Diary of a Somebody

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The first is that my 148 diaries represent only about one eighth of the total number of volumes Laura wrote. It turns out that I don’t have a single complete year after 1962, and that almost all the 70s, the second half of both the 60s and 80s, and most of the 90s are missing. Estimating from the gaps in my collection, the correct total number of books is closer to 1,000, or 40m words. Laura was the most prolific diarist in known history. Toby Osmond comments, This fantastic play, based on the diary of Joe Orton is as exciting as the stars it stars. Orton's tragically short life was a roller coaster - a big part of which was Halliwell, who I have the privilege to play. I cannot wait to tread the boards again - my first time since Game of Thrones finished - and inhabit this doomed lover and killer. Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse. Life just gets worse. He sinks deeper and deeper into a state of lethargy, with only the cat for company, and his funny and sometimes subversive poems to lighten his mood. His focus narrows down to his neighbours’ bin day and other habits. He finds it difficult in his depressed state to engage with his teenage son Dylan who visits once a week. Sophie acquires a dynamic partner, the paragon of all virtues, a man whose success does not stop him from doing good deeds and who inspires Brian’s son with motivational quotes. As if life couldn’t get worse, this paragon decides he will relocate to the US taking Sophie and Dylan with him - this, just when Brian was starting to bond really well with his son. His son is reluctant to go.

Word play, laugh-out-loud poems and the deft skewering of office life are part of the fun in this brilliant comic debut. -- Eithne Farry * Sunday Express * The English comic novel, whose death this year was announced prematurely, is actually alive, well and in the safe hands of Brian Bilston -- Jonathan Coe * The Times *Nobody must find out about this unique gem, because I’m giving it to EVERYONE, and I want to appear clever and discerning.’ – Dawn French Brian's resolution is to write a poem every day; poetry will be his salvation. But there is an obstacle to his happiness in the form of Toby Salt, his arch nemesis in the Poetry Group and rival suitor to Liz, Brian's new poetic inspiration. When Toby goes missing, Brian is the number one suspect.

He's a bit of a likeable fool. I particularly loved how Brian would enter a bookshop for one particular book and just had to buy a few more to keep it company. I'm sure that resonates with every book lover. Highly original, genuinely funny and clever, with a gentle humanity in between the lines. Brian Bilston should be Poet Laureate -- John O'FarrellWhat the hell is poetry anyhow? The tearing open of the heart? the baring of the soul? The sharing of a universe? Or is it all mere postrue and pantomine? To avoid thinking about dying, she and I increased the amount of work we did on each other’s manuscripts – both of us were writing types of detective story: she about the hunt for the bones of Saint Thomas More; me the hunt for “I”. I was now working on the diaries every spare minute of my time. Unless I arranged the diaries, I couldn’t know how everything tied together.’ Photograph: Pal Hansen/The Guardian Brian Bilston has decided to write a poem every day for a year while he tries to repair his ever-desperate life. His ex-wife has taken up with a new man, a marketing guru and motivational speaker who seems to be disturbingly influencing his son, Dylan. Meanwhile Dylan’s football team keeps being beaten 0–11, as he stands disconsolately on the wing waiting vainly to receive the ball. At work Brian is drowning in a sea of spreadsheets and is becoming increasingly confused by the complexities of modern communication and management jargon. So poetry will be his salvation. But can Brian’s poetry save him from Toby Salt, his arch nemesis in the Poetry Group and potential rival suitor to Brian’s new poetic inspiration, Liz? Worst of all Toby has announced that boutique artisan publishing house Shooting from the Hip will be publishing his first collection, titled This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleft, in the autumn. And when he goes missing Brian is inevitably the number one suspect. Part tender love story, part murder mystery, part coruscating description of a wasted life, and interspersed with some of the funniest poems about the mundane and the profound, Diary of a Somebody is the most original novel you will read this year. Diary of a Somebody by Brian Bilston – eBook Details But whenever I fantasised that she was somebody famous, I felt immediately, and as decisively as if the books had been dropped on my head, bored. The great excitement of an anonymous diary is that it might belong to anybody. Even giving “I” a name destroyed a vital thing that made the books interesting – a sense of quiet universality. Give the diarist a name, and she became just another stranger who didn’t want to accept my gaze. Imagine that she turned out to be some celebrity and the books (and my voyeurism) became almost nauseating.

I have long envied artists who draw and sketch each day; who are able to transform ordinary visual experience into art – I imagine it to be a joy. I”’s curse began when she was 14, took over her life when she was 20, at its worst ruined three weeks out of every four (one lost to fear, one to pain, one to exhaustion), caused her to lose around 36 litres of blood and membrane, and was not considered bad enough to need medical attention. Part tender love story, part suburban murder mystery, part scathing description of a wasted life, and interspersed with some of the funniest poems about the mundane and the profound, Diary of a Somebody is a unique, original and hilarious novel. Achingly funny. Without doubt it should win next year's Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for the best comic novel, even if my own novel is in contention as well -- Jonathan Coe Of the supporting cast, Jemma Churchill is most adept at chopping and changing roles. Churchill gets to personify Mrs Edna Welthorpe, a fictional letter writing character created by Orton. Churchill also has the honour of delivering one of the funniest lines of the whole play, one which received a solid minute of sustained laughter from the audience.

If you like a) laughing or b) words which rhyme with each other, you will love Brian Bilston -- Richard Osman At one point in the early 1960s, in her 20s, she was living in poverty in London. Like every young, healthy, intelligent, imaginative, gifted person, she was full of wild and impossible plans. The handwriting in these volumes is urgent. Some entries are thousands of words long. She is trying to capture every second of her day. Occasionally, pressed on by her excitement, her handwriting wobbles and she resorts to underscoring: “injure, atmosphere, doesn’t believe me!! so hungry! I’ll kill them!” Brian's resolution is to write a poem every day; poetry will be his salvation. But there is an obstacle to his happiness in the form of Toby Salt, his arch nemesis in the Poetry Group and rival suitor to Liz, Brian’s new poetic inspiration. When Toby goes missing, Brian is the number one suspect. One of the funniest novels in years . . . It also has genuine heart - and scores of poems so witty and accomplished that, in the real world, their author would surely be as famous as, well . . . I predict that Brian Bilston will soon be * Reader's Digest * She is working on something that “fills and dominates my soul”. But, as with all the things that matter to Laura profoundly, she doesn’t say what this Great Project is, either because it would be dangerous for her to do so, because she is a spy or a bombmaker; or because “it” is so obvious to her, so much a part of her, that “it” must be on a par with her existence.

She writes long letters to “E”, and gets terse, pompous replies: “E said I am a weakling. E said there is no place for them in life, they ought to be hung up”; “E said she’s glad she’s not my parents.”

A play about a genius playwright, and his unhinged partner:

Set almost exclusively in the room shared by the two men, the design centred around the partners’ shared single bed. Designed by Valentine Gigandet, the set, though clearly on a tight budget, worked well against the whirlwind of action, with faux classical statues staring blankly at the audience. The walls were covered with Halliwell’s decadent and unprosperous collages, being at once contemporary and a little creepy. Imagine a mash-up of John Cooper Clarke, Ed Reardon’s Week and James Joyce, and you’re about halfway there. Perhaps the diaries had belonged to a Trinity don, I thought, and got depressed. I slid the boxes down the corridor to my study and shoved them under a table. I think it was because they looked so interesting that I didn’t want to read them. I was deep at work on a biography and didn’t have time to get interested in anything new. How on earth am I supposed to review this book? It's part fiction, part poetry, part diary. The sum of the parts though is, in my opinion, a work of genius.