I’m going to keep this short because… well because… time is money, will that do you?
No? Okay then, I’ll come clean – much as it pains me to say this I was disappointed with this book. I am a massive fan of Ayoade’s work on TV and in film, but I was expecting more from him as an author.
Although his sense of humour is on roughly the same wavelength as mine and his comedic voice jumped off the pages, I found the latter parts of the book rather tedious and I would’ve preferred to read a more sensible factual account of his life and work – an autobiography if you will. Something like Jon Richardson’s It’s not me it’s you! would have sufficed.
I admit that I did laugh out loud in places but found I wasn’t really willing to descend as far into farce as Ayoade – I let go of his hand (or pulled my hand forcefully from his) and he lost me somewhere in the maze of his meaningless musings. Some of the characters he creates and his self-interview concept and storyline are (like Richard Herring’s snooker matches against himself) amusing, but only up to a point. Also the idea of flitting backwards and forwards from footnotes to appendix entries and back again also wore a bit thin – thankfully this doesn’t continue throughout the book.
Reading this book was rather like being cornered at a house party by an annoying friend of a friend who you initially thought looked quite interesting and eventually realised was an awful bore with an irritating nasal voice.
couchmagpie 