Articles liés à A Skimpton Compendium

A Skimpton Compendium - Couverture souple

Biggins, John C

 
9781838149505: A Skimpton Compendium

Synopsis

It’s 1938 and the skies are darkening. On the playing fields of Faysgarth School, battle is about to commence. Skimpton, popular Deputy Head Boy, all-round good egg and sports supremo, needs a miracle if he’s to beat arch rivals Rainingham with a first eleven still drunk from the previous night’s debauchery.

Further obstacles include mercurial school scoundrel Marcus Dent, Constable Stubbs, the irredeemably dim local bobby, a cricketing vicar with a unique taste in flannels, and the lethally myopic Colonel Coombes, menace of the chemistry laboratory.

'Not only is this collection of stories absolutely hilarious, it also manages to be both poignant and politically apposite.'
– Amazon review

A motley assortment of grubby dimwits, suspicious outsiders and sinister socialists means more trouble ahead for our heroic House Captain and his irrepressible fag Piggot – and there's even an escapade in the trenches with an affable George Orwell as he fights fascists in the Spanish Civil War.

'Very funny indeed. Pokes a sharp-witted finger at all those pre-war public school novels. There's always a little twist in each of the stories that you just don't see coming. I hope he writes more but in the meantime I shall read it again. Yeah, that good.'
– Amazon review

In this juicy collection of humorous stories Skimpton finds that, in a world beset by colonial conundrums, sexual tension, political skulduggery and the occasional stinky third-former, the immutable values of King and country don’t always win the prize. For, whether the challenge is a chafing jockstrap or an imbecilic history master, one thing’s for certain: at Faysgarth nothing is ever quite what it seems.

A Skimpton Compendium takes up where Michael Palin's Ripping Yarns left off. If you liked Lindsay Anderson's If, the stories of PG Wodehouse and Richmal Crompton, Monty Python and Private Eye you'll love A Skimpton Compendium!

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À propos de l'auteur

John C. Biggins was born in Leeds in 1958. Having trained as a graphic designer, Biggins then studied theatre arts and embarked on a career treading the boards. Over the last 35 years, while appearing on television, radio and film, and at the National Theatre and other theatrical venues around the country, he has maintained an interest in graphic design, and - since 1999 - has run a web design business with clients drawn mainly from the literary world. As a writer, he has worked in the theatre, for BBC television and radio, and on various children's television projects. In the early 2000s he enjoyed a stint as a theatre critic. A keen collector of boys' annuals from the 1930s and 40s, in writing A Skimpton Compendium, his first work of fiction, Biggins was as much inspired by the line illustrations and covers as he was by the extraordinary stories themselves.

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.