Parrotless shortlist shock

Sadly, Funny Bones did not make the Sheridan Morley Prize shortlist. You can read details about the books which did here. I have read John Lahr's biography of Tennessee Williams - a great achievement, even if it has next to no discussion about the Northern clubs of the 1950s.

I relayed the sad news to Freddie, who says he has only had great feedback from our readers: "I had one on Monday who said it was the best biog he had ever read and promised to pass it on to the other inmates in the home with glasses."

Funny Bones is still up for the Society for Theatre Research's Theatre Book Prize, which will be announced in a couple of months. In the meantime, however, I shall console myself by rereading John Fisher's estimate of Funny Bones, and I urge you to do the same. (Then rush out and buy multiple copies for friends and relatives: it's the only way the healing can begin.) You can read a short extract here.


Postscript:

For those who may be interested, it was indeed Lahr wot won it. The day after the announcement the Daily Mail, not John Cleese's most ardent supporter, took the opportunity to remark that his autobiography So Anyway ... hadn't made the shortlist, so I suppose you could say that Freddie and I are in good company.