What do you think?
Rate this book
Welsh Fargo
Paperback
First published October 1, 1981
2 people are currently reading
20 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 27, 2017
This book and author reminded me of Tom Sharpe in so many ways! It was a joy to read and I enjoyed every minute! Just the book if you are looking for some light comic relief.
October 12, 2021
This was really good fun! I heard a reading of it, read by Neddy Seagoon himself, repeated on Radio 4 Extra recently, although he rushed the reading a bit and some lines were difficult to catch. It would have been better reading the book first, really. There are cheap second-hand copies around, so I got one!
Set in the South Wales valleys in the 30s, the story is built around a proposed colliery wages snatch. The wages for Panteg colliery are taken every Friday from Head Office in Swansea to Panteg by two wages clerks on the bus owned by our hero, Dai Fargo. Petty thief Sid Jewell hears about this and devises an elaborate plot to steal them and escape to South America, leaving his two local accomplices to face the music, penniless! But it's the cast of thousands (well, dozens anyway!) of supporting and minor characters that gives the story its flavour and humour. Hanky panky and high jinks a-plenty!
Set in the South Wales valleys in the 30s, the story is built around a proposed colliery wages snatch. The wages for Panteg colliery are taken every Friday from Head Office in Swansea to Panteg by two wages clerks on the bus owned by our hero, Dai Fargo. Petty thief Sid Jewell hears about this and devises an elaborate plot to steal them and escape to South America, leaving his two local accomplices to face the music, penniless! But it's the cast of thousands (well, dozens anyway!) of supporting and minor characters that gives the story its flavour and humour. Hanky panky and high jinks a-plenty!
December 31, 2023
The most surprising thing was discovering that Harry Secombe could write -- and quite well. He's good at handling a lot of characters and plot threads (arguably too many) and bringing them all together. Stylistically pretty good, too; it reads easily even in long action scenes, which many authors can't pull off.
The blurb probably describes it as an hilarious comedy, but in fact it's just a cosy Ealing-style romp. The focus gets lost a bit at the end when everything turns, inevitably, chaotic and the story shifts away from the small-scale tribulations of everyman Dai Fargo into more of a crime caper. The soft centre is offset a little by a single death (I think he's meant to be what's called an "asshole victim") and Secombe's joyous incorporation of different races, cultures, sexual orientations and gender choices. He'd still get cancelled today, though, because the characters' attitudes are coloured by where the story is set (a small Welsh town in the 1930s).
The blurb probably describes it as an hilarious comedy, but in fact it's just a cosy Ealing-style romp. The focus gets lost a bit at the end when everything turns, inevitably, chaotic and the story shifts away from the small-scale tribulations of everyman Dai Fargo into more of a crime caper. The soft centre is offset a little by a single death (I think he's meant to be what's called an "asshole victim") and Secombe's joyous incorporation of different races, cultures, sexual orientations and gender choices. He'd still get cancelled today, though, because the characters' attitudes are coloured by where the story is set (a small Welsh town in the 1930s).
October 21, 2022
Very funny book.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews