Big Time

by Marc Blake

It's the most romantic night in the year, February 14th, and Andy Crowe has been dumped. He's also driving to Birmingham with his most hated rival, fellow stand-up comic Rob Gillen. And it's raining. Could things get much worse?



Oh yes. Because three small-time villains are about to try to pull off a small-time job, and they're heading for the motoroway services where Andy and Rob are going to end up.



All day breakfast, anyone?

Genres: Fiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published February 8, 1999

Reviews

[Adam Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Big Time is a comedy crime thriller set amongst the back drop of a changing stand-up comedy circuit. If this book had just been about two bickering stand-ups, one of which is portrayed as an insufferable, misogynistic creep, this would have been great. I really enjoyed the parts that focused on the stand-up, and the dynamic between the two comics was believable and funny. However, the rest of this book is an absolute mess. The crime thriller aspect of this absolutely did not work, due to an unnecessary amount of characters and cliched dialogue. This was not nearly as fun as it should have been, although it did pick up in the final third when the disparate threads come together.
Picked up on a whim from a bookshop in Sheffield. I don't regret picking it up, but I can't fully recommend, unless you are particularly interested in 90's stand-up comedy.