The Agent

Apparently, agents are only in it for the money. Who knew? Not Stephen (Stephen Kennedy), who has just finished his second novel and is sufficiently fed up with his agent’s offhand attitude to go in for a spot of blackmail. Alexander (William Beck) will have to get in touch with his chums in publishing and really punt Stephen’s book – or else.

It’s easy to believe that a desperate author would go to extreme lengths to get a bit of attention for his precious work, and most people would tell a few lies if their personal life depended on it, never mind a hardbitten agent who’d lie to you as soon as look at you, if that would get him the bigger pay cheque. But that’s the problem – this portrayal of the industry (a publisher, played by Maureen Lipman in a quick cameo, isn’t shown as any less cynical) has nothing to tell us. Beck does his best, and the dialogue crackles pleasantly, but he’s a caricature: a lying, cheating smear of ordure who doesn’t even like books. But his sin is worse than that – it’s fiction’s biggest. He’s boring.