Fibber in the Heat
Archie Mac |Published: 2012
Pages: 346
Author: Jupp, Miles
Publisher: Ebury Press
Rating: 3.5 stars
If you read any of Henry, My Dear Old Thing, Blofeld’s biographies, you will be surprised as just how easily he became a cricket writer for newspapers and then transitioned into TMS and eventually his own stage show.
Miles Jupp, relays a similar start in Fibber in The Heat, even down to his first international tour which, like Blofeld, was to India. The similarities end there. While Blofeld went on to a stellar career, it is fair to say that Miles Jupp was an abject failure, at least in the newspaper and cricket broadcasting sense.
In 2005, Miles Jupp was a popular actor in a children’s TV show and a budding stand-up comedian. A lifelong cricket fan, and inspired by the Ashes of 2005, he decided on a career change. His capricious choice was cricket journalist. With a couple of media leads, one a Welsh newspaper, from his prospective father-in-law, he set off, after organising a press pass, to India. There to follow England’s cricket team in a three Test series in 2006. For the diehard cricket tragic the final score was one Test each.
Once in India the fun really starts, as we follow an increasingly paranoid Jupp, as he attempts to integrate himself with fellow cricket journalists and TV presenters. His travails to obtain an official press pass provide some real lol moments, as you feel yourself both bemused and frustrated by the Indian red tape Jupp has to navigate.
In the end, ‘Deli belly’, officious groundsman, uninterested employers and cynical cricket reporters, help Jupp make the decision that he is a cricket fan and not a cricket journalist, a subtle difference which he explains to the detriment of the professional cricket reporter.
He may not have fared as well as ‘Blowers’, however Jupp, in the end did alright out of his ruse, a book and a play both of which have received positive reviews. Those positive reviews are certainly added to by CricketWeb.
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