| 10 August 2011
The auditorium was packed; Ed Reardon certainly has a bit of a following. The audience were all older, wiser folk who got the jokes about Radio 4, The Archers, punctuation and Martin Amis. Everyone watched and listened eagerly. Thankfully I do dabble in Woman’s Hour so it didn’t all go over my head: Dame Jenni Murray got a mention, but he mocks young, enthusiastic and casual ‘writers’… like myself. Oh dear, he’s going to hate this.
The writer comes on stage at a sort of faux-casual shamble. In fact the whole show is delivered at a shambling pace, and it’s unclear exactly how faux the performance is. Ed Reardon is a natural, comfortable with being amusing and self-effacing. He plays up by playing down remarkable incidents of his life story. The tone is all perfectly wry. He just tells us all about his writings, the conception of books with titles like The Encyclopedia of A History of Shoes.
He conjures charm and popularity from the air, while blaming his infamy on being exactly the opposite. Who knows if he is truly either the softie or the arrogant brute? It really doesn’t matter because the dichotomy works, and I suppose he’s probably both. All I can say is that I hope my editor corrects my punctuation.
Ed Reardon: A Writer’s Burden, Pleasance Courtyard, 10-29 Aug, 4.00 pm
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