PREVIOUSLY, ON FAB FOOLS: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4!

Greetings, as Joey Boswell had it, my dear Fab Fools follower, as I EXCLUSIVELY beg your pardon for this unscheduled update in the story of the creation and RELEASE of the first ever comedic history of The Beatles.  It’s been a long time, now I’m… having to make an important announcement.

The updates above cover our launch last September, our need to raise the basic budget to make the book exist, a release of a few sneaky pages, and the devastation of the loss of positively the central hero of our story, everybody’s friend Neil Innes. First, perhaps this is the best moment to draw any readers in the South West towards our tribute to the greatest of men for this year’s Bath Comedy Festival. A ragamuffin gang of us will be doing our best to pay homage to Neil as best we can, with all proceeds adding to the pot for his PledgeMusic campaign shortfall, for Yvonne and the family. It would be great to get a big crowd together to share in the first posthumous Bath Plug Award presentation, and if you’re masochistic you can even snoop on early rehearsals… 

And so, FAB FOOLS, has become a tribute to Neil Innes, and his dear pal and occasional band-mate, The Actor Kevin Eldon, has written an entirely beautiful foreword. Final research was carried out in the home of the Boys, and pleasing revelations added to the manuscript. A modicum of pleasingly pertinent photos have been assembled and just about paid for, the text is being completely formatted, and… 

As something of an old lag in this comedy history game by now, I do feel that absolute openness about the difficult creation of projects should be shared, especially with those who have already kindly pre-ordered copies – and the truth is, I believe very strongly that almost all non-fiction demands a decent Index. The splendid Indexer who lovingly decoded my previous book SOUPY TWISTS is happy to repeat her magic, but suddenly… the FF pot is empty. In an equal partnership with the wonderful folk at Candy Jar, by rights, I should co-foot the bill personally, but it just so happens I have also just been given a whammo of a tax bill… I am sorry, but it’s that simple – we just need a barrel-load of book pre-orders to complete the Index, and FAB FOOLS is ready to go, after all your patience…

How, if you’ll pardon the pun, ever – this shortfall does mean that it would be unconscionable for us all not to subtly ease on the publishing brakes, and allow a little slippage of release date, for just a few weeks, from the planned 25 April, to the beginning of summer. We all understand that this could be a genuine spot of ball-cum-ovary-ache for a minority of pre-orderers, those who perhaps planned to give it as a gift in May and so on, and to apologise enough to those folk, would require advanced sorrow tuition. But the general feeling is that most of you keen to get your teeth into all the daft Beatley goodness in  our book, a few weeks’ extra rev up to release is a bearable delay.

Please please, do keep spreading the word to lovers of The Beatles and classic comedy (the link’s bit.do/ffbook), and if you can think of any avenue to help us broadcast about the release – do say. I’ll be on BBC Cardiff soon sending out Fab vibes, but we’re keen to spread the laffs far and wide.

One of the regrets of the slippage, however, is the loss of the launch date at The Fox & Hounds, Caversham. But then, with the Neil tribute show out of the way, we’re still readying a set from THE NERK FAMILY (we’re still hiring, musical folks!) there to mark the 60th anniversary of The Nerk Twins playing at Paul’s cousins pub – Lennon & McCartney’s two-night stand as a double act.

Those who pledged top whack to attend the launch, please do get in touch and we’ll sort something out, and it will still be great to see as many of you as possible at The Fox & Hounds on 25 April! Truth be told, we’ve heard NOWT from the pub managers since we met up with them completely by accident last spring, on the way back from the BBC Archives a mile or so up the road. We spoke at length about how to mark the grand anniversary, and shook hands on me putting together a combo and performing to mark the release of FAB FOOLS there. So I’m confused as to why they’ve gone off the radar – no email address, only voicemail, even though a friend who visited the pub personally met with the manager, who said they were still keen to mark the occasion, and include FAB FOOLS as part of it. It’s a bit of a mystery, but I can tell you now, on Saturday 25th April at, let’s say, 4pm, we will descend on the Fox & Hounds, and we will perform Beatley tunes, whether it’s inside the pub or out on the street – it’s happening, so put it in your diaries.

Until then, a gender neutral boomshanka to you all. Peas, luv, and Hare Hare Secombe.