Negative Feedback: British blokey jokey comedy that sees the residents of a Birmingham tower block take on the world of television and celebrity in a slapstick free for all that almost ends in tears!

by Eddie Lancaster

Paul Webb - 5 out of 5 stars - Tremendous"Generally when a book is described as being hilarious or so funny the reader couldn't breath, it's often true this isn't the case. However Negative Feedback is genuinely one of the funniest books I've read in years - a perfect escape from the madness and difficulties of 2020. If you need a lift and an amusing escape, download this now."Jasper and Annie are a pair of jobless no-hopers who have dropped into the cracks between the paving slabs of life. Rather than bothering to climb out, they have embraced their situation and created a life based around doing pretty much nothing. That is apart from visiting various chronic illness clubs for the free refreshments and selling old cassette tapes online. But when a customer leaves negative feedback for a month old purchase without first making contact, Jasper seeks retribution. Bernd Tost is a wise old German punk who lives on the top floor and is reputed to have been a Stasi agent during the Cold War. Together they form the Negative Feedback Retribution Squad and discover they have a talent for striking a comical blow for the little people. When their first mission is a massive success they decide to advertise their services online. What follows is a series of increasingly more elaborate revenge windups set throughout Birmingham and the Black Country. Involving television celebrities, politicians, pop stars and even the clergy. Until predictably they bite off far more than they can chew and things take a sinister turn. All set against the story of Bernd's former life and exactly how he came to be living at the top of a tower block In a little town called Oldbury.

314 pages, Paperback

Published November 5, 2020

About the author

I was born in one of the small towns where Birmingham collides with the Black Country, making me a ‘Yam Yam’. I write comedy novels aimed mainly at my own generation, for folks who enjoy a laugh and don’t take life too seriously; anyone from toilet readers to bored van drivers and those poor souls sitting in a doctors waiting room hoping it’s not bad news. Plots as thin as cigarette paper, held together by a thousand dad gags. Vintage humour from a time before everyone got offended by everything and the difference between a joke and an insult was the expression on the face that said it.

My influences are the ‘golden years’ of film and television - Bless This House, George and Mildred, Carry-On, Man About the House, and more recently, Still Game, Bottom and The Young Ones. There’s a smattering of bad language and the odd knob gag, but very little sex, mainly because I think you have to be good at something in order to write about it! So I usually concentrate on characters who are skint and use them to poke fun at things I probably shouldn’t, subjects I know a lot about, to laugh at a time when life isn’t very funny…

Reviews

[Sally George · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very funny and enjoyable read. The characters are people all around us with spot on descriptions. I liked the chapters giving the backgrounds of the characters too. It reminded me a little of the "Thursday Murder Club" books but with young amusing people rather than the elderly yet equally as hilarious.