Children’s writers beware. It seems as if comedians are coming over here taking your bloody jobs. Yesterday it was announced that David Baddiel’s first novel for children, The Parent Agency, is to be published this autumn by Harper Collins. Baddiel got the idea for the fantasy about a boy whose dreams come true after inventing stories for his kids: “The Parent Agency came about after a chat with my nine-year-old son Ezra.” Maybe his son should be on a royalty.
There is nothing new about a comedian getting inspired like this. Terry Jones told me that he came up with Erik The Viking when he decided to invent some bedtime sagas for his son three decades ago. But there suddenly seems to be number of comedians muscling in on the same crowded market. Last month it was announced that Russell Brand was also writing a book for kids, entitled Russell Brand’s Trickster Tales, and putting his own idiosyncratic spin on classic stories such as The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
David Walliams was the first of the current wave of superstar comedians-turned-latterday-Roald-Dahls. His Mr Stink and Gangsta Granny books have won prizes, been best-sellers and have been adapted for the screen with an all-star cast. Who wouldn’t want a piece of that action to add to their CV?
Not that this is anything new among the current generation of gagsmiths either. Harry Hill wrote and illustrated a kids book a few years ago, Tim The Tiny Horse. David O’Doherty’s comedy career has run in tandem with the publication of his books such as 100 Facts About Pandas. Catie Wilkins wrote My Best Friend and Other Enemies. Stand-Up For Children guru James Campbell has Boyface and the Quantum Chromatic Disruption Machine out in June. And in a slightly different development, Chris O’Dowd’s TV series Moone Boy is being turned into a series of children’s stories following the escapades of Martin Moone. But with proven best-seller writers Baddiel and Brand getting in on the act the comedian-turned-kids-novelist phenomenon has gone to another level,
Of course, a lot of these books are great and Brand and Baddiel's books will probably be great too. Comedians are often very good at getting in touch with their inner child, so maybe they are precisely the right people to write these books. They are usually pretty good at stringing a natty sentence together too. And a bit of star power can't do the sales figures any harm either. In fact the publishers will probably be delighted with the outcome. The only people who should worry are new unknown writers who can't get a foot in the door because a celebrity designer boot is blocking their path.
