Probably the work I’m most proud of. That and the song “Lego Heart” which, even now, years later, I am still convinced could be a No.1 hit for McFly.
(Apparently a symptom of bi-polar disorder is inflated self esteem and grandiose ideas. Who’da thunk).
The idea of the story came from a single notion that occurred to me while I was finishing the final draft of “T-Shirt…” What if someone put a gun to your head and told you to make them laugh.
Of course, my editor – the marvellously cuddly Andy McKillop – was the first to point out, as we enjoyed a pint on Vauxhall Bridge Road – that the idea was no doubt borne of my anxiety at finishing my first book. A forehead-strikingly
A few words on...
Gagged
obvious cod-Freudian bit of interpretation that I can honestly say didn’t occur to me in the slightest until he said it.
(Hmm, strokey-beard, ponder ponder. Other people are always better at analysing us than we are ourselves. A theme I’m attempting to wring comic gold from in the new novel “PSYCHE” but more on that otherwhere).
Meanwhile, at stately Wayne manor…
So after running that idea through every cultural reference I have ever sucked into myself – Die Hard, Get Shorty, The Player, Lethal Weapon 2, Hugh Laurie’s “The Gunseller”, Rob Long’s “Conversation With My Agent,” Seinfeld, Frasier and – oddly p’raps – a book on professional Scrabble players, the name of which escapes me. “Tile Frenzy?” “Vowel Nutters?” Something like that.Gagged was also my absolutely, number one, no holes barred, downhill, no-brakes attempt to write a novel that could be optioned for a film. Honestly, it has EVERYTHING: Fat wiseguy mob bosses; incompetent fat necked wiseguy nephews, hunky coked-up Hollywood producers; grey haired loveable cigar “chomping” Hollywood moguls (odd, that’s the only time you read “chomping” these days); sassy valley-girl Variety reporter; expendable curly-haired single-minded sidekick; a novelty, “hilarious” slow-paced golf-cart chase and a fucking huge petrochemical explosion at the end.
Did anyone pick it up for a movie option? Tch. What do you think.
Anyhoo, I combined research with a holiday and spent 10 days out in Los Angeles being a tweedy Brit about town – a mix of Sting’s “Englishman In New York” and Bertie Wooster on 5th Avenue.
By the way, what’s the thing with the “toast done on one side” in that loathsomely twiddly Sting record? Is that a British thing? Toast done on one side? What the hell’s he on about? Always annoyed me that. Along with 987,643 things about Sting I haven’t the inclination to regurgitate here.
By the time I’d linked all the strands of the story together, the novel was over 400 tightly fonted pages and 2 years late. It arrived to, again, a smattering of good reviews, and very few sales. I don’t even think Waterstones bothered stocking it. I think it deserved a bigger audience but then, hey, I would bloody say that, wouldn’t I.
The collected
ill-informed drivel
of
Richard Asplin
A few words on the subject
A few words on the subject
Click cover for a judiciously
cropped selection of reviews
Don Silver, the Vice President of Comedy at Mercury Studios, is in deep trouble. He's been behind so many disastrous pilots that he's earned the nickname 'Buddy Holly'.
If he doesn't find a hit sitcom - and fast - it'll be goodbye to the bourbon, broads and BMWs of his Beverly Hills lifestyle and he'll be out on his (freshly irrigated) arse.
Award-winning comedy writer, Melvin Medford, has a plan to help Don out. So he's nerdier than Bill Gates in a Red Dwarf T-shirt at a Terry Pratchett signing and his plan borders on the psychotic...
...Which is where Ben Busby comes in. A young British comic, simply gagging to break into television, he's just met two Americans who seem very keen on hiring him. Ben's beside himself with excitement. However, Melvin's beside him with a gun...
In the million-dollar world of the American sitcom, you could die laughing. No joke.
