The Diary of a Has-been The Intimate Chronicle of Arnold Appleforth - Legendary Journalist, Idealist and Sponger

by Humble, William

• ISBN13: 9781911129608
• ISBN10: 1911129600
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2016-11-03
• Publisher: Urbane Publications

Summary

Arnold Appleforth claims getting old is all about attitude. And if that's the case he needs all the attitude he can get, because his journalistic career is on life support, his sex life non-existent (except for a recent regrettable incident at a well-known chain restaurant), his financial position precarious and his alcohol consumption prodigious. Add to that his abysmal parenting of his three (or is it four?) children and the biohazard status of his flat, and life isn't a bed of roses.So Arnold decides to keep a diary, a daily dose of inspiration to keep his blood pumping. It'll deal with his own life with intimate, eye-watering honesty and also include pungent political comment on the disgraceful state of contemporary Britain. With a view to publication of course - who wouldn't want to enjoy his wit and wisdom? Join Arnold as he drops pearly bon mots before swine and makes one last grab for literary immortality. And struggles to survive in a sadly unappreciative world...

Author Biography

William Humble has written a number of highly-acclaimed films for BBC TV, including the Emmy award-winning On Giant’s Shoulders starring Judi Dench, and the BAFTA-nominated Hancock, with Alfred Molina as Tony Hancock. He wrote Virtuoso about the concert pianist John Ogdon, also with Alfred Molina, as well as Alison Steadman. Other BBC films include Ex, a comedy starring Griff Rhys Jones; and another comedy, Royal Celebration, with Leslie Phillips, Minnie Driver and Rupert Graves. Also Poppyland directed by John Madden, and Talk To Me, both starring Alan Howard.For ITV, he wrote the film Whatever Love Means, with Laurence Fox, and Too Good To Be True, a psychological thriller with Peter Davison and Niamh Cusack. He dramatised Every Woman Knows A Secret from the novel by Rosie Thomas, and wrote the six-part series An Unsuitable Job For A Woman – half based on the novel by P.D.James, half an original story. He also dramatised another P.D.James novel, The Black Tower, as a series with Roy Marsden and Pauline Collins; and Mary Wesley’s The Vacillations of Poppy Carew as a film with Tara Fitzgerald.He has also written for Churchill – the Wilderness Years, Poirot, Granada TV’s Maigret starring Michael Gambon, Flambards, All Creatures Great and Small and Juliet Bravo.His stage plays include: What a Performance, starring David Suchet as comedian Sid Field, on tour and in the West End. Facades, with Frances de la Tour as Edith Sitwell, directed by Simon Callow. Fly Away Home, with Hywel Bennett and Diana Quick. Talk To Me with Alan Dobie and Robert Daws. And Virtuoso, with Oliver Ford Davies.He has also written several radio plays and – a million years ago – a novel.