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££8.99
Published
4 April 2018
PBO
9781910400715
Ebook
Press Release
Coming soon.
 

History and mystery collide against a backdrop of bogus cowboys, fake news and killer ostriches…

1917. As war rages in Europe, the FBI are hunting the killer of Charlie Chaplin.
Chaplin’s career has criss-crossed with the rise of film to make him the first global star. Chaplin-fever rages: Charlie dolls, lookalike contests, even the tramps are copying the look immortalised in ‘The Tramp’. There are Chaplins everywhere.

English comedian Arthur Dandoe is on the run, sick with his own kind of Chaplin-fever. His bitter rivalry with Chaplin, stretching back to their early days in music hall, has spun out of control. It’s cost him his career, his family, now it could lose him his life.

Luckily for Arthur, there’s a war to hide in. With East and West Coast studios slugging it out, the early days of the flickers are a dirty battleground, where bribing, spying and outright fakery forge the careers of many a later legend. But how long can Arthur hide? Especially with the FBI after him, offering a deal that goes against everything he ever stood for.

CHAPLINOIA is a tale where history and mystery collide against a backdrop of bogus cowboys, fake news and killer ostriches. And it’s all true. Almost.

Old Street Publishing Chaplinoia

History and mystery collide against a backdrop of bogus cowboys, fake news and killer ostriches…

1917. As war rages in Europe, the FBI are hunting the killer of Charlie Chaplin.
Chaplin’s career has criss-crossed with the rise of film to make him the first global star. Chaplin-fever rages: Charlie dolls, lookalike contests, even the tramps are copying the look immortalised in ‘The Tramp’. There are Chaplins everywhere.

English comedian Arthur Dandoe is on the run, sick with his own kind of Chaplin-fever. His bitter rivalry with Chaplin, stretching back to their early days in music hall, has spun out of control. It’s cost him his career, his family, now it could lose him his life.

Luckily for Arthur, there’s a war to hide in. With East and West Coast studios slugging it out, the early days of the flickers are a dirty battleground, where bribing, spying and outright fakery forge the careers of many a later legend. But how long can Arthur hide? Especially with the FBI after him, offering a deal that goes against everything he ever stood for.

CHAPLINOIA is a tale where history and mystery collide against a backdrop of bogus cowboys, fake news and killer ostriches. And it’s all true. Almost.

 £8.99
 
 

‘Richly enjoyable… packed with intriguing details about a vanished world of entertainment… a brilliantly readable debut’ —Guardian

 
 
  • ‘Terrific … gets right behind the scenes of music hall theatre … a very funny evocation of those early days of comedy, just before World War I.’
    —Daily Mail
  • ‘A fascinating, touching and very funny evocation of a bygone era of comedy’ —David Baddiel
 
 
Chris England

Chris England is a sports and comedy writer. His previous work includes the stage plays and subsequent films An Evening With Gary Lineker and Breakfast With Jonny Wilkinson, and the books Balham to Bollywood (Radio 4 Book of the Week) and No More Buddha, Only Football, about the 2002 World Cup. In addition, he has worked on the radio shows 7 Day Sunday and 7 Day Saturday for BBC Radio FiveLive, and contributed to the bestselling Pub Landlord books The Book of British Common Sense and Think Yourself British with Al Murray, The Pub Landlord.