Mr Impossible: A dark comedy about lust, betrayal and drama school. With a shocking final twist that you won't see coming.

by Edward Payne, Kelly Owen (Editor), Francesca Wood (Illustrator)

"Maybe my secondary school drama teacher had noticed how I had shrunk into the corners as a teenager, only to emerge when fully immersed in the safety of a drama class where I could be anyone else but myself for an hour. Maybe he had known about the struggles in my home life and had seen it reflected in Alan’s predicament. I don’t know the reason. But I had always thanked him for bringing this fantastic character to my attention. Oh how I wished, now I was old enough to understand Alan, that I might be given the opportunity to bring his character to life.
If only.
I was so lost in part dream, part exasperation that I barely noticed the creak of the door behind me beginning again and the sound of slow footsteps emerging from within. Suddenly, that oh-so familiar odour of expensive aftershave mixed with dirty fags protruded closer and closer towards the back of my head. I found that I was cowering in the shadow of the very person I had been trying to avoid. I could feel his presence like a dragon behind me. I could also practically hear his eyeballs rotating in their sockets as he took in the unbelievable sight of someone as pitiable as me, deigning to cast my feeble eyes over his scribed words.
I closed one eye, nailed to the spot and rigid with fear. With the other I saw a shadow silhouetted against the wall before me, the lips parting to speak, a thin ribbon of smoke escaping from the space between and twisting its way up towards the ceiling. It was like a horrible shadow puppet growing and shifting into a sinister black avatar. I heard the purr of the words before they were spoken, as if some demon on my shoulder was preparing me for the sentence. I pulled the small amount of oxygen that I held in for the last thirty seconds even tighter.
“I presume,” the shadow began, “that you are only looking left because you are bored of looking right. I say this because there is no way, in an abject fiery hell, that you would ever THINK that you would be castable in this.”

Meet Simon; a single gay man who is unlucky in love but makes the most of his freedom by partying relentlessly in London’s gay village. By day, Simon is only suffering his turgid office job to pay for his acting course at a London drama school. But Simon is totally intimidated by the school’s Head: Rex Bamber. Rex is a strict authoritarian who takes no prisoners and delights in humiliating and undermining those students who show weakness.
As Simon is forced to spend more and more time in the company of his tormentor, he realises that he is going to put his nerves to the test if he is to survive the experience.
And it soon becomes apparent that it will be a messy race to get to curtain call.....

Mr Impossible is a comedic tale that flits between romance and thriller throughout, with all the twists and turns that you’d expect from a Coen Brothers movie. Funny yet deliciously dark: Mr Impossible is an urban fairytale that will have you gripped until the last act.

439 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 30, 2013

About the author

Edward Payne is an award winning Radio Presenter, Drama School Graduate and Author.

He graduated from drama school in 2009 and began writing his first novel "Mr Impossible". In that time, as a Presenter on Whitechapel AM, he won Silver in the Best Newcomer category of the Hospital Broadcasting Association awards in 2011. In 2012 he won Bronze in the Best Male category.

He currently lives and works in Cheltenham, presenting on Radio Winchcombe and writing.

"Hell Wears A Neckerchief" is his first short story, released in 2015 and a new novel: Nine Tenths is currently in the works to be released in 2018.

He hates writing about himself in the third person....