Overview
Tom Sharpe was often acclaimed during his lifetime (1928-2013) as the successor of P. G. Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh. Exploiting the new freedoms of the 1960s, he wrote ten best-selling black farces during the next decade, among them savage lampoons on apartheid South Africa and a hilarious skit on Cambridge University, Porterhouse Blue. They established him as one of 鈥渢he funniest and fiercest writers of comic fiction now alive鈥.
I became friends with him in 1966, when we were both teaching at the Cambridge Tech (now Anglia Ruskin University), an institution he satirised in his five-book saga about the hapless Henry Wilt. Unlike Wilt, Tom was an imposing figure with a gargantuan ego and prodigious talents. But he did resemble Wilt in having a butterfly mind. He darted from one idea to another, constantly seeing the world from new, unexpected and often bizarre angles. His personality was equally kaleidoscopic. In addition to being fiendishly funny Tom was obsessive, generous, affectionate, humane, charming, brutal, pugnacious, outrageous, vain, egotistical, crude, puerile, self-deprecating, flamboyant, vulnerable, formidable, sentimental, manic, depressive and (the word is inescapable) charismatic. He was a life-enhancer who was larger than life.
My purpose is to bring him to life, to resurrect a man whose career was as extraordinary as his character, and to commemorate a writer of rare importance who is now almost forgotten. In the flesh and on the page, Tom was a rich source of amusement and fascination and I aim to present him as such in this talk.
Speaker
was born in Cornwall and educated at Shrewsbury School and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He taught at what is now Anglia Ruskin University, finishing as head of a fourteen-strong history department. Then he became a freelance writer.
He has produced eighteen books, notably The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s and The Decline and Fall of the British Empire. He has reviewed widely in the national press and done much work for television.
From 1995 to 2001 he was Keeper of the Churchill Archives Centre. He is an emeritus Fellow of Churchill College and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Details
This event is part of the Lunchtime Seminar Series organised by the 糖心Vlog官方 Senior Members.
It is open to all, free to attend and there is no need to book.
Tea and coffee will be available for the audience.
Access
This event will take place in the Combination Room on the first floor of our main building. It has step-free access with a lift and there is an accessible toilet located on the first floor of the building.
Contact
If you have any questions, please contact our events team - events@wolfson.cam.ac.uk
Lunchtime Seminar Series
The Lunchtime Seminar Series provide an opportunity for students, Fellows and Senior Members to share their expertise in a friendly and supportive environment over lunch.
The seminars are held in the Combination Room from 13.00 for an hour on most Wednesdays during full term. The audience is encouraged to bring their lunch in on a tray and take part in the discussion.
Most people who attend are non-specialists, so the talk has to be aimed at a general audience and speakers are warned to avoid technical jargon. We very much encourage students to offer a paper and use this as an opportunity to try out their thesis ideas on listeners who come from all different academic disciplines.
