Last night BBC2 showed the most fascinating documentary. It followed Mr Robert Newman as he worked on his third novel over a period of four years, from 1999 till the present day.
UK readers of a certain age will recall how he was once the kind-eyed, flowing-haired, early 90s student lust object and inoffensive comedian “Rob” Newman, one half of Newman and Baddiel, the hip ones on “The Mary Whitehouse Experience” who did routines about indie bands, and who then had their own series, “Newman and Baddiel In Pieces”.
The documentary showed footage of the last Baddiel & Newman gig, a show at Wembley Arena in December 1993. It was the first time comedians had played (and sold out) a 12,000 capacity arena venue, an event which, for once, gave credence to the tired catchphrase of many a magazine at the time, “comedy is the new rock and roll.”
Arguably their most popular skit was <a href=”http://www.micaelita.com/historytoday/main.shtml”>the two “History Today” professors</a>, whose supposedly academic discussions were entirely composed of primary school playground insults:
Newman: See that Eddie the Eagle Edwards? That’s you, that is. That’s your mum.
Baddiel: You see Thora Hird?
Newman: I am aware of her work.
Baddiel: You fancy her.
Newman: You ARE her. </i>
Then Newman & Baddiel split up.
Mr Baddiel, as UK readers will be profoundly aware, continued appearing on television, hooking up with Frank Skinner on “Fantasy Football League” and “Baddiel & Skinner Unplanned”, and was partly responsible for that “Three Lions / Football’s Coming Home” song. This was a ditty that became so ubiquitous it even overtook “Auld Lang Syne” as the Trafalgar Square revellers’ song of choice on New Years Eve 1996. He wrote and starred in his own sitcom. He went on the panels for both the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Prize. He also had two novels published.
Mr Newman… had two novels published.
All he had ever really wanted to do with his life, he said, was Be A Novelist. And now publishers were refusing to let him do so. His first two books hadn’t sold enough to warrant an advance for any more, and things were getting so bad he was on the point of selling his house. He was even “on tick” with the local cornershop, to the tune of <i>thousands</i>. Occasionally my own local shop lets me pay some other day if I’m really penniless (and they know where I live), but <i>thousands?</i> The shopkeeper must really be a fan.
The documentary opened by cutting from footage of the 1993 Wembey gig, with the slim, young, popular, black-clad, rock star-like Newman making his entrance on a motorised skateboard to the adoring applause of thousands, to Newman the shockingly overweight, struggling novelist in 1999. His fatness was particularly distressing. It was the kind that makes one think “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Prosthetics”. The viewer was treated to watching him mooch idly around his home in a series of stained old t-shirts, smoking, napping, looking sad, lonely, bloated, unwashed, unshaven, and doing very little indeed.
One upsetting sequence showed him performing in a tiny pub venue, trying out new material. Not for a new comedy show, but for his then-embryonic new <i>novel</i>. He utterly died a death. It was difficult to infer if the unresponsiveness of the audience was down to the folly of such an ill-advised idea for a gig by a famous comedian, or because Mr Newman’s corpulent appearance made it impossible to concentrate on what he was saying, or both. But it was so uncomfortable to watch, I nearly turned the TV off right there.
At one point in the series of video diary extracts, he recounted an instance where, while sitting at his desk trying to write, a passer-by in the street outside realised the light was on, and said loudly to their friend, “That’s Rob Newman’s house. He used to be funny, but he’s not anymore.” Heckled at his own desk from the street outside. He’d become his own “History Today” insult. “See that Robert Newman in 1999? That’s you, that is.”
While it indeed was a relief to see him looking thin, well-groomed and healthy in the later stages of the programme (he now looks like the handsome male lead in Six Feet Under), the more we heard about the contents of his new book, a heavily-researched tale of anti-globalisation protestors around the world, the more awful and pretentious it sounded. <a href=”http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/feb03/rob.html”>As publisher after publisher rejected his manuscript</a>, it was difficult to feel that they and the reading public were missing out on a literary classic. He still has many loyal fans, but would any of them say he’s much better placed in the world as a novelist than as a comedian?
“This above all: to thine own self be true” – Shakespeare (Hamlet).
But, on the other hand…
“It’s no good running a pig farm badly for thirty years while saying, “Really I was meant to be a ballet dancer.” By that time, pigs are your style.” – Quentin Crisp.
And what if you’re actually a very <i>good</i> pig farmer…?
It was fascinating to watch Mr Newman struggle with his writing while being forced to return to the odd bout of stand-up comedy (properly, this time) in order to pay the bills. However, I think the documentary was intended to have the viewer rooting for Mr Newman’s novelist career to take an upward turn. After all, it was part of a series about the mechanics of the writing process. The only lessons learned here was how to completely lack self-awareness, refusing to accept that your life might be better spent <i>not</i> writing novels, if it’s been proven that people are more willing to pay for your efforts as a comedian.
Mr Newman complained to the camera that he constantly had to break away from writing his novel just when he was getting on a roll, in order to play a comedy gig somewhere in the UK. As if it was stacking shelves in Kwik-Save. It’s still a form of creative art, connecting and communicating with the world. People will pay you to listen to what’s in your head. And yet he told the video diary that if his novel wasn’t published soon, he would have to quit stand-up comedy for good and get a nice regular job in a local bookshop. Or was that another joke?
From his wry exchanges with the video diary and clips of his reluctant but perfectly successful stand-up gigs, it was clear that he’s definitely still a talented and charismatic left-wing comedian. So why can’t he be one proper, and leave novels to the likes of Mr Tolstoy? Writing books is fine, but why fiction? Why can’t he use his humourous talents and detailed knowledge of the political world to write a Michael Moore-style work of US-bashing non-fiction? That really <i>would</i> sell copies. It’s certainly the kind of book that currently dominates London bookshop window displays. I may be a non-committal navel-gazing fence-sitting fop, but I just don’t think a <i>novel</i> is what the anti-globalisation movement really needs.
He was shunning what people really wanted from him (comedy, however political) in order to write a novel about how the Tony Blairs of this world don’t listen to people power. The irony seemed to be lost on him.
Still, the film had a happy ending, if a compromised one. <a href=”http://www.micaelita.net/robnewman/”>His third novel is finally going to be published by an independent publisher later this year</a>, so people at least will be able to read it and judge for themselves.
