The Dig Street Festival by Chris Walsh

 

The Dig Street Festival by Chris Walsh.

Published 15th April 2021 by Louise Walters Books.

From the cover of the book:

It’s 2006 in the fictional East London borough of Leytonstow. The UK’s pub smoking ban is about to happen, and thirty-eight-and-a-half year old John Torrington, a mopper and trolley collector at his local DIY store, is secretly in love with the stylish, beautiful, and middle-class barmaid Lois. John and his hapless, strange, and down-on-their-luck friends, Gabby Longfeather and Glyn Hopkins, live in Clements Markham House - a semi-derelict Edwardian villa divided into unsanitary bedsits, and (mis)managed by the shrewd, Dickensian business man, Mr Kapoor. 

When Mr Kapoor, in a bizarre and criminal fluke, makes him fabulously credit-worthy, John surprises his friends and colleagues alike by announcing he will organise an amazing ‘urban love revolution’, aka the Dig Street Festival. But when he discovers dark secrets at the DIY store, and Mr Kapoor’s ruthless gentrification scheme for Clements Markham House, John’s plans take several unexpected and worrisome turns…

Funny, original, philosophical, and unexpectedly moving, The Dig Street Festival takes a long, hard, satirical look at modern British life, and asks of us all, how can we be better people?

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Welcome to the fictional East London borough of Leytonstow. Through the eyes of mopper, trolley collector and part-time poet/novelist John Torrington, Chris Walsh takes us on a rather surreal adventure through the highways and byways of this corner of London in the company of John's faithful, if sometimes reluctant, sidekicks Gabby Longfeather and Glyn Hopkins, and introduces us to a whole cast of vibrant and intriguing characters.

John, Gabby and Glyn live a somewhat below par existence in bedsits at the decrepit Clements Markham House, along with their elderly neighbours, at the mercy of their dodgy landlord Mr Kapoor. Wannabe rock god, and hopelessly sheltered, Gabby lives on the largesse of the council, but Glyn and John work as the lowest of the low at the local DIY store, and they all do the best they can to get by, occasionally trying to recreate Scott's expedition to the South Pole in their leisure time - when they are not drinking at the local pub, where John gazes from afar at the glamorous barmaid Lois, Glyn hides his magazines of a certain genre under the chair in not quite opaque carrier bags, and Gabby puts his not so hard earned cash into the juke-box.

They may be a unusual bunch of misfits, but their hearts are in the right place, so when John discovers shady dealings both at work and on the home front, it looks like it is going to be up to him and his friends to put things right - especially if he is to win the heart of the lovely Lois. Using an unexpected windfall, John sets about organising the Dig Street Festival as a big urban love-in and way to improve the lot of all the deserving on his home turf, and inadvertently sets in motion a series of madcap events with very unexpected consequences...

The Dig Street Festival is the zaniest and most hilarious book I have read for a very long time. Imagine a weird mash-up of Withnail and I; Only Fools and Horses; the mostly improvised stage shows of Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmonson's Bottom; the irreverent and guffaw inducing Tom Sharpe books; and a Tolstoy novel - but with a lot more hugging. However strange this sounds, you come up with something full of the most wonderful characters, and the kind of story lines that give you barrels of laugh out loud moments alongside those deep and memorable in the feels scenes that you hold in your heart for ever.

There are times here where you feel there is a bit too much going on, and although I can understand exactly why Walsh has crammed so much into his novel, I feel that he might have been better off taking a leaf out of John's book and covering a bit less ground in his debut - holding a bit back for another Leystonstow novel perhaps, or even some short stories set in the same borough. There are lots of lovely themes to engage with in this book, which Walsh explores beautifully, and I would be interested to read a bit more about some of the characters on the side-lines whose stories were not shown in full in these pages. My favourite theme is the way he shows you should never make assumptions about people from what you see on the surface - very good advice indeed!

This really is one of those books where you are sorry to get to the final page, even though the ending is a triumph of lovely, touching gorgeousness, because you feel like you have been on an all encompassing journey of discovery alongside the characters, and have made firm friends of them. I am nowhere near ready to let go of John, Gabby and Glyn and their frequent hugs yet, so really hope that Walsh will regale is with some more tales from Leytonstow in the future. 

If you are looking for something that will induce laughter and tears, fill you will life-affirming joy, and make you think really hard about what lies in the secret hearts of those around you, then this is definitely going to be the book for you!

The Dig Street Festival is available to buy now from your favourite book retailer in paperback and e-book formats, or via the links below:

Louise Walters Books     Amazon Uk     Foyles     Waterstones     Book Depository     Kobo

Thank you to Louise Walters Books for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Emma Welton of Damp Pebbles Tours for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Chris Walsh grew up in Middlesbrough and now lives in Kent. He writes both fiction and non-fiction, an example of which you can read here in May 2020's Moxy Magazine.

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Chris's debut novel The Dig Street Festival will be published by Louise Walters Books in April 2021. 

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Chris's favourite novel is Stoner by John Williams and his favourite novella is The Death of Ivan Illyich by Leo Tolstoy. His top poet is Philip Larkin. He is also a fan of Spike Milligan.