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The Book, the Film, the T-shirt
One week in the making of a TV commercial for car tyres -- as told by the inimitable Matt Beaumont, author of e What does a successful adman do when he realises the stars of his new commercial want to kill each other, his director has walked off the set and his client has turned up in the wrong T-shirt? How does one of these stars react when he's asked if it's true that he's packing salami in his shorts? Why on earth does the other one think that dueting with a Chinese Elvis impersonator could be a smart career move? What does the adman's pregnant, swollen-ankled wife do when she realises the cheating bastard just happens to be shooting an ad with a rubber-clad Hollywood nymph? And how could any of the above possibly have a connection to the world's most useless drug smuggler?
306 pages, Paperback
First published November 4, 2002
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195 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
January 30, 2022
A pretty good farce, that genuinely made me laugh out loud a number of times. Funny! Hollywood comes to Hounslow to shoot a tyre advert... need I say more? An engaging light hearted read. 6 out of 12.
2010 read
2010 read
December 15, 2018
Matt Beaumont is one of the funniest writers I've come across - his book E and sequels are some of the funniest stories I've read. He used to work in advertising and this book, like E, is set in his old stomping ground. A British ad agency is shooting a tyre commercial starring a couple Hollywood soap opera stars, who real-life romance recently broke up spectacularly. The story perspective switches between characters as the shoot lurches from disaster to greater disaster. Lots of laughing out loud with this book, highly recommended good fun.
September 21, 2015
This is the second of Matt Beaumont's books that I have read. The first, "e" was a series of emails which were sent by different people in an advertising agency office. This book follows the same kind of plot by following a single story from different people's points of view.
This time it centres round another advertising agency Fuller Schiedt and their attempts to film a ground-breaking advert for a car tyre company with two of Hollywood's biggest stars. The story is told from various view-points - from the stars of the commercial, to the ad agency executives, the director, the producer, the stars' entourages and the people who work "on the ground" at the film studio.
It takes a while to get into the style of writing, but once you do it is quite an enjoyable read. However I felt the book dragged on a little bit towards the end, and the ending itself was quite contrived. There were so many strings to this book, that a few invariable got left loose at the end which was also quite frustrating.
I have quite enjoyed the two books of Beaumont's I have read, but I hope he finds a new style to write his future novels in. I think the "single story from multiple viewpoints" has been done to death by now.
This time it centres round another advertising agency Fuller Schiedt and their attempts to film a ground-breaking advert for a car tyre company with two of Hollywood's biggest stars. The story is told from various view-points - from the stars of the commercial, to the ad agency executives, the director, the producer, the stars' entourages and the people who work "on the ground" at the film studio.
It takes a while to get into the style of writing, but once you do it is quite an enjoyable read. However I felt the book dragged on a little bit towards the end, and the ending itself was quite contrived. There were so many strings to this book, that a few invariable got left loose at the end which was also quite frustrating.
I have quite enjoyed the two books of Beaumont's I have read, but I hope he finds a new style to write his future novels in. I think the "single story from multiple viewpoints" has been done to death by now.
June 14, 2017
I found this book unreadable. The characters were so irritating that reading more than 2 pages at a time was a chore.
August 13, 2022
Not worth half a star. COULD NOT FINISH (this turd). Regrettably I kept reading this turkey to 100 pages when by page 5 I was already considering discarding it. This got so boring I thought so many times about discarding it, but I have a bad habit of trying to finish every book I start. Not so much anymore bc there are too many good books to read. The opportunity cost is too high to waste on superficial books.
Uninspired trivial book about vapid, banal, hackneyed, low IQ people (people who comprise showbusiness). Too many characters, no plot, no story, just random anecdotes that apparently are supposed to come together but didn’t.
I had no idea what was happening in the book bc I lost interest from the haphazard poor writing style and structure. Not until a read a 2 star Goodreads review did I learn its multiple people’s perspective on the same event. It’s like one of those lame movies like “Crash” - everyone's perspective on the same event.
I purchased this book in Europe. I don't think it's in print in the United States (and there's a reason, bc it sucks). Since I paid for it, I like keeping books I read (as long as they are good and worth re-reading). It's rare for me to buy a book and discard it when I'm done. This is what I did and I put this turd in one of those little free donation corner libraries.
A book of characters that are in entertainment (but really on the periphery) and their anecdotes to a hard to follow central situation. Unintelligent, uninteresting, uninspired, unenlightened characters: so why would there be an interesting book about them? Even if they were scoundrels this could be interesting, but this book is so poorly written. I lost all interest by page 6. Don’t waste your time on this garbage.
Uninspired trivial book about vapid, banal, hackneyed, low IQ people (people who comprise showbusiness). Too many characters, no plot, no story, just random anecdotes that apparently are supposed to come together but didn’t.
I had no idea what was happening in the book bc I lost interest from the haphazard poor writing style and structure. Not until a read a 2 star Goodreads review did I learn its multiple people’s perspective on the same event. It’s like one of those lame movies like “Crash” - everyone's perspective on the same event.
I purchased this book in Europe. I don't think it's in print in the United States (and there's a reason, bc it sucks). Since I paid for it, I like keeping books I read (as long as they are good and worth re-reading). It's rare for me to buy a book and discard it when I'm done. This is what I did and I put this turd in one of those little free donation corner libraries.
A book of characters that are in entertainment (but really on the periphery) and their anecdotes to a hard to follow central situation. Unintelligent, uninteresting, uninspired, unenlightened characters: so why would there be an interesting book about them? Even if they were scoundrels this could be interesting, but this book is so poorly written. I lost all interest by page 6. Don’t waste your time on this garbage.
January 1, 2019
This is an interesting book, with an unusual way of exploring a situation through the many different perspectives of those involved. It is written with lots of small chapters, each chapter being a viewpoint from one character (some characters have more chapters than others, but never adjacent chapters, and some characters we never hear from). All are written in the third person so this could get quite confusing. It took me a couple of chapters to figure out what was going on. But, given the number of people that are involved in an event, or situation, this is actually quite a clever and pertinent way of creating the drama.
Because of the number of characters and viewpoints, it can get complicated at times, with one character sent overseas for a few days and therefore apparently out of the whole situation, but we do still get to read her experience during the story development which is a bit puzzling. It is fairly crude at times, which did dampen my interest, but it is part of the story and quite relevant.
There is a clever resolution to all the various conflicts that occur throughout the story. The idiots (mostly men) get their comeuppance; the victims (women) are proven to be stronger and more sensible come out winners, rising above the faults that are intended to be their down fall. As such, although I didn't think it was when I read it, and I suspect the back blurb and opening chapters don't support it, this is a fairly feminist book - for those who are looking for these.
There are a couple of plot twists at the end (no spoilers), one of which wasn't terribly subtle and I did guess at prior to reading it, but it was a pleasing 'twist' none-the-less.
Because of the number of characters and viewpoints, it can get complicated at times, with one character sent overseas for a few days and therefore apparently out of the whole situation, but we do still get to read her experience during the story development which is a bit puzzling. It is fairly crude at times, which did dampen my interest, but it is part of the story and quite relevant.
There is a clever resolution to all the various conflicts that occur throughout the story. The idiots (mostly men) get their comeuppance; the victims (women) are proven to be stronger and more sensible come out winners, rising above the faults that are intended to be their down fall. As such, although I didn't think it was when I read it, and I suspect the back blurb and opening chapters don't support it, this is a fairly feminist book - for those who are looking for these.
There are a couple of plot twists at the end (no spoilers), one of which wasn't terribly subtle and I did guess at prior to reading it, but it was a pleasing 'twist' none-the-less.
January 16, 2015
Having thoroughly enjoyed “E”, the debut novel from Matt Beaumont and been quite amused by the horribly obvious cash-in follow-up that was “The E Before Christmas”, I was delighted to see a new novel from the author.
As much as anything, I’d been impressed by the way “E” and its companion were completely written in E-Mails, with date headers and everything. That originality, combined with the fact that it was also a pretty funny book, made Matt Beaumont one to watch. As much to see how he could possibly follow up something so unique.
As with his debut novel “e”, the story is set around life at an advertising agency. This time, though, rather than the setting being in the office, they’re at a film studio in Hounslow, in the middle of shooting an advertisement. In an effort to make it as good as they can and increase the agency’s profile, they’ve hired two of the biggest stars of American TV to play a couple. Unfortunately, in between signing to film the advert and coming to film it, they’ve had a rather nasty break up and things between them really aren’t going terribly well.
Things aren’t going so well for the agency boss, Greg Fuller, either. His wife is six months pregnant, his mistress is demanding more commitment from him and he’s having trouble in the office – trying to reverse a rash decision to sack a couple of staff so the agency doesn’t lose their biggest client just as a takeover bid is being prepared that would make Greg a very rich man.
Of course, the filming of the advert isn’t going to go smoothly, either. It’s not even started before it hits trouble, with one of the stars being arrested at Heathrow Airport. The other is making ridiculously overblown demands, costing a lot of money and even more in effort to resolve. The Marketing Manager from the company the advert is for wants to be more involved than he is, and the director keeps throwing his toys out and threatening to quit.
Of course, this is just a snippet of what’s going on, but it continues in much the same way throughout the whole novel. There doesn’t seem to be a single person in the whole cast of characters, from the lowliest runner to the Director, who doesn’t have some kind of trauma going on at some point. The whole shoot seems to be governed by Murphy’s Law and anything you can think of that could possibly go wrong goes completely wrong. Unfortunately for the people involved, and to the joy of the reader, Murphy doesn’t let up for a second.
Although I’ve criticised certain novels in the past for being too far away from the reality they’re trying to describe, this very same is the whole point here. Never having worked in advertising or in film, I have no idea if any of the situations mentioned throughout the story could actually happen for real. I suspect that any of them could, but that it would have to be a strange chain of events that caused all of them to happen in as short a space of time as the period covered my this novel.
And this is what makes “The Book, the Film, the T-Shirt” as funny and as much fun as it is. The story follows the characters as they bound from disaster to disaster and although you end up reading with a sense of amazement and disbelief, this is frequently interrupted by the sound of laughter. More often than not, your own.
The style the novel is written in helps this along. Beaumont has worked away from the E-Mail based style he used in his earlier works into something a little more flowing. It’s written in an almost documentary style, with different characters all getting a say, from a few lines to a few paragraphs in a go. It’s a little like Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees’ style in “Come Together”; except that there are more characters and the segments are shorter. The end result here is almost a little like “The Office” television series; in that the perspective keeps changing and you get to see different people’s views on the same event. The only difference is that the characters are describing the action, rather than having it acted out, but it’s not too great a leap to visualise some of the scenes, as they are described very well, for the most part.
Again very much in the style of “The Office”, every character seems to have his own style of description, and everyone is putting their own spin on events, usually for the sake of their own ego. What seems like incompetence to one is “pushing the envelope” to another and a demand that seems unreasonable to most people can be justified by the person making it. Part of the amusement in the novel is seeing how the contrasting characters deal with the same situation, especially when the contrast between them is at its’ greatest, such as between the posh Producer and the down to earth caterer, for example. Of course, it helps that the situations themselves are pretty funny to start with.
It’s not all laugh out loud humour, though. Some of the jokes are a little puerile (calling the advertising agency Fuller Scheidt probably being the worst offender here) and some of them do seem a little forced, even if you have managed to suspend your disbelief. The ultimate ending is a little predictable, for the most part (although with one notable exception) and not terribly funny. It feels a little like Beaumont knew he had to end the novel in a certain way, but had run out of funny and original ideas to do it with.
As a rule, though, this is a pretty funny book, if a bit of a “no brainer” in as much as a book can be. It’s not likely to stretch the imagination but if you go in prepared to suspend disbelief and take a step away from reality; you’ll most likely have a lot of fun within the pages.
This review may also appear under my name at any or all of www.ciao.co.uk, www.thebookbag.co.uk, www.goodreads.com, www.amazon.co.uk and www.dooyoo.co.uk
As much as anything, I’d been impressed by the way “E” and its companion were completely written in E-Mails, with date headers and everything. That originality, combined with the fact that it was also a pretty funny book, made Matt Beaumont one to watch. As much to see how he could possibly follow up something so unique.
As with his debut novel “e”, the story is set around life at an advertising agency. This time, though, rather than the setting being in the office, they’re at a film studio in Hounslow, in the middle of shooting an advertisement. In an effort to make it as good as they can and increase the agency’s profile, they’ve hired two of the biggest stars of American TV to play a couple. Unfortunately, in between signing to film the advert and coming to film it, they’ve had a rather nasty break up and things between them really aren’t going terribly well.
Things aren’t going so well for the agency boss, Greg Fuller, either. His wife is six months pregnant, his mistress is demanding more commitment from him and he’s having trouble in the office – trying to reverse a rash decision to sack a couple of staff so the agency doesn’t lose their biggest client just as a takeover bid is being prepared that would make Greg a very rich man.
Of course, the filming of the advert isn’t going to go smoothly, either. It’s not even started before it hits trouble, with one of the stars being arrested at Heathrow Airport. The other is making ridiculously overblown demands, costing a lot of money and even more in effort to resolve. The Marketing Manager from the company the advert is for wants to be more involved than he is, and the director keeps throwing his toys out and threatening to quit.
Of course, this is just a snippet of what’s going on, but it continues in much the same way throughout the whole novel. There doesn’t seem to be a single person in the whole cast of characters, from the lowliest runner to the Director, who doesn’t have some kind of trauma going on at some point. The whole shoot seems to be governed by Murphy’s Law and anything you can think of that could possibly go wrong goes completely wrong. Unfortunately for the people involved, and to the joy of the reader, Murphy doesn’t let up for a second.
Although I’ve criticised certain novels in the past for being too far away from the reality they’re trying to describe, this very same is the whole point here. Never having worked in advertising or in film, I have no idea if any of the situations mentioned throughout the story could actually happen for real. I suspect that any of them could, but that it would have to be a strange chain of events that caused all of them to happen in as short a space of time as the period covered my this novel.
And this is what makes “The Book, the Film, the T-Shirt” as funny and as much fun as it is. The story follows the characters as they bound from disaster to disaster and although you end up reading with a sense of amazement and disbelief, this is frequently interrupted by the sound of laughter. More often than not, your own.
The style the novel is written in helps this along. Beaumont has worked away from the E-Mail based style he used in his earlier works into something a little more flowing. It’s written in an almost documentary style, with different characters all getting a say, from a few lines to a few paragraphs in a go. It’s a little like Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees’ style in “Come Together”; except that there are more characters and the segments are shorter. The end result here is almost a little like “The Office” television series; in that the perspective keeps changing and you get to see different people’s views on the same event. The only difference is that the characters are describing the action, rather than having it acted out, but it’s not too great a leap to visualise some of the scenes, as they are described very well, for the most part.
Again very much in the style of “The Office”, every character seems to have his own style of description, and everyone is putting their own spin on events, usually for the sake of their own ego. What seems like incompetence to one is “pushing the envelope” to another and a demand that seems unreasonable to most people can be justified by the person making it. Part of the amusement in the novel is seeing how the contrasting characters deal with the same situation, especially when the contrast between them is at its’ greatest, such as between the posh Producer and the down to earth caterer, for example. Of course, it helps that the situations themselves are pretty funny to start with.
It’s not all laugh out loud humour, though. Some of the jokes are a little puerile (calling the advertising agency Fuller Scheidt probably being the worst offender here) and some of them do seem a little forced, even if you have managed to suspend your disbelief. The ultimate ending is a little predictable, for the most part (although with one notable exception) and not terribly funny. It feels a little like Beaumont knew he had to end the novel in a certain way, but had run out of funny and original ideas to do it with.
As a rule, though, this is a pretty funny book, if a bit of a “no brainer” in as much as a book can be. It’s not likely to stretch the imagination but if you go in prepared to suspend disbelief and take a step away from reality; you’ll most likely have a lot of fun within the pages.
This review may also appear under my name at any or all of www.ciao.co.uk, www.thebookbag.co.uk, www.goodreads.com, www.amazon.co.uk and www.dooyoo.co.uk
January 12, 2021
Kurzer Auszug aus HansBlog.de:
Werbeagentur-Chef Greg Fuller in Nöten: Der für den Autoreifen-Werbedreh gebuchte Hollywoodstar sitzt bei der Polizei fest, ein unverzichtbares Kreativteam für Sofaprospekte ist dummerweise gefeuert, die schwangere Ehefrau verlangt dreist Zuwendung, eine zu ehrgeizige Kollegin will ihm an die Wäsche (sie hat freilich unbestreitbare Talente), ein lukrativer Verkauf scheint gefährdet, Gott und die Welt belagern ihn und seine Sekretärin am Telefon.
Romanautor Matt Beaumont (ist der Name eigentlich echt) gefällt sich in allerlei vierbuchstabigem Unrat. Zu ermüdend ausführlich schildert Beaumont die Tics und Eingebildetheiten der Hollywoodstars, die im Werbefilm agieren. Ein paar Skandale und Minidramen erzeugen zwar eine gewisse Spannung, doch alles wirkt banal, müffelt teils frühpubertär nach Jungszimmer.
Werbeagentur-Chef Greg Fuller in Nöten: Der für den Autoreifen-Werbedreh gebuchte Hollywoodstar sitzt bei der Polizei fest, ein unverzichtbares Kreativteam für Sofaprospekte ist dummerweise gefeuert, die schwangere Ehefrau verlangt dreist Zuwendung, eine zu ehrgeizige Kollegin will ihm an die Wäsche (sie hat freilich unbestreitbare Talente), ein lukrativer Verkauf scheint gefährdet, Gott und die Welt belagern ihn und seine Sekretärin am Telefon.
Romanautor Matt Beaumont (ist der Name eigentlich echt) gefällt sich in allerlei vierbuchstabigem Unrat. Zu ermüdend ausführlich schildert Beaumont die Tics und Eingebildetheiten der Hollywoodstars, die im Werbefilm agieren. Ein paar Skandale und Minidramen erzeugen zwar eine gewisse Spannung, doch alles wirkt banal, müffelt teils frühpubertär nach Jungszimmer.
March 9, 2025
Another great book from Matt B. This takes a while to get going but when it does, it's right up there with "E". I found E slightly funnier but that's not taking away from this book at all.
All the characters are completely believable and the world in it most certainly exists. Probably. Maybe. Who cares? Read it!
All the characters are completely believable and the world in it most certainly exists. Probably. Maybe. Who cares? Read it!
July 8, 2018
Another excellent novel from Mr Beaumont, again it has some really crazy characters and laugh out loud moments. Loved it.
July 28, 2024
A well paced, very funny romp.
And always good to see Hounslow get a shout out.
Read this for many laughs, and in my case, some out loud !
And always good to see Hounslow get a shout out.
Read this for many laughs, and in my case, some out loud !
March 4, 2021
Quotes
I was going mad. I've heard of bonding with your unborn, but I was having full-blown conversations with mine. (37)
He could be very single-minded when he wanted. Or a prime asshole. Depends on your point of view, which in turn depends on whether or not you were on his payroll. (56)
I wish I'd said, 'Well, it didn't come up in maths or English,' but I could write a book on the things I wish I'd said. (87)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 10, 2013
Beaumont breaks away from the 'told through emails' format with this, a comedy novel that pokes fun at the advertising industry (again) and the film/tv industry (for the first time). Beaumont demonstrates that he has a sharp eye and that he knows his stuff: I have a small amount of experience in TV and everything from the way the runners are treated to the catering guy felt exactly right. 'Laugh-out-loud funny' is an over-used expression but this actually is. Part of what makes it work is that Beaumont spins a good story with believable, likable characters you actually care about - the cheating ad exec and his pregnant wife, for example, feel pitch-perfect.
September 7, 2010
I read this almost a decade ago and laughed myself silly. Stupidly, I leant it to someone I was working with at the time and it never came back to me. For some reason I keep thinking of it over the last few days so I guess I'm going to have to go buy it (again), because I really want to read it again and make sure it is as hilarious as I remember.
A satirical insight into the world of advertising with the perfect blend of humour and bite.
A satirical insight into the world of advertising with the perfect blend of humour and bite.
January 21, 2016
I'm still basking in the glow of the excellent E by the same author, so in a spirit of generosity i'll mark this one up half a point rather than down. Enjoyable, an easy read.. not told in emails this time, but still from the point of view of multiple characters. Does it matter if it is the same stuff in a slightly different package...? I'll take a break now before I move on to the latest follow up to E and hopefully come to the next one fresh.
May 2, 2011
After reading 'E', I wasn't sure what to expect from this offering from Beaumont.
My initial thoughts after the first few pages was that I wasn't going to like it, however within a few more pages I was hooked. Very funny, cleverly written and full of characters you hope you'll never meet....
My initial thoughts after the first few pages was that I wasn't going to like it, however within a few more pages I was hooked. Very funny, cleverly written and full of characters you hope you'll never meet....
May 6, 2020
Simple light hearted read. Generally I love books in which I can see the characters evolve and I get to grow with them. This was none of that but every now and then I got a chuckle and it was simple and satiristic.
February 7, 2021
Matt Beaumont, brilliant as ever.
The usual balance of ridiculous media people & genuine humans you feel you've known for years, thrown into a high pressure (to some of them) situation.
Told from multiple perspectives, hilarious & readable time & time again.
The usual balance of ridiculous media people & genuine humans you feel you've known for years, thrown into a high pressure (to some of them) situation.
Told from multiple perspectives, hilarious & readable time & time again.
September 25, 2007
witty, sharp, and very, VERY funny...
Want to read
September 24, 2007baca review nya di amazon...kayaknya kocak ^_^
apalagi tentang dunia ad agency, which i'm always curious about
apalagi tentang dunia ad agency, which i'm always curious about
January 28, 2009
Если бы я знал, что эти сьёмки окажутся такой жопой, что настоящая жопа могла бы подать в суд за оскорбление...
Read
April 14, 2009Loved it - almost as much as "E" and "The E before christmas". Love the characters, love the story, love the hi-jinks!!
January 10, 2011
One of the funniest books ever!
July 4, 2010
Fucking brilliant.
March 10, 2013
interesting at times
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews