Product Description

This story uncovers suburbia's darkest secrets-mostly in The Flying Swan, where Neville the barman and Archroy, owner of five magic beans, do battle with beasts of the occult-and in particular the rather unpleasant Pope Alexander VI, the last of the Borgias.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37785 in Books
• Published on: 1992-02-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 288 pages

Synopsis
This story uncovers suburbia's darkest secrets - mostly in The Flying Swan, a cosmic Rovers Return where Neville the barman and Archroy, owner of five magic beans, do battle with beasts of the occult and in particular the rather unpleasant Pope Alexander VI, the last of the Borgias.

From the Back Cover
'Outside the sun shines. Buses rumble towards Ealing Broadway and I'm expected to do battle with the powers of darkness. It all seems a little unfair...'

You could say it all started with the red-eyed tramp with the slimy fingers who put the wind up Neville, the part-time barman, something rotten. Or when Archroy's wife swapped his trusty Morris Minor for five magic beans while he was out at the rubber factory.

On the other hand, you could say it all started a lot earlier. Like 450 years ago, when Borgias walked the earth.

Pooley and Omally, stars of the Brentford Laboiur Exchange and the Flying Swan, want nothing to do with it, especially if there's a Yankee and a pint of Large in the offing. Pope Alexander VI, last of the Borgias, has other ideas...

About the Author
Robert Rankin
Robert Rankin is the author of Web Site Story, Waiting for Godalming, Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls, Snuff Fiction, Apocalypso, The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag, Sprout Mask Replica, Nostradamus Ate My Hamster, A Dog Called Demolition, The Garden of Unearthly Delights, The Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived, The Greatest Show Off Earth, Raiders of the Lost Car Park, The Book of Ultimate Truths, the Armageddon quartet (three books), and the Brentford trilogy (five books) which are all published by Corgi Books. Robert Rankin's latest novel, The Fandom of the Operator, is now available as a Doubleday hardback.

Customer Reviews

THE BIG AUDIO ANTIPOPE
I hadn't realised just how good a writer Robert Rankin was until I heard this wonderful dramatisation back in 2003. The Audio Antipope is an eight-CD set, running to a little under ten hours, bravely complete and unabridged. Full cast list included after the review here...

I had previously read and loved some of the later Brentford novels, of course, but nothing in fact from the seminal pair of volumes that started it all. I specifically link 'The Antipope' and 'The Brentford Triangle' in this way, of course, for two startlingly good reasons. First, about one-third of the 'Antipope' ms had to be culled before Pan would publish it, and much of this material found its way into the sequel. Second, this abundence of preparation, combined with Robert taking the opportunity to write around-the-clock (as opposed to several months part-time) meant that the sequel was practically finished in about three weeks. And I now know what he means when he says that, once they are let loose, Messrs. Pooley and Omally and their contemporaries usually 'write themselves'. There is little sense here of pain in the composition, only (quite rightly) pain in the experiences of the characters themselves, as they are carried along only semi-voluntarily in a flood of unnatural events that at first glance belong in Brentford like a herd of rhino belong in the English National Ballet. Stranger things have surely never happened.

Pooley and Omally are a delightful pair of cowardly, malingering dipsomaniacs loosely based on the author himself and an old schoolfriend of his. I pass no judgement on the matter. The characters around them all have something of the night, even if the night in question is just a typical one at Brentford's Flying Swan public house once the blinds and bolts are down, for they are all of the author's real-life acquaintance, athough Norman's shop is in truth not so Norman's as it was twenty-odd years ago, and I use the term 'real-life' purely for the sake of brevity. Precis? The lads team up with the aged and kindly local enigma that is Professor Slocombe to fight the ancient evil that befalls their Borough. They drink, are intrigued, drink, make enquiries, drink, get into trouble, drink, get distracted, drink, fight, run away, drink some more and fight some more and finally meet the end of the novel where they pop off for a quick drink in readiness for the next one.

As Director and Co-Producer, not to mention uncredited cast member, extra and (most importantly) Editor, the remarkable Phil Viner has achieved here something that makes your typical audio book sound like canal mud drying. The casting is strong and performances thoroughly professional, right down to some wonderful little cameos by friends old and new. Greenhalgh, Crowe and Gooderson are believable as Pooley, Omally and Slocombe, while Murchie and Campbell make a suitably deranged Neville and Archroy when required, and special credit has to go to Harry Myers for bringing the title character to life without stifling his theatricality.

Under Viner's direction, the author himself has been thoroughly whipped into shape as a starring narrator. Robert's son William's music is a revelation, matching the moods of many scenes and building atmosphere beyond the reach of most radio productions. And Robert's then-partner Sally performs perfectly alongside Robinson, as brewery salesgirls Sandra and Mandy, among others (if you haven't heard of Lucy Robinson yet, buy a bloody television). This is marvellous late-night listening, that would be Radio 4's 'Book at Bedtime' for an entire month if the BBC management weren't still a load of talentless inbreds.

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DETAIL:

Starring
Andy Greenhalgh as Jim Pooley
Ben Crowe as John Omally
Robert Rankin as The Narrator
With
Nick Murchie as Neville
Colin Campbell as Archroy
David Gooderson as Professor Slocombe
Harry Myers as [Pope Alexander VI]
Sally Hurst as Sandra
Lucy Robinson (Pride & Prejudice, Emma, lots of telly) as Mandy

Directed by award-winner Phil Viner.
Produced by Jools Viner and Phil Viner.

"All other parts are played by members of the cast", although Norman was clearly one of those played by the Producer-Director himself.
Original music composed and performed by William Rankin.

Reprobates of the world UNITE!
You have nothing to loose but your shillings!


Came across this looking for an alternative to El Prat - and not disappointed.

A bit of a mix between fantasy and horror - twinges of King in there: And the sort of tramp you'd expect to find in waiting for Godot.

Not a belly laugh but certainly amusing - especially when you get to my age and start identifying with some of the more reprobate characters! Omally and his friend, Pooley, lead the sort of drunken existence that is the dream of many respectable males but which is impossible to sustain without serious damage to ones health and family.

Be warned though: Pre-decimalisation money (and I loved it).

enjoyable, but not fully engaging
This is the first of this author's books I have read and I did find that it took a while to get into it. there are a lot of characters, and to start with, it's a bit hard to keep track of them, but as the book progresses the focus seems to become sharper, and the storyline stronger, and the book really gets into it's stride.
The characterisations are great, and it does contain one of the funniest sequences I have ever read (Wild West night). Having read some of the other comments I would be interested to read some of his more recent books.