Like Robin Ince I was one of those teenagers who devoured Herbert Van Thal’s Pan Book of Horror Stories series. I can still vividly recall the one about the man trapped in a sewer who has to chew his own hand off to escape marauding rats. I also rather like comedy, so if I hadn’t been sent a free copy of Dead Funny I suspect I would have bought this anthology of horror stories written by 16 of our top comedians and co-edited by Ince and Johnny Mains.
And to my surprise, delight and relief the book isn’t 16 tales of comedy critics being eviscerated by disgruntled performers, Theatre of Blood-style. The short, punchy tales each have their own distinctively scary flavour, kicking off with Reece Shearsmith’s beautifully vicious-with-a-twist Dog, featuring some gory canine-based retribution. It is filmic and striking and could easily be a draft for a lost episode of Inside No 9.
It is the nature of literary frighteners that they have to surprise so I won’t give too much away. Stewart Lee’s tale, A View From The Hill, has previously been published in the New Statesman (the others are nearly all new) and is his usual blend of forensic honesty and extravagant politicised moaning. Poor little Jack Whitehall is one of the subjects of Lee's lefty ire.
Elsewhere Ince himself chips in with Most Out of Character, a gory, offal-based nightmare worthy of Van Thal, while Charlie Higson, who has a track record of scaring the shit out of readers as well as making them laugh, goes vampiric with a twist in the final tale, Filthy Night. Before then Danielle Ward, Katy Brand and Sara Pascoe prove, as if it needed to be proved, that women have sick minds too. And Richard Herring lets his fertile imagination run riot with a deliciously rendered tale of unexpected Hansel & Gretel-ish chills during a peaceful country stroll.
Other contributors include Mitch Benn, Neil Edmond, Matthew Holness, Rufus Hound, Tim Key, Phill Jupitus, Michael Legge and Al Murray. There is pretty much something for everyone here. I always suspected comedians were a pretty sick and twisted fraternity. Dead Funny confirms it and the book is all the better for it.
Buy Dead Funny here. There is also a live show at the Bloomsbury Theatre on Sunday, November 2 featuring a number of the contributors. Details here.
