Teenage Revolution by Alan Davies

Book Review by Daniel Gray | 18 Nov 2010
Book title: Teenage Revolution
Author: Alan Davies

 

This cheekily charming sweep through a decade does not say anything new yet makes for compelling reading. Davies uses portraits of wide-ranging heroes - from Pat Jennings to Sophocles via Woody Allen – as a conduit for anecdotal autobiographical detail. The result is a colourful, surprisingly in-depth account of his teenage years, those when a male is ‘no longer a boy, not quite a man, often a prat’. His style is, at times, fittingly that of a breathless and enthusiastic schoolboy; the result is a conversational tone as if the reader has been accosted in a pub by someone interesting, for once. If the narrative is familiar to those who experienced the 1980s, it may also spring little surprise for those who didn’t: Teenage Revolution is a re-badged version of Davies’ book My Favourite People launched to coincide with a Channel Four miniseries. Davies’ words are often attractively tender, especially when discussing the premature death of his mother, and endearingly witty. Student-ish political discourse on Thatcher or the CND never grates as a tale about, for instance, snogging Bobby Moore’s daughter, is always over the page. Well worth losing yourself in.

 

Out now. Published by Penguin. Cover price £8.99