ends in Jack's mother's house in Leicester. It is a journey across social and political barriers that ultimately impacts world affairs as well as their own lives.

Review:

A wickedly entertaining and passionate swipe at New Labour (The Times)

There is a gem on nearly every page. Nothing escapes Townsend's withering pen. Satirical, witty, observant . . . a clever book (Observer)

Poignant, hilarious, heart-rending, devastating (New Statesman)

A delight. Genuinely funny . . . compassion shines through the unashamedly ironic social commentary (Guardian)

About the Author:

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.