Situation Tragedy

An entertaining mystery featuring jobbing actor Charles Paris, this time in a new television series that might just offer a regular salary for a while. Brett offers a good reminder of television comedy rules in the seventies - such as always wearing kaftans and long hair to indicate bohemianism and fitting in as much innuendo as possible. He provides a clever insight into the superficial, frivolous world of television comedy with the accomanying puffed up egos of everyone involved. When Charles looks back on one of his parts it's often followed by a brief excerpt from a review, rarely complimentary.

This was a kindle version that had many typos. One character was called Dob in some places and Dab in others. The term sit-com was used but show more also sit-cam and then surprisingly sit-corn. Nevertheless, it was more entertaining than most sit-coms. show less

Charles is beginning to get his act together: he actually gets to the solution himself, and without help.

Another rollicking adventure for the actor with whom one would be terrified to work. Paris' career is on the up too, with a part, albeit a small one, in a TV series. He plays the bar man in a quintessential English comedy series. Part of the fun in these books comes from the fact that Simon Brett says things that he may not have felt could go into a biography. He spills the beans on the TV comedy genre and, although little is not suspected, it is interesting to read these things from an insider.

In this case, the bodies mount up as actors, producers and even writers get their comeuppance. As usual, Charles takes several wrong turns show more on the way to trapping the culprit(s) and still finds time for another extra marital dalliance.

Not the best in the series, but still an entertaining read well worth its four star rating. show less

Charles Paris has managed to get himself a recurring part on a sit-com, providing steady employment and a decent income. Neither of these are things Charles is use to. He’s working for W.E.T. now instead of the BBC and as usual, Simon Brett’s behind the scenes insights into the workings of television are an integral part of the pleasure of reading this series.

The mystery starts with the death of a very much disliked Producer’s Assistant. Only Charles seems to feel that the “accident” might have been something more. As the filming of the series goes on and the deaths start to mount up, Charles knows he’s onto something and begins to investigate. While the mystery did take a while for me to solve, the murderer was not show more surprising or shocking. It had a very satisfactory resolution that gave good closure to the story.

Charles Paris is a flawed but loveable person that you enjoy meeting time and time again. This book, like all in this series, gives such an insight into the working life of actors and the mediums they work in. Brett points up the sheer silliness of the sit com genre and yet you don’t feel like he’s really insulting it, just pointing out the obvious flaws of a guilty pleasure we all indulged in once in a while. show less