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Larry Lamb on making his indie author debut, All Wrapped Up
The Gavin & Stacey and EastEnders actor is making his indie author debut not long after the hit sitcom smashed audience records for its Christmas Day finale – and he’s enjoying life as a debut writer, he tells Tom Tivnan
Larry Lamb and I are about half an hour into our chat about his debut novel, All Wrapped Up – and the man can chat: he is funny, a raconteur; think an affable London geezer mixed with Peter Ustinov – when I steer the conversation to Gavin & Stacey, though I first suggest he might be sick of discussing it.
“Not at all,” he says. “I’m no fool – Gavin & Stacey is why we’re talking. Let’s be serious. And it’s why I’m getting invited to Hay, the Borders Festival, Cheltenham, Henley… They want bums on seats, right?”
Lamb played Mick Shipman, father of the titular Gavin, from 2007 until the much-loved show’s huge Christmas special sign-off last year, which, with 19.3 million viewers, was the most-watched scripted TV programme in Britain since accurate records began. Thus, it is currently what Lamb is most recognised for of his 200-plus stage and screen credits across a nearly 50-year career, though his dastardly Archie Mitchell in EastEnders – killed with a blow to the head by a bust of Queen Victoria in the ‘doof, doof’ ending of the Christmas Day episode in 2009 – remains a close second.
In the past year or so, Lamb has fielded Gavin & Stacey questions “from almost everyone I ran into”, but those people’s follow-ups convinced him he was on the right course with his novel. He says: “Last autumn I was at this posh lunch at the Old Bailey with all these fine legal minds, and they all wanted to know about the Gavin & Stacey finale. But then they would ask about the behind the scenes on sets. I get asked this all the time – people really want to know how the sausage gets made. And it just so happens I’ve written a book about it.”
But not non-fiction, though Lamb coyly admits “a few of my experiences are in there”. All Wrapped Up is centred around the first assistant director of an indie film that has started shooting on a Caribbean island, just as the rumblings of a coup begin. There is a monstrously self-absorbed lead actor, the suits back home are getting tight with the money, then a crew member mysteriously disappears.
‘Sets are full of drama because even little things can tip you over – the weather, the budget suddenly drying up – and you are so vulnerable’
Lamb had the idea for some time: “Maybe from the first set I was on. I love acting, but I realised right away that the crew are the unsung heroes: the electricians, set builders, wardrobe, caterers… regular working people who happen to be doing something people find fascinating. I’ve thrown romance and action into the book, but sets are full of drama because even little things can tip you over – airplane noise overhead, the weather, the budget suddenly drying up – and you are so vulnerable.”
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Though he has been traditionally published before with his 2011 memoir Mummy’s Boy (Hodder), Lamb is self-publishing All Wrapped Up through indie author publishing services company Softwood Books. He says: “At first I drew back, thinking I’d hate for this to be seen as some kind of vanity project. Then I thought I was being stupid. A lot of people have helped me on the book and I’d be letting them down as well as myself. Plus, it’s a story I’ve always wanted to tell, so I should just get on with it.”
‘I was working in an amateur production in Canada, and 20 months later I was on Broadway. It was like being a boy in a park playing football and suddenly getting to Wembley’
One reason the story resonates for Lamb is it reflects his own upbringing in working-class Edmonton, Greater London. Lamb had a turbulent childhood, though, with an abusive father and a mother who eventually abandoned the family. After leaving school, Lamb was a lorry driver then had a globe-trotting career in the oil and energy industries. But he had a keen interest in acting. In his late 20s, he was working in Canada rebuilding power-line systems when he went to an audition “and all of a sudden I was a professional actor. I was working in an amateur production in Eastern Canada, and 20 months later I was on Broadway. It was like being a boy in a park playing football and dreaming of Wembley, then suddenly getting there but not being better than he was in the park. I mean, I was all right, but some nights I was just hanging on… it was maybe 30 years of working [at the craft] until I felt comfortable”.
He is more comfortable with his entry to novel writing, buoyed partly by early positive responses and a packed schedule of events at bookshops and the aforementioned festivals. He is doing a few turns in tandem with playwright Camilla Barnes. Lamb and Barnes had previously tried to get a play off the ground for a series of her short stories but were frustrated, so Barnes went back to the drawing board, repurposing the project as a novel, with Simon & Schuster now publishing The Usual Desire to Kill in April. He says: “We’re doing a thing where she talks about helping me get my book off the ground and me helping her get her book off the ground. We’ll have a great time. This is all very exciting and humbling for me, a lowly aspiring novelist.”
Metadata
Imprint Softwood Books
Publication 15th April 2025
Formats PB (9781838173562, £9.99);
EB (9781838173579, £5.99)
