Tom Sharpe

My love of  Tom Sharpe's books comes from my first 15 years of working life and a daily train commute. If you have ever read funny parts of books in public places and tried not to laugh aloud,  Sharpe beat me, on so many occasions I am sure there were many sharing the carriage with me who must have thought I was bonkers.

Sharpe wrote for forty years from 1971 and became extremely popular, writing his landmark books in the 70’s and 80’s. His books have had several TV adaptions, 'Blott on the Landscape’ (David Suchet), ‘Porterhouse Blue’ (David Jason) and ‘Wilt’ (Griff Rhys Jones and Will Smith). All enjoyable but none of my favourites as the ones I loved were so outrageous and controversial that they would not be able to be filmed. 

This description of Sharpe is exactly why I liked him "Tom Sharpe is very funny – but exceptionally vulgar, crude and offensive.” His was slapstick humour, think of a well-known and much-loved Torquay hotel manager and think of books filled with many such larger-than-life over blown characters.

My three personal choices of his books would be the two set in South Africa, ‘Riotous Assembly’ and ‘Indecent Exposure’ where Sharpe rips into the apartheid he discovered while working there as a social worker and teacher in the 1970’s. If you have anything like my sense of humour these books will have you in tears. Still, for me ‘The Throwback’ is the one I will never forget, a book about the most absurd man born into the most absurd family and raised in a world of entitlement and privilege with such little knowledge of life beyond his own. Then later in life the gift of all gifts Jacob Rees-Mogg came along and personified the character for me. 

I have not re-visited the books in years to see if they pass the test of time ,  what I remember though is the fabulous laughter at the time I read them.

We often hear the question “Who would you most like to have dinner with (non-family)?” I have consistently said Tom Sharpe as I could only dream that he was as funny and entertaining in person as in his books. He does look a little cheeky in the picture below. 👍📚😉📖☕