(New)man vs Establishment: Rob Newman on his new novel

In the early 90s, not many would have foreseen the trajectory of Rob Newman's career. Part of an alternative comedy scene the media labelled ‘the new rock’n’roll,’ he sold out the 12,000-seat Wembley Arena with then comedy partner David Baddiel, commanding a level of success completely plausible in the post-Michael McIntyre era, but revolutionary for the time. However, in the wake of his and Baddiel’s reportedly inevitable split, Newman took a wildly different path: eschewing the commercial success of his past, he not so much reinvented himself as used comedy to express the politically astute, anti-establishment opinions he had always held.

Moving into the 00s and, alongside multiple shows cementing his place among fellow ‘activist comedians’, Newman has also become a respected novelist. His fourth and latest book is The Trade Secret, a historical adventure story brimming with danger and the pursuit of riches in exotic locations. This may seem fairly removed from Newman's political concerns, but one finds upon delving into the novel many of the same themes that have come to define his comedy.

We caught up with Newman to ask him how the project came about: “Before you find your story and characters there is a notion of the sort of book you want to write,” he explains. “I knew I wanted to write a historical novel, I knew I wanted it to be an adventure story, and I knew the grit in the oyster would have to be a real-life event involving a real-life character.”

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“I think the experience of having written visual gags and of having watched a lot of slapstick was, strange to say, a great help in writing action scenes” – Rob Newman

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The novel is clearly the product of much research, nine years in the making according to Newman. “I had a great stroke of luck in the British Library Rare Books & Music Room. I stumbled upon a great lost story about Sir Anthony Sherley, who leads this party of Elizabethans who stumble upon petroleum, coffee and messenger pigeons. None of which interest him, but they do interest his teenage servant Nat Bramble, the novel’s hero, who embezzles Sir Anthony’s money and then, with his friend Darius, sets off to find his fortune in the secret oil well under a ruined Temple of Mithras.”

This friendship is the core of the novel and leads the reader into the origins of the oil industry and global corporations, topics Newman has previously explored in stand-up shows such as A History of Oil. The Trade Secret is concerned with specifics, such as the idiosyncratic moments that lead to the rise and fall of men and nations, but in a broader sense it portrays timeless issues, like the exploitation that is recycled in various forms as the base of capitalism. This is never achieved didactically though. Instead, it is Nat and Darius’s existence as lower-caste citizens and the various tragedies that befall them as a result that illustrate the pervasive, persecuting forces at work within society.

The choice to make the whole thing an adventure story is bold, and it's what Newman chooses to focus upon when I ask him about the meeting place between his stand-up and writing. He tells me, “Writing action scenes is like writing gags. For example, I was stumped by a particular escape scene, and what helped me solve it was remembering a Buster Keaton rule. I think the experience of having written visual gags and of having watched a lot of slapstick was, strange to say, a great help in writing action scenes.”

In truth then, and with the benefit of hindsight, this new aspect of Newman's career actually feels perfectly logical. From alternative comedian to activist comedian to politically engaged novelist, he seems to have developed increasingly better vehicles for investigating those issues at the very bedrock of how we live. The Trade Secret is his latest, and you can see him reading from it in Liverpool on 5 June.