Tag: Charles Paris

series

Series Redux: Charles Paris

veritywilde

There was a new Fetherings book out yesterday (number 22 in the series) which makes today an ideal time to remind you about my favourite Simon Brett series – Charles Paris. Charles is a middle aged, probably alcoholic actor who just about manages to stay the right side of solvent by picking up odd acting jobs. You can find my original post about the series here – I first binged my way through them seven years ago and have re-read or re-listened to most of them since. There are 20 books in the series and if you do them all back to back you will notice that they started in the 1970s and that we’re still going and they’re now in the current day and Charles is still basically the same age, but don’t let that bother you. The floating now nature of the series means that Charles is always coming across new facets of the acting profession to get jobs in.

I sort of think that the series may be complete at this point because there hasn’t been a new book since 2018 – but given that there was a 15 year gap between books 17 and 18 that’s not a given. These are all in Kindle Unlimited – individually (all with fresh covers since I first read them!) and a six book omnibus edition of the start of the series – and there are also audiobooks read by the author, and radio dramas (lightly adapted to bring them all into the present-ish) day starting Bill Nighy as Charles.

Have a great weekend

book adjacent

Book Adjacent: Charles Paris dramas

veritywilde

Happy Sunday everyone, we’ve made it safely into a new month and the mornings are getting lighter, which given how early I catch the train to work can only be a good thing! Anyway, a book adjacent treat for your ears today:

I’ve written about the books in the Charles Paris series before, but Radio 4 have done a really good series of dramatisations of them – and I’ve just got finished listening to the latest one, Situation Tragedy. As you can see from the picture, Bill Nighy is Charles and he’s captured the louche, lightly drunk, slightly bumbling, just good enough to keep getting enough work that he can stay in the acting profession persona of Charles brilliantly.

But actually for me, the cleverest bit of the dramatisations is the way that they’ve managed to update some of the books. Simon Brett started writing the series in the mid 1970s but they exist in what I call the floating now – which is to say that Charles has been in his late 50s for nearly 50 years at this point (the most recent book came out in 2018) and obviously a lot has changed in the world of acting as well as the world in general during that time, but Jeremy Front (who has adapted most of them) finds ways to bring them up to date and give them a bit of continuity (especially as the adaptations haven’t been in the same order they were published). There are a few changes – some more major than others but it’s fun – and funny – and undemanding to listen to Charles work his way fringe theatre, musicals, audiobook narration, instructional training videos, documentary extras, radio plays, the whole shebang.

I was a bit slow to spot Situation Tragedy – so it’s already starting to disappear from BBC Sounds, but it’ll be available from Audible later on in the year. And the rest of the series do pop up from time to time being repeated on the radio which puts them back on Sounds – Doubtful Death is on there at the moment for example. But there are also three collected editions of the dramatisations.

Have a great Sunday!