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Camberwell Beauty

Jenny Eclair

Welcome to South London, to one of the nicest streets in one of London's vilest boroughs, a determined middle-class oasis of skips and bay trees, where Volvos sniff each others' bumpers and men called Giles live with women called Samantha. This is a satellite-dish-free zone of tall houses, standing shoulder to shoulder with big front doors, five floors apiece. Come inside, shut the door and smell the coffee: you could almost be in Kensington. This is where the actors, writers and media types live, where small children wearing smart uniforms and shoes in the shape of lightbulbs get ferried every day to schools that are not local. Some people are luckier than others; fortune smiles on some and gobs on the rest. Jo Metcalf (no. 95) smokes and spies on the smug Cunninghams down the street as they play their bile-inducing game of happy families. Why is the grass greener on the other side of the fence? But happiness is a fragile thing and hairline cracks in a perfect world can become craters of misery. Each story is full of comic insight and realistic observation of contemporary British life and focuses on the very different lives of a set of characters living in the same street.

  • Classification : General & Literary Fiction
  • Pub Date : JUL 14, 2005
  • Imprint : Time Warner Paperbacks
  • Page Extent : 416
  • Binding : PB
  • ISBN : 9780751530995
  • Price : INR 950
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Jenny Eclair

Stand-up comedian Jenny Eclair was the first woman to win the Perrier Award - the UK's top comedy award - in 1995. Since then, Jenny has taken multiple shows on tour around the country, most recently Sixty! (FFS) which was extended twice due to its popularity. Jenny is well known for her starring role on BBC1's Grumpy Old Women which ran for three series and was then adapted into four live shows touring across the UK and Australia, all of which Jenny co-wrote and starred in. Continuing her partnership with Judith Holder, producer of Grumpy Old Women, Jenny co-hosts the podcast Older and Wider the podcast for people who don't know what a podcast is, a weekly ramble about life, with additional swearing. She is also the writer of the much-loved BBC Radio Four Little Lifetimes monologues which ran for seven series. Jenny was a contestant on series 15 of Taskmaster (Channel 4) and currently hosts the spin off podcast Taskmaster: The People's Podcast. Eclair is also a critically acclaimed author with seven novels, a collection of short stories and a number of non-fiction books. Jenny's TV appearances include Grumpy Old Women S1-3, Richard Osman's House of Games, Celebrity MasterChef, The Great Pottery Throw Down Festive Celebrity Special, Drawers Off (presenter), The Apprentice: You're Fired!, Room 101, Celebrity Bridge of Lies (BBC), Taskmaster S15 (Channel 4), Loose Women, Pointless Celebrities, The Chase: Celebrity Special (ITV), Alan Davies As Yet Untitled, QI (UKTV). Reality TV appearances include Splash and I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here (ITV) in 2010, in which Jenny came third.

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