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Synopsis
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Who’s Afraid of the Booker Prize? is a comedy satire. Its two main characters are Marshall Zob, a well-known contemporary English novelist, and his agent Cornelius Snell.
Zob’s main professional frustration is that although he has frequently been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, he has never actually won it. In the course of the play his latest novel, Gimme the Cash, has recently been longlisted for the next Booker Prize. He and Snell fear that Zob won’t win it, and may not even get it shortlisted, unless some clever publicity scheme is launched. The best that Snell seems to be able to come up with is a reading from the novel conducted at the South Bank complex, where Snell and his assistant Merle, and Zob and his assistant Wye, all take parts in a part-dramatised reading from the book. The plot moves steadily towards this climax.
However, unbeknown to the other three, Snell has planned for and hatched a climax of quite a different kind, calculated to bring maximum TV and press coverage to Marshall Zob with his latest book. He in fact organises a public riot at the South Bank reading.
All characters and the names of works attributed to them are wholly fictitious.
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