A review of David Scott's biography of Caroline Aherne, highlighting her comedic genius and the author's focus on her work, along with mentions of Stefan Al's book on housing and Natasha Carthew's 'Rough Edges'.
David Scott’s focus on her work has good intentions, but also sees a missed opportunity Caroline Aherne: created a string of memorable characters including Denise in The Royle Family and chat-show host Mrs Merton.
Photograph: Fiona Hanson/PAwas a genius, as David Scott’s Rebel in Disguise reminds us: her IQ was 176. Of course it was her comedic genius that made her so beloved, and much missed. Aherne crammed a lot of laughs into those years – stand-up and pirate radio, appearing on The Fast Show, then unleashing the inimitable Mrs Merton, and the sitcom masterpiece The Royle Family – retold by Scott in a rather frustrating fashion. The unforgettable Royles were created with lifelong-friend Craig Cash; they wrote the scripts and directed many episodes, as well as playing the betrothed Denise and Dave, the giddily gormless couple enraptured in their mutual ennui.
There were raspberries in her career, too that Scott also details. But they matter little, really: The Royle Family will last as long as laughter does. A proud Mancunian like Aherne, Scott is a poet and BBC Manchester radio presenter.
He loves his subject dearly, which might question his objectivity, but on the whole he is balanced on the goofs as well as the genius . Stefan Al’s spirited account of what humans have got right and wrong when making homesRough Edges by Natasha Carthew: Irish echoes in Cornish writer’s account of Britain’s coast He focuses on the work and the characters created by Aherne, with minimal sketching of her life in an Irish immigrant family growing up in a notorious part of Manchester, and her later “celebrity”.
This choice seems misguided, as readers of comedian biographies want to understand how personal fire fuelled the work . Scott refuses to go down that path, out of respect for how Aherne was made miserable by tabloid intrusion. But again, the reader is left wondering how this affected the work in later years, when Aherne struggled to recapture the magic.
More was desired on Aherne’s early days on the male-dominated comedy circuit, too, and wider context of how her first BBC job was as Janet Street-Porter’s secretary, whereas Oxford-educated Armando Iannucci arrived as a comedy producer. A problem with focusing mainly on the work is that the book becomes too weighted with transcripts of Aherne’s comedy, and why bother when you can watch her deliver these very lines by pressing a button. Good intentions, but a missed opportunity.
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