The Ups and Downs of Act Breaks by Jeremy Fnorp

Title: The Ups and Downs of Act Breaks 

Author: Jeremy Fnorp

Publisher: not known 

Source book: The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde (Thursday Next #3)

One could argue that Jeremy Fnorp’s book could also be titled ‘the ups and downs of ad breaks’, because people are far more likely to watch TV these days than go to the theatre. Programme makers may think in acts but normal people not so much.

Never mind that, we all know that something important will happen just before the act/ad break: most commonly the stupid cop will arrest the wrong suspect when all our favourite characters know he’s got the wrong guy (and so do we). If he’s particularly stupid he’ll arrest someone new just before the next ad break…. But also commonplace, Jeremy Fnorp tells us, is the “police officer being suspended by reluctant boss” trope.

This is particularly pertinent in The Well of Lost Plots when Thursday is moved to ‘less demanding duties’ by her boss The Bellman after losing her mentor, Miss Havisham (from Great Expectations), who died tragically racing Mr Toad (from The Wind in the Willows) on Pendine Sands in South Wales. Miss Havisham had a passion for speed… but was someone out to get her?

Well, anyway, these things happen. But luckily they usually get sorted out before the final curtain. Or the end of the programme.

Also featured in The Well of Lost Plots is The Hardest Job in Fiction by The Bellman. The Bellman is a character in The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carrol, but he was also head of Jurisfiction for 20 years. If you haven’t read a Thursday Next book it’s probably best not to ask.

Photographs by me