Gentlemen of Leisure Present: The Death of the Novel

Nish Kumar and Tom Neenan, aka the Gentlemen of Leisure, are bookish and proud. The sketch duo know their Don Quixote from their Frankenstein, can play Top Trumps with Catch-22 and War of the Worlds and perform an abridged version Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol faster than you can say Bob Crochet. Which is just as well, as they are on a literary mission – to prove that the novel isn’t dead, just resting its eyes.

Organised into chapters, Death of the Novel traces the history of fiction from Cervantes to Lady Chatterley’s Lover, with a few digressions in between. More often than not Neenan, the spit of a young Louis Theroux, plays the screwball to Kumar’s straight man as the pair run through a loose collection of routines that showcases their lively, cerebral, if at times undercooked offerings.  

The highlight of the hour is undoubtedly ‘How to Write a Novel’, a riotous pastiche of a creative writing class presented by a couple of Australian pseudo intellectuals. And if there’s a better speed-Dickens urban combo than the hoodie-wearing What the Dickens this critic hasn’t seen them.

Not all the material is as strong, though, and at times the show relies too heavily on a rather dull overhead projection. But Kumar and Neenan have an easy rapport and more literary one-liners than an episode of The Book Group. Who said the novel is dead?