I am happy to welcome Oh, I do like to be... to the blog today. Written by Marie Phillips, it was published by Unbound on January 23rd 2019 and great fun it is, too.
Shakespeare clone and would-be playwright Billy has just
arrived in an English seaside town with his sister Sally, who was cloned from a
hair found on the back of a bus seat. All Billy wants is a cheap B&B, an
ice cream and a huge hit in the West End. Little does he know that their fellow
clones Bill and Sal are also residents of this town. Things are about to get
confusing - cue professional rivalry, marital discord and a family reunion like
no other.
This modern update of The Comedy of Errors is what you get when Gods
Behaving Badly author Marie Phillips decides to write an important, scholarly
work about the life of William Shakespeare, reads the complete works, including
the long poems nobody likes, and then decides to turn it into a witty,
delightful romp that you can probably finish reading in an afternoon with two
tea breaks.
Funny, super-smart, clever and ridiculous Richard Osman
My Thoughts
I have a particularly soft spot for books which reference literary greats and this modern update of The Comedy of Errors pressed all the right buttons for me. Read in one sitting, the pages flew by and I loved some of the references to Shakespeare with all the misunderstandings, twins separated at birth and mistaken identities which you tend to find there.
With a deft touch, this short read offers a hugely entertaining read. The cast of characters made me smile as Bill and Billy, and Sal and Sally gradually unravelled the chaos. Set at the English seaside, there felt to be a dose of good old farce about the story as the characters tore around the place. Beneath the action lurks quite a couple of questions - nature or nurture, and can genius be cloned? The juries out on those, I think!
In short: A witty take on The Comedy of Errors.
About the Author
Marie Phillips is the author of the international bestseller Gods
Behaving Badly and The Table of Less Valued Knights, which was
longlisted for the Baileys Prize. With Robert Hudson, she wrote the BBC
Radio 4 series Warhorses of Letters and Some Hay in a Manger. Under the
name Vanessa Parody, she co-wrote Fifty Shelves of Grey, a spoof of
Fifty Shades of Grey.
Thanks to Marie Phillips, Unbound and Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for a copy of the book and a place on the tour.
Check out the rest of the tour!
As always, huge thanks for your support Pam x
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