Barcelona Plates

Published in 2000, this is a short story collection from British comedian Alexei Sayle. I picked this up as I recall Alexei Sayle from his terrible music and appearance as landlord, Jerzei Balowski (amongst other family members) in The Young Ones.

I had flicked though it in the second hand book shop, but it was a few dollars and I had nothing to lose except perhaps the couple of hours to read it. I was surprised when I scanned through the reviews, as it gets a healthy 3.81 stars on GR, and the first ten reviews are 4,4,4,4,4,3,3,5,3,5... and not really a negative comment.

The stories are all really character studies - each story revolving around a single character (usually somewhat flawed) and always with a twist at the end. Mostly set in Britain, but a few overseas jaunts as part of the stories, to Haiti, Papua New Guinea, and the first was set mostly in Spain.

I would be lying if I said I got a lot out of them - mostly they were not really even funny. Some of the twists were sharp, but to be fair, few were predictable (to me). I just didn't get much from it, and I would struggle to recommend it to anyone but an Alexei Sayle fan. That said, tidy copy going cheap...

2 stars