Remotely

by James Collins

'Remotely' pokes fun at British reality television. Britain's newest and most pointless TV talent competition is coming to Middlestone-On-Sea. 'So You Think We're Remotely Interested?' has taken Friday night viewers by storm as it streams live variety shows from remote, provincial theatres across Britain. The theatre with the most audience votes wins regeneration and revival, and lord knows, Middlestone-on-Sea needs both. The dying seaside backwater rests its hopes on the performance of two ex-best friends, gay Gary and straight Stag. The visiting celebrity judge, the mysterious and timeless Miss P, knows that for all to be well, they must mend their broken friendship. But there is no success without trial. She magically swaps Gary and Stag into each other's bodies. Secrets are learned, comedy ensues, and yet the community remains divided. Rifts must be healed, differences accepted, and bodies swapped back before the season grand finale in four days' time otherwise Middlestone will lose everything. "Once you start on James Collins' coming of age, body-swap comedy, you won't be remotely interested in putting it down." G. J. Mugwatch MP Some Amazon reviews for James Collins "Brilliantly observed and a wicket wit." "Lots of laughs and loads of page turning moments. Yes, it was hard to put down." "Another unputdownable book that had me engrossed from beginning to end, and chuckling." "Finished this book yesterday and oh so amusing, would love to see it as a film." "More, I want more! I truly could not put this book down."

342 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 12, 2016

About the author

James has been living and writing in Greece since 2002. He lives with his partner on the small island of Symi where they have a photographic shop and art gallery.

Words
Since moving to Greece, James has concentrated solely on writing words rather than music, though he does still improvise on the keyboard. He first started writing stories as early on as he can remember, and has been trying to get it right ever since. Currently he is turning his fingers to screenplays but has also written award winning lyrics, books for musicals, and erotica, as well as novels and travel books. He has also written corporate plans, business plans for theatre companies, and housing strategies for local authorities, but let’s not get into that ‘writing as a job’ area. James prefers to stay in the unprofitable world of fiction writing and films.

Music
James learned to write music on the piano when he was six years old. When he was seven, he discovered manuscript paper, and his parents were a lot happier. Since then, he has written cantatas, the first at age 14, revues, musicals, choral works, piano pieces, cabaret songs, and lots of other bits and pieces. He can sometimes be seen playing live piano on Symi, and sometimes can be heard practising the clarinet and oboe, though not at the same time.