It's the live episode of a dying TV show and it definitely won't be all right on the night. Rob Jones, Head Script Writer and struggling novelist, finds himself caught up in a television drama that's so bizarre he wouldn't dare to have written it. But then again, he shouldn't be surprised - life's all a bit bite the wax tadpole, isn't it? He had planned to be the next Dylan Thomas but somehow Rob has only succeeded in shifting from old South Wales to New South Wales and becoming a writer of soap operas. Poems and novels languish, sobbing, in desk drawers as the need to pay the mortgage and the school fees and all the etcs of a suburban life take precedence. But perhaps Rob's reached the Inciting Incident of his story - his wife is unexpectedly pregnant, his slightly bonkers mistress wants to run away to a Greek Island and the 20th anniversary live episode of "Rickety Street" (written by Rob and his big hope for a Writers' Guild Award") is fast approaching. With life imitating art - albeit bad art - the story also includes the ghost of a Shakespearean actor, a producer with a drug habit, the threat from a dastardly reality show, a cross-eyed evil twin (no, really), and a suicidal superannuated maintenance man. And a kangaroo. Sort of. And why are the police watching the studio? All will be revealed at the special time of 7.30 on Channel 8. If you only read one comic novel this year, be sure to read this one

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