Yardsticks For Failure: Adventures in Friendship and Fluster

I’ve had a lot of changes to my hangover habits over the years. There were the Hot Fuzz years of my youth, Dazed and Confused when I discovered wine, and the Lord of the Rings now that I usually seek out a big cry.

These days I turn to the Elis James and John Robins podcast. I specifically seek out the terrific episodes with Ivo (Eevo) Graham. If you’re a fan of the Elis James and John Robins show, Taskmaster or wordplay, you’ve probably at least heard of Ivo Graham. In this memoir released only a couple of months ago, Graham reflects on some of the many failures of the recent years - and indeed, many successes. As with his comedy, in his own words, the book is a “steaming word soup” of word-play, alliteration and call-backs, which reflects his absolutely perfect blend of fluster and mania, paired with ambition and hope.

I listened to the audiobook read by Graham himself, and his delivery is as superb as his writing.

One of my favourite parts of the book, is his spectacular eye for “do you know what would be good?…” and is constantly going the extra mile in the stories in the book. Often he comes just short of his lofty dreams, but just once in a while he plays a blinder. There are a few stories - for instance - of trips to supermarkets he’d make in the interval of his own shows. In one instance, he talks to a audience member in the proceeding part who eats a different breakfast cereal every day of the week, and as a spectacular finale, Ivo acquires a box of every one of them to round out the end of the show with the theme from Happy Days (Sunday, Monday, happy days). This is exemplary of his above-and-beyond attitude to work and so much else in his life.

The stories range from triumph like this to disaster, and to tragedy as well. Graham writes with wit and poise in all of these emotional turns, and I’m not exaggerating to say he moved me to tears on a couple of occasions. I started this book liking Ivo Graham from Taskmaster, now I think he’s probably one of my favourite writers and comics. You’ve got to love the feeling of falling in love with a book like this.

Taskmaster fans are well served here too. Like with Adam Buxton’s book before, the whole first chapter is devoted to his performance as one of the most disqualified contestants ever. By way of an example of his perfect style, he writes of the very first prize task, where he underestimates the weight of some water, as:

“An incredibly dense start to the series, and yet nowhere near dense enough.”