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Belfast Telegraph -
September 2002
Offbeat gags tell the tale
His first novel is funny, whacky and partly based in Bangor. Una Bradley meets the new Colin Bateman.
IT'S all a bit surreal, really. Bangor writer Zane Radcliffe is animatedly telling me how cooked whale doesn't look like fish but like great big, bleeding beef steaks. And that's because the hump-backed whale is a mammal and not a fish. Whereas the puffin, now, it may be a bird but it tastes more like seafood.
Zane certainly seems to be living up to his name and I'm rather concerned about where the conversation will swerve next.The habits of the Hasda people of Tanzania? The Icelandic alphabet? (Actually it did, but I'll spare you the details).
Before long, however, the mood settles and the reason for Zane's offbeat, though not uninteresting, anecdotes surfaces. He has just returned from a work trip to Iceland and the bubble of excitement that accompanies his jet lag still hasn't burst.
He's also got that peculiarly Northern Irish ability to talk easily and comfortably to complete strangers. Which is great, because after having read his first novel, London Irish, I am only too willing to let the zany one entertain me, safe in the knowledge that this is someone who can tell a story.
London Irish is a disarmingly fresh black comedy, a cheeky romp following the tumbling fortunes of the hapless Bic ("it's my pen name" is his flirty self-introduction), who's half-Irish, half-Scots and, usually, half-cut. Although there is a more serious sub-text and some quite moving passages, it's the gags the book will probably be remembered for.
Here's a taster: "For someone who had misspent his entire youth knocking coloured balls round green baize, Jambo was remarkably bad at the sport. He spent so much time in the chair, I feared he would become the first snooker player to suffer a deep-vein thrombosis."
Or another of my favourites: "After Mum died, Dad sold up and moved the two of us away from Northern Ireland to Wales, where he took up a resident post at a stable in Llanstumdwy. Llanstumdwy - named by someone who'd stood on a typewriter."
The pithy, cornball humour, usually relayed in streetwise Ulster parlance, carries definite echoes of Zane's fellow Bangorian, and fellow author, Colin Bateman. In fact, the two go way back. Bateman gave a teenage Zane his first job, selling a magazine door-to-door.
Many years later, Zane had moved to London to become an advertising copywriter, after studying English Lit at Queen's, and had no idea that Bateman had struck gold with Divorcing Jack. So it was rather a shock to bump into a life-size cardboard cut-out of his old friend in a Watford Waterstones ...
"Let me tell you, it was pretty scary. I had no idea Colin had even written a book. But I soon became a big fan, of all his work.”
"When I was writing London Irish, I thought I would call in a favour. Especially after all those evenings spent trudging around in rain, hail and sleet, selling his mag. And he was great. He read the proof for me and gave me advice on getting the book published.”
"I think probably his best tip was to write the kind of stuff you read yourself. There's no point pretending you're the next James Joyce. I'd hate to take myself too seriously. That's when it all goes wrong."
Zane attributes his two-feet-on-the-ground attitude to his upbringing in Bangor, with his schoolteacher mum and sales rep dad. Now both retired, they are "very proud", if surprised, by their son's success. Perhaps they shouldn't be; after all, they named him after another writer, the rather obscure Western author, Zane Grey.
Although he has a two-book deal with publishing house Transworld, Zane has no plans to give up the day job. After seven years in London, he recently moved to Edinburgh, to take up a new post with an advertising agency.As well as coming up with ideas and campaigns, he spends a lot of time working on shoots for TV and cinema commercials. He recently collaborated with Kirk Jones, the director of ‘Waking Ned.’
It's a job he loves. "You get to travel a lot. In a few weeks, I'm off to Thailand to do a shoot. But it's also very creative. You're making mini-films, basically.You learn the craft of film and TV. And yes, I am definitely interested in writing for those media."
He has worked on major campaigns, for McDonalds, Gordon's Gin, Tango and Tennent's, picking up more than a few awards on the way.
But boasting is not his style. The blurb of London Irish sarcastically informs us that the author "received a British Television Advertising Award and has passed both his cycling proficiency test and trumpet (grade three)".
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