A Funny Thing

The story of two comedians, Norman Riddell and Freddy Foster. Narrated by Freddy as he dismembers his long-time partner Norman, who has goaded him into releasing him from Motor Neurone Disease in a messy mercy killing. The killer's reflections on their life together, from their sixties 'heyday' in to the present gruesome scene in London hint at a compassion that somehow survives long years of contempt, clichés, cock-ups.
Fragmented glimpses into a seemingly disturbed mind draw us into the cynical, seedy world of middle-of-the-road British light entertainment. This milieu and the society it reflects are dissected as thoroughly as Norman's torso, and shown to be as insidious and debilitating as the disease that eventually ends the decades-old, mediocre career.
As we piece together the biography of this double act, we witness the terminal decline of their old school comedy and the closing of ranks against them in the lucrative world of tv family entertainment. Time and time again, stardom eludes the pair, and they are replaced by up-and-coming nonentities. Norman and Freddy persist, with Janice at their side, always one step behind success. Norman veers between complacency and rage about their second-rate status, paddling in the mainstream then waxing bitter about their unenlightened audience.
As in all the best memoirs, the narrator's reflections offer an oblique insight to the social, cultural and political times he lives through. Freddy's hobnobbing leads to encounters with the biggest names of the day.
The real and the fictional conspire in this darkly comic story to portray a deeply dysfunctional society. The central motif of Motor Neurone Disease and the physical collapse it brings mirrors a decay in modern Britain.

Revised edition 2025. Now includes Freddy's 'lost' chapters.