THE PORNOGRAPHER DIARIES
DANNY KING

Published by Serpent’s Tail July 2004.

Plot:

BEHIND EVERY BEAUTIFUL WOMAN THERE'S A THOUSAND ANGRY MENTALISTS

Godfrey Bishop works for a soft porn magazine. He talks to the models, he reads hundreds of filthy readers' letters, he organises the photoshoots and even gets to direct the action. He has, according to his non-porn friends, "the best job in the world". But Godfrey Bishop has a problem. Godfrey Bishop is going through the sex drought to end all sex droughts. He hasn't been with a woman in over a year and this knee-twisting frustration is magnified a hundred times by his daily grind.

He feels like Billy Bunter put in charge of the cake shop, only to have the Atkins diet forced upon him at gun point.

Chuck into the mix a twelve girl orgy, a stable of alcoholic co-workers, an angry argumentative feminist, a naked run from justice and an obsessive nutty reader who thinks Godfrey is trying to scupper his chances of marrying the magazine's centre-spread girl and you have Danny King's filthiest and funniest novel yet – according to the back of the book.

Godfrey Bishop has "the best job in the world" – and it's doing his fucking head in.

Influences: A bit of Carry-On, a touch of Benny Hill, and a lots and lots of porn. I’ve worked in the industry for a few years now, but this isn’t an exposé or anything. Just a comic novel set in a world I know a little about.

Crossovers: I was going to have Claire, the stripper/model from Chapter 14 of The Hitman Diaries, as one of the girls in The Pornographer Diaries and have her killed, but when I wrote that chapter it just didn’t fit in what I intended to be a very light book. Therefore, I scrapped that chapter and settled for putting in a letter from Bex, from The Burglar Diaries, at the back of the book. This book has a big crossover with a forthcoming book called White Collar. On pages 26 & 27 of Pornographer, Godfrey talks about the miserable time he had on his former magazine Caravanning after screwing a girl he worked with called Elenor. White Collar enlarges much of this story, but is told from the point of view of his “middle-class PC Oxbridge ponce” boss, a man called Andrew Nolan, who has a few of his own problems.

Development: I adapted this book into a stage show, which played at the C Venues during the 2007 Edinburgh Fringe Festival (see below). It starred Gary Beadle, Jessica Harris and David Squire. Produced by Have A Word Productions. Directed by Kate McCarthy.

Gary Beadle 'hard at work' in The Pornographer Diaries stage play.

From left to right: Kate McCarthy, me, David Swire, Jessica Harris and Gary Beadle

Press reviews:

“maintains the pace and energy of the book... but it is hardly a great intellectual debate from King"
- The Stage

“too crude to be of much value"
- The Times

“surface and shallow"
- Fringe Blogger, US

“rude, nude and crude... entertains and succeeds despite its subject content"
- edinburgh.threeweeks.co.uk

“doesn't really tackle this difficult and controversial subject head on... [but watching a woman in the audience who] looked just like Mary Whitehouse chortle along to every cock, tit and fanny was worth the admission price alone"
- Broadway Baby

Tone: The show is meant to be an un-PC farce intended to make the audience titter and laugh, rather than tackle any weighty or serious issues. Amusingly, most ‘professional critics’ seemed to miss this point (as you can see from the above reviews) despite sitting in an auditorium full of juvenile chuckling. The following are some audience responses to The Times’s two star review.

Audience responses:

“Your [Robert Dawson Scott of The Times] review is a bit harsh. This is the best thing I’ve seen so far. The audience was great the night I went and Gary's (EastEnder's Paul) performance was brilliant. Perfect for Edinburgh, captures the atmosphere. Don't miss it.”
- Kate Williams, London, England

“Great show, very funny. The best thing I have seen at Edinburgh so far.”
- Andy Craig, London

“I agree with Kate, why only two stars? This play is a comedy, it's about some interesting subjects, well worth analysing – the lamentable progress of pornography to become acceptable and even mainstream – but it is written for laughs and the audience loved it belly laughing throughout. I think that your review should concentrate on how funny this play is and conclude with whether it succeeds in making those of us who paid for a ticket feel like we got a good chuckle and our monies worth (I certainly did). I’d just like to add that I love plays where two or three people play all the characters such as The Pornographer Diaries or Stones in His Pockets. I don't know if this is done because of a tight budget but if the actors are good enough the results are hilarious and a delight to watch. Well done especially to Jessica Harris who does every female character. A riot, great laughs to be had.”
- hobart paving, Leeds, UK

Foreign translations: Also published/to be published in Russian by AST, Italian by Kowalski and Taiwanese by Sharp Point.