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Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Fibber in the Heat by Miles Jupp Miles Jupp – review. W ith a starring role in the award-winning church sitcom Rev, Miles Jupp knows all about devotion. But it's cricket, not God, to which Jupp genuflects in this charming piece, premiered at Edinburgh and now touring. Fibber in the Heat tells the unlikely story of Jupp's posing as a sports journalist on the England cricket team's 2006 tour of India. It's more storytelling than standup, and Jupp's studied English civility ministrates against comic fervour. But it's a likable show that combines to amusing effect Jupp's sense of his own insignificance with the hero worship he lavishes on Messrs Atherton, Botham and Flintoff. The premise – out of date after his recent appearances on Rev, The Thick of It and Have I Got News for You? – is that Jupp is disillusioned with his faltering showbiz career. Touring the arena version of the kids' TV hit Balamory is fine as far as it goes (and Jupp is very droll about his association with that show), but it seriously restricts his freedom to watch the Ashes. So, Jupp cashes in on his media connections (which slightly undermine his claim to journalistic outsiderdom) and bags a gig as chief cricket correspondent of the Western Mail and BBC Radio Scotland. Before you know it, Jupp is hunting with the press pack in Nagpur, and propping up the bar with David Gower. The thrill he experiences from this wrestles with his softly spoken understatement to delicious effect. "Have you ever made David Gower giggle?" he asks us. "It's amazing ." There's not much that's extraneous in this elegantly constructed tale, most of whose mots are juste. Jupp's dream job curdles when BBC Scotland won't return his calls, and the Western Mail bales when England's sole Welsh player withdraws. Stuck behind a pillar at the second Test in Chandigarh, Jupp sums up his odd journey: "Four thousand miles to write for nobody about a thing I cannot see." There's nothing profound about the neatly packaged moral Jupp draws from this, about the need to keep your heroes at arm's length. Yet, his tribute to the simple pleasures of fandom is a touching one. It's a measure of the unflappable efficiency with which we've been reeled into his adoration of these cricketing legends that Jupp's eventual Gower-fatigue – "I couldn't get rid of him!" – gets such a big laugh. This tale of a modest ambition realised is itself modest in scope. But like leather on willow on a summer's day, it's also thoroughly congenial. Fibber in the Heat by Miles Jupp: review. Nicholas Blincoe enjoys Miles Jupp's Fibber in the Heat, about the comedian's sojourn in the cricket press corps. The members of the cricket press corps engage the imagination of a certain kind of Englishman the way that superheroes do comic book enthusiasts. Once, there was Johnners, the Professor X of the BBC Test Match Special team, then Blowers, Aggers, Yosser and the semi- detached Boycs, who many suspect is actually a super-villain, while Sky boasts “Lord” Gower, Beefy, Athers and Nasser “Nass” Hussein. In the 2006 Test series between England and India, these heroes were joined by an impostor, Fibbers, alias comedian Miles Jupp, who managed to infiltrate the corps with a plan not much more cunning than simply turning up, dressed in linen. Fibber in the Heat , the story of Jupp’s tour of India, is powered by an infectious enthusiasm. He did what he did because he wanted to watch a lot of cricket. When so many personal stories lean heavily on one-line conceits – a year of celibacy, a year of sluttery, cooking with lard, marrying a fridge – it’s a pleasure to know that, sometimes, people do things out of a sense of adventure rather than the pursuit of a publishing deal. Which is not to say that Fibber in the Heat is entirely conceit-free. Jupp begins by asking us to believe that he is best known for playing an inventor named Archie. As he appears in the sitcoms Rev and The Thick of It , while juggling a successful career in stand-up, to be told that Jupp is famous for something I have never heard of is like being told that Johnny Vegas is better-known as a consultant obstetrician. However, a search of YouTube reveals that Archie was a character on children’s television: a softly spoken Scot in a pink bonnet and kilt. I had heard that Scots look askance at Englishmen prancing around in their national costume so it is testament to Jupp’s charm that he pulled it off; or, indeed, continues to live. In 2002, Jupp was at Edinburgh University studying divinity. He won the part of Archie while still an undergraduate and when the series ended in 2005 with a stadium tour (I know! It’s a whole other world!), he was by no means certain this was the direction his life should take. As Jupp succumbed to doubts, his girlfriend asked what other career left so much time for watching cricket. This led to an epiphany: Jupp realised that joining the travelling press corps would allow for even more cricket, and no one would ever ask him to wear a pink kilt. Thus are great plans born. The book begins with Jupp hoping to scrape accreditation from BBC Scotland and the Wales-based Western Mail . However, BBC Scotland stop taking his calls once he is in India and the Western Mail ’s interest cools when Welsh cricketer Simon Jones flies home injured. Jupp eventually succeeds in getting into the press box, only to discover that he is a natural-born fan, not an analyst. When Geoff Boycott plunges his car keys into the wicket, all Jupp can deduce is the make of Boycs’s car. The Telegraph ’s cricketing correspondent Scyld Berry describes Jupp as “a literary Matthew Hoggard”, which Jupp is fairly hopeful cannot be an insult, while doubting it is actually a compliment. I suspect Berry was reminded of the gnomic bemusement Hoggard showed to every question at the daily press conference. Jupp’s literary style is bemusement-heavy but also rather low-key, skipping lightly around the full drama of a tour which was stand-in captain Freddie Flintoff’s finest hour. Flintoff succeeded in drawing the series, pushing himself to feats that won the title of player of the series, while hastening his rapid physical decline. It is because Jupp is a decent writer and a fine storyteller that one occasionally wishes for more. In the acknowledgements, Jupp reveals that his publisher once boasted that he thought of himself as a DJ rather than an editor and Jupp chose not to sack him. This may have been a mistake. What Jupp does deliver is an intimate peek into the press box; rather too intimate when Boycott crosses his legs wearing a T-shirt and nothing else. But Jupp’s most startling revelation is that there was another impostor in the press box: a professional gambler who was exploiting the 15-second delay in transmission to place bets in the UK. Who would have thought it: a genuine villain among the superheroes? Fibber in the Heat. ** Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award ** Fanatical about cricket since he was a boy, Miles Jupp would do anything to see his heroes play. But perhaps deciding to bluff his way into the press corps during England's Test series in India wasn't his best idea. By claiming to be the cricket correspondent for BBC Scotland and getting a job with the (Welsh) Western Mail, Miles lands the press pass that will surely be the ticket to his dreams. Soon, he finds himself in cricket heaven - drinking with . Read More. ** Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award ** Fanatical about cricket since he was a boy, Miles Jupp would do anything to see his heroes play. But perhaps deciding to bluff his way into the press corps during England's Test series in India wasn't his best idea. By claiming to be the cricket correspondent for BBC Scotland and getting a job with the (Welsh) Western Mail, Miles lands the press pass that will surely be the ticket to his dreams. Soon, he finds himself in cricket heaven - drinking with David Gower and Beefy, sharing bar room banter with Nasser Hussain and swapping diarrhoea stories with the Test Match Special team. But struggling in the heat under the burden of his own fibs, reality soon catches up with Miles as he bumbles from one disaster to the next. A joyous, charming, yet cautionary tale, Fibber in the Heat is for anyone who's ever dreamt about doing nothing but watching cricket all day long. Read Less. All Copies ( 26 ) Softcover ( 26 ) Choose Edition ( 2 ) Book Details Seller Sort. 2012, Ebury Press. Lincoln, UNITED KINGDOM. Edition: 2012, Ebury Press Mass-market paperback, Good Details: ISBN: 0091943124 ISBN-13: 9780091943127 Pages: 352 Publisher: Ebury Press Published: 2012 Alibris ID: 16653903944 Shipping Options: Standard Shipping: €3,74. Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination. Seller's Description: This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside. This book has soft covers. In good all round condition. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item, 500grams, ISBN: 9780091943127.