is he (Pointless)?
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In 1984, Clive James tabled the Barry Manilow Law: no-one you know likes Barry Manilow, while the rest of the world worships the ground on which he walks. This adage can now be updated. Until very recently, I didn’t know anyone who had read Richard Osman’s books; I didn’t even know anyone who knew anyone who had read them.
But everyone else in Britain must have. He’s now sold five million copies of them, and at moments has enjoyed an almost Beatles-esque literary ubiquity, topping the hardback and paperback bestseller charts simultaneously. And like the early Beatles’ albums, he’s cranked them out at a prolific (and commercially auspicious) rate. The first of The Thursday Murder Club mysteries came out in September 2020, and the second almost a year later to the day. Right on cue, the third, The Bullet that Missed is out this week. And like its predecessors, it is set to be one of the bestselling books in British history.
The famous novelist who is famous for being something else — a newscaster, cook, or dress-designer — is no great novelty. And though he’s clear that he didn’t want to be seen as having “dashed out a celebrity novel”, Osman is clearly not in the writing game for the garret and the overdraft: his first two books went for a seven-figure advance. But while Graham Norton, Jeremy Vine and Richard Coles bashed it out, took the cheque, and returned to the loftier heights of their primary career, Osman has refused to stop writing.
If you’ve been entertained in Britain over the last 25 years, you’ll be familiar with Osman, whether you realise it or not. If, in the Noughties, you saw a deal-broking, sombre-talking Noel Edmonds conjuring numbers out of red boxes — Osman was behind the camera, as a producer. Or, if you only caught the aquatic soft-play of Total Wipeout or the “anarchic” nastiness of 8 Out of 10 Cats, go back and check the credits. Executive producer: Richard Osman.
But this was all mere preludial before Osman’s imperial, front-of-house period. First, still behind a desk if not behind the scenes, as Pointless’s toothy sage of arcane trivia, before spinning off solo with Richard Osman’s House of Games. And in the past few years, the written word has also become an integrated province of Greater Osmania. If you can clamber past the cardboard Osman display set in the Waterstones window, the life-size Osman cut-out in the doorway, you’ll find only pyramids of Osman hardbacks, themselves overshadowed by the broader Teotihuacans of shiny Osman paperbacks.
He was already on television every single day. The face and the name, every night of the week just around teatime — flick on the old crystal bucket and there he is, in the slot of warm, cuddly, wisecracking nerd. Like Stephen Fry, a camera-loving Cantab whose intelligence is attractive rather than intimidating — indeed, Osman is seriously fanciable according to various samples of “which celebrity d’you wanna shag” psephology.
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SubscribePointless article
Everything that I associate with being and feeling modern — atomisation, digital culture, urban space, irony
Irony? Really? A modern concept? Have you every seen or heard a modern “progressive” being ironic? Unless, of course, I just haven’t understood it all and the whole kit and caboodle is meant to be ironic.
He rolls his eyes at Tristram Shandy.
Summed up by The Simpsons
I Don’t Even Know Anymore (The Simpsons) – YouTube
Exactly.
I can’t help but think the writer is reading too much into these books. They aren’t written to be deep and meaningful masterpieces, they’re a bit of light entertainment the same as Osmans other work, and at that they’re done quite well
Richard Osman’s books are a little bit of fun to lighten our dark days. No need for an exegesis.
I love his books. Just take them for what they are, entertaining and lighthearted. Speaking as one who knows, the descriptions of the elderly residents of the complex are pretty accurate!
I’m puzzled as to the main point of this article. Is the writer motivated by envy? The implication throughout is that Richard Osman is somehow a lightweight, who’s just pushed his way into the various fields in which he’s been successful; but anyone who’s followed him for some time must know that he is extremely intelligent, and (quite obviously) very hard-working. There’s a certain amount of spite in the article as well: why the continual references to Osman’s teeth?
Has Mr Harris ever written a successful novel? Or, especially, a light, comic novel? His scattergun arguments supporting his case – which amount to what: Osman’s books are lightweight? – are feeble and unfocused.The article is a waste of space. But Mr Harris should be specifically corrected on one point. Osman can write (hard) he can write comedy (very hard) and he can write a comic novel which succeeds at every level.(Very rare).
Osman’s works might not be to Mr Harris’ taste – so much the worse for him, but really, who cares?
“They’re not for me”
Apparently. So why review? If it’s for you, and it’s not up to snuff, that’s interesting. If it’s just not for you, and you denigrate it anyway, you’re really reviewing the people who like it: not interesting, and telling, about you.
You need to do better research. Graham Norton has written five novels with the latest out this month.
I can’t help hearing an undercurrent of the green-eyed monster in this article. Yes, Richard Osman’s work is, essentially, at the lighter end of the entertainment spectrum. But it works. I enjoy a lot of his output (both as producer, presenter and, now, author), and I’m not eligible for the gerousia yet.
I don’t necessarily enjoy all of it equally; I think that House of Games is better than Wipeout and, if the second book in the series is anything to go by, I think he’ll struggle to make the Thursday Murder Club a long-running series – the big reveal of the first book, Elizabeth’s past (which has already been spoiled by the article above, so I don’t feel the need to put in a warning here), is, obviously, up-front in the second and that changes the dynamic considerably.
But Osman has, nonetheless, been phenomenally sucessful at, it seems, nearly everything he has tried his hand at. And it’s easy to see how that can arouse a certain amount of professional resentment among those who have not attained a similar level. But maybe anyone writing about Osman should do a better job of concealing it.
Osman has already announced that he intends the Thursday Murder Club to be a four book series, so you needn’t worry. Having read all three of the series so far, I think his judgement is sound, and that the concept has exactly that much in it. Which isn’t a diss by any means; too many novelists draw their series out long after they should have dued a natural death.
I’m not ashamed to admit that the moment Osman’s face pops up on screen as i turn on the telly around “early evening news” time, i react quicker than a world-class sprinter out of the blocks in pressing the Guide feature on the remote to remove his visage, which i frankly find myself unable to look at. What that would tell a psychologist i’ve no idea and i don’t care!
Why don’t you just start on a different channel?
It’s not the last thing i think of when switching off, plus it’d deny me the chance to retain trigger finger skills, which come in handy for when the adverts start on commercial channels.
You watch television live? Wow
I was in the same boat as the author until last month, when Mrs U became an Osman reader. She saw it at our daughter in law’s and borrowed it. (Confirming the article’s theme, d-i-l hadn’t actually read it herself.)
Mrs U, a retired English teacher, said it was good.
Thanks for the inadvertently good review! Just ordered The Man Who Died Twice.
Which of Osman’s books is being adapted by Spielberg?
Condescend much? To the world?
I have absolutely no idea who this man is.
At 5’10”, if I stood on a pile of his three books would I be able to look him in the eye to tell him I like the tv show House of Games?
where the book is set, says it all: Kent, the veritable epicentre of petit bourgeois Pooterism!