simon lipson

A friend and fellow stand-up comedian called me a while ago to whine about the injustice of his debut novel being dismissed as a romcom.  Did I mention he's a man?  His agent felt there was no future for his masterpiece unless he either changed sex or, at the very least, gave himself a female nom de plume.  He was not prepared to consider either.  The idiot.

I've written two books, A Song For Europe (http://www.amazon.com/A-Song-For-Europe-ebook/product-reviews/B00492CQ2K) and Standing Up.  Both feature a male protagonist and the comedy, especially in Standing Up, is  edgy and acerbic.  But here's the thing - they're both unashamedy romantic comedies. And I'm a man.  Let's be clear about that.

A Song For Europe is about a middle aged, middle class family man whose life disintegrates when he is made redundant.  His wife's career soars as his prospects diminish.  It is in music that he finds redemption, eventually (and circuitously) becoming Britain's entrant in the Eurovision Song Contest.  I'll say no more (read it, for Chrissakes!  Please?) except to say that at its heart beats his love for his children and, ultimately, an old flame.

Standing Up is about another loser, a single solicitor who stumbles into stand-up comedy in order to win the love of the woman he has obsessed about for eighteen years.  It is his beloved teenage daughter who keeps him grounded as he flounders, before eventually finding true love.  It's a bit more complicated than that, to be honest.  And funnier.

I'm a man.  I mentioned that, right?  And I like romantic comedies.  There, I've said it.  I got a bit of a lump in my throat at the end of Love Actually.   I suspect a lot of men did but are too macho to admit it.  What's wrong with having a bit of love flying about the place?  We all strive for it; even tough geezers with shaven heads and signet rings, I imagine.

On the page, I like my characters and situations to be believable - no horse-riding Lords of the Manor, no dazzling doctors with magical fingers equally adept in the operating theatre and the bedroom - and my comedy to be razor-sharp.  Schmalz, if it absolutely can't be avoided, is acceptable in small doses.  Call it romcom, call it chicklit.   It's irrelevant.  Is it romantic, entertaining, funny, well plotted, well written, believable?  Ok, then it's probably a decent book and that's the end of it.  Why shouldn't an author succeed in the genre without being called Tilly or Lucy or something?

I know there are a handful successful male romcom authors out there, but they are dwarfed in number by the avalanche of female authors, many of whom, I should add,  are quite brilliant - this tirade is not misogynistic.  But if romcommers are being discouraged - like my good friend - simply on the grounds of gender, something is wrong.  If anyone tells me One Day isn't a romcom, I'll...well I'll get very put out indeed.  Oh yes I will.  Somehow, David Nicholls's three excellent novels have avoided the romcom label, but that's what they are deep down.  If some bright spark had pigeonholed him as a 'mere' romcom author and suggested he change sex or give up, we might never have had the pleasure of his writing.

So here's my clarion call to agents, editors, publishers and the like - just read the book and decide if it's any good.  Don't judge it by its cover (wow, just thought that one up all by myself).  A romcom doesn't have to be narrowly defined;  it can have a male protagonist; it can be properly romantic and properly funny.  Several people who have read A Song For Europe have told me they laughed out loud and shed the odd tear (at different points in the book, I hope).  Job done. But it's still a romcom.  And I'm still a bloke.

Been doing all sorts of nonsense recently, the icing on my particular cake being an audition to be the principal prankster in a new TV series on Sky 1.  It went well and I got a call-back.  Here's the problem: I loathe prank shows.  Show me a hidden camera (ok, don't then) and I'll run for cover.  I didn't want the job and determined not to take it under any circumstances - other, perhaps, than the circumstance suggested by my agent - a shitload of money.  



So, duly short-listed, I attended the second audition which entailed standing in a London street and accosting innocent shoppers.  My aims: to make them pose for a photo with me, hug me at length and accept a wrapped present.  What could be funnier?  Well, my impending knee replacement for a start; nausea, 16 hour traffic jams, death, Joe Pasqali...anything, actually.  It was vile, albeit almost every victim fell for my charms.  I don't hug my wife unless I absolutely have to, but here I was hugging complete, and often odorous, strangers.  A couple of late middle-aged women actually seemed to enjoy it (I think I pulled a pensioner - I got her number anyway) and even the younger men, muscles tensing, generally let me get on with it.  Halfway through I was ready to eliminate myself from the process, but professionalism got the better of me.  In the end, even a shitload of dosh wouldn't have persuaded me to prostitute myself for such a grim spectacle.  On the upside, they didn't offer me the job, my evident distaste for the task probably being patent.

What else?  I wandered into a Reading multiplex last week to kill time before my gig in a hamlet so remote, I can neither remember its name nor how I got there.  It went rather well, in fact, but I'm here to discuss Bridesmaids.  It started fantastically well, Kirsten Wiig and her co-stars striking the perfect balance between wit and believability.  If it strayed too often into farce and and gross-out territory (one scene was a scatalogical nightmare) I still laughed out loud several times in that Reading concrete box, something I rarely do in cinemas (in Reading or anywhere else).  I like my romcoms to focus on the 'com' and Bridesmaids didn't disappoint.  The characters and realtionships were real, the tone true.  I like to think I've struck the same note in my two romcom novels, A Song For Europe (available at Amazon Kindle - click my 'writing' tab if you fancy) and Standing Up, which is now being developed as a TV comedy/drama, but which I am intending to make available in novel form on Amazon.  

First blog for ages.  That wasn't too bad, was it?