Dead Famous by Ben Elton

Ben Elton's "Dead Famous" is a satirical novel that combines elements of comedy and crime writing to critique the world of reality television and the modern obsession with fame. The story revolves around a fictional reality TV show called "House Arrest," where ten strangers are confined to a house, their every move filmed by thirty cameras and forty microphones, and broadcast to the public. The premise is a clear parody of shows like "Big Brother," highlighting the public's voyeuristic tendencies and the often shallow nature of the contestants. The show's slogan, **"One house. Ten contestants. Thirty cameras. Forty microphones. One survivor,"** foreshadows the dark turn the story takes.

The novel introduces a diverse cast of characters, each embodying different stereotypes and desires for fame. These include:

* **David**, an actor seeking recognition, whose last job was in a pantomime two years prior.
* **Jazz**, a trainee chef.
* **Garry**, a "geezer" with a criminal past.
* **Layla**, a spiritual poet.
* **Kelly**, who is excited to be on the show.
* **Dervla**, who seeks serenity.
* **Moon**, who claims to be a trapeze artist.
* **Woggle**, an activist with unconventional views.
* **Hamish**, who tries to avoid being noticed.
* **Sally**, covered in tattoos.

The initial days of "House Arrest" follow the typical reality TV format: the housemates interact, form alliances and rivalries, and reveal their personalities. The cameras capture their mundane activities, such as cooking, cleaning, and arguing. The show's producers, led by the ruthless Geraldine Hennessy, manipulate the footage to create compelling narratives, turning ordinary people into heroes and villains. They "shoot the script," meaning they decide on a story line and then look for footage to support it. The narrator, Andy, adds dramatic flair to even the most boring of events, further showcasing how TV distorts reality.

However, the dynamics of the show are disrupted when **one of the contestants, Kelly, is murdered inside the house**. The seemingly impossible nature of the murder — committed under the constant watch of the cameras — creates a central mystery. The police, led by the weary and cynical Detective Chief Inspector Coleridge, are brought in to investigate. Coleridge, a man of traditional values, is a stark contrast to the modern, fame-obsessed world of the show. He finds the entire spectacle ridiculous and struggles to understand why people are so drawn to it.

As the investigation unfolds, the novel explores themes of media manipulation and the superficiality of reality TV. The police discover that the show's producers are not just passive observers but active manipulators. They manipulate the housemates' images, and create narratives for entertainment, regardless of the truth. The series editor, Bob Fogarty, reveals that he went into television to edit serious content, but has ended up documenting the lives of "ten deluded fools". He admits that the show is essentially fiction built in the edit.

The housemates themselves are also revealed to be more complex than their initial portrayals. David, the actor, is desperate for fame and resents the show's manipulation. Layla, the spiritual poet, is revealed to be self-absorbed and deeply affected by being the first evicted. Garry has a criminal past and is dealing with issues related to his son. Woggle, despite his unconventional views, becomes a fan favorite because of the way the show portrays him. Moon, who is initially perceived as quirky, is prone to telling lies. Sally, who appears tough and muscular, has a traumatic past.

The murder investigation exposes several potential motives and suspects. Some of the suspects include:
* **David**, who clashes with Kelly about a secret they share
* **Garry**, who is humiliated by Kelly
* **Hamish**, who has a drunken encounter with Kelly
* **Sally**, who has a history of violence
* **Layla**, who was nominated by Kelly
* **Woggle**, who is wanted by the police

However, the true killer is revealed to be someone outside the house, but deeply connected to the show: **the producer, Geraldine Hennessy.** Geraldine is a ruthless and ambitious woman who cares only about ratings and profit. Her motive stems from her frustration with her job and the missed profit opportunity from Kelly's death. Geraldine orchestrates the murder by exploiting her access to the house, the camera system, and the edited tapes. She uses an instant heat pack to write messages to Dervla on the two-way mirror, then she kills Kelly, following the sequence that was filmed for her own video.

The revelation of Geraldine as the murderer underscores the novel’s central critique of reality television. The pursuit of fame and profit has corrupted not only the contestants, but also those behind the scenes. The show, which began as an "experiment in social interaction", has become a dark and twisted game where human lives are expendable. The book highlights the public’s obsession with fame and the media’s willingness to exploit tragedy for entertainment. The show’s popularity increases after the murder, emphasizing the public's morbid curiosity.

In the end, the police finally unravel the mystery. It is discovered that a cameraman, Carlisle, who was obsessed with Dervla, was writing threatening messages to her on the two-way mirror. The messages, combined with Kelly's knowledge of David's secret, and Geraldine's ambition and ruthlessness all converge to form a motive and the events leading to Kelly's murder. Even after her crime is exposed, Geraldine shows no remorse. The remaining housemates agree to go back into the house for the opportunity to become more famous, showing the power of the desire for fame.

The novel also explores the theme of identity. Many characters are not who they seem. The housemates try to create a persona for the cameras but are often revealed to be flawed, complex, and sometimes hypocritical. The show's manipulations highlight how easily perceptions of individuals can be altered. The show, and the public, are more interested in the performance than they are in the actual person.

"Dead Famous" is a sharp, funny, and ultimately disturbing look at the dark side of reality television and the lengths people will go to for fame. It’s a thought-provoking commentary on a culture where entertainment often trumps human decency, and where the line between reality and fiction becomes increasingly blurred.

I had never read Ben Elton before picking this book up off one of those charity tables you get in the supermarket. Of course, I've seen his name on the credits of one hit show after another so put my quid in the tin and took this home. I am converted. This book is hilarious, it sums up the cynical way reality shows are produced and the way in which we scorn those who take part whilst secretly harbouring ridiculous ambitions of our own, along with the public's love of a good car crash. The characters feel true to life, the plot is good and the humour is there without trying too hard. A quick read that you will want to finish in one go.

The concept of a murder mystery occurring on a reality TV show makes for a very entertaining read. The characters feel like caricatures at the start (from the vain and vacuous contestants to the curmudgeonly old detective who hates reality TV and doesn't understand the youth of today) which felt a bit grating initially but is quickly redeemed as the characters are fleshed out. Some aspects feel a bit dated but overall it's a fun and gripping read.

Such a good read with a great ending.

So good, so many bombs / cliffhangers dropped throughout and small “chapters” making it an easy, page turner. I’d definitely recommend this book to people and want to read more Ben Elton

A lot of the dialogue seems as though it’s written by an old person pretending to be young. It’s very basic and use the word “wicked” a lot. This might be the point, to show the contestants are one dimensional but with the book being twenty years old and i dont know how old the author was when he wrote this i can’t be sure. I’ll presume it’s intentional. My guess is he’s older than the characters and is despairing at young people of the day.

Reality tv. We all know there is nothing real about it but this book lays bare the thinking behind the weekly segments of so-called real life goldfish bowl existence. The "housemates" appear to have all volunteered because they want to be famous. As appears so common these days they don't want to be famous as or for anything, just famous. The only one who didn't volunteer is Woggle the anarchist, who was persuaded to join by the series' owner and director who wanted an irritant. Woggle doesn't last long because he is wanted by the police for jumping bail but he certainly got everyone irritated, especially by the fleas he brought into the house. Everything is downhill after that as people try to manipulate each other into saying or doing something that will change the way they are portrayed in the weekly summary of activity and conversation.
When I realised how the "house was built with camera tunnels running past two way mirrors and fixed cameras built into ceilings so that there is nowhere you can be out of range of cameras I was sure you would have to be insane to do this. Of course, you are always wearing a microphone so you are always recorded,and the cameras record even in the dark so you have absolutely no physical privacy whatsoever, not even in the bathroom. (The girls know to wear t-shirts and briefs when they take a shower)
This is a character driven book as the various people reveal and hide more and more of who and what they are, then try to spin it to their advantage. I enjoyed the book and the mystery although I did have the murderer fairly early on. That didn't spoil anything.
I would hope that tv presenters don't use the ignorant speaking style of Chloe and I am old fashioned enough to have to develop techniques to skip over swearing and other foul vocabulary.

I remember when Ben Elton was a stand-up comedian and hated pretty much everything that was popular or part of the establishment. Given his history, when “Big Brother” launched in the UK in 2000 and became an immediate hit, it wasn’t a surprise when Elton’s 2001 novel “Dead Famous”, should take aim at such a mainstream television show, although he could possibly have been accused of cashing in on its popularity when “Dead Famous” reached the top of the bestsellers lists, especially as a number of the characters were heavily based on people who had been in the early series of the show.

In “Dead Famous”, there has been a murder in the “House Arrest” house. One of the people in the house has been evicted in the most extreme and permanent of ways. The cameras all showed the moment, although very few people watching were aware of what exactly was going on and, despite all the evidence, the identity of the murderer is unclear, putting all the remaining housemates under suspicion. It is down to Coleridge, an older detective completely out of touch with modern culture, to watch all the stored footage from their time in the house to try and figure out motive, opportunity and culprit.

The best thing about the novel and possibly one of the few good things here, is the way the mystery is presented. Quite early on in the novel, the suspects are all lined up in a row, under “House Arrest” as it were. However, in an interesting twist on a murder mystery, the identity of the victim is not immediately clear and you’re a fair way into the book before you realise which one of the housemates has been killed and much further before you discover the culprit. This is one of the few reasons to keep reading the novel, as by the time you find out who the victim is, you’re already far too invested in the book not to keep reading and find out who the killer was.

It’s a masterful piece of plotting and it does need to be, as much of the rest of the book does not meet the same high level. The characters are fairly one dimensional, although watching much of “Big Brother” gives you much the same impression of the people involved, so maybe this should be a criticism of the type of contestant the TV show attracts more than poor characterisation on Elton’s part. The problem here is that they all blend into one another after a while, without any distinctive visual clues to separate them. They all swear far too much, they’re all guilty of using similar phrases and they rarely have distinctive things to say, apart from occasionally when the Mancunian swears in a Mancunian accent and the Londoner swears in a London accent. Mostly, however, the housemates blend into one another and it’s tough to keep them separate, more so for the men than the women.

Indeed, it is those behind the scenes who turn out to be the most distinctive characters. Coleridge in particular is older and far more out of touch with culture and so it is his cynicism that provides the most entertainment, although he’s so vehemently anti-culture that it sometimes feels as if he’s there solely to provide Ben Elton with an outlet for his own feelings and act as a method of getting out some of the one-liners he would have produced on stage if he was still doing stand-up. The show’s producer, whilst having a mouth at least as foul as the housemates, has a grit and determination that sets her apart from them, appropriately enough as the person who is controlling them.

The end of the novel came as something of a let-down as well. Whilst the murder and the unmasking of the murderer are a wonderful piece of invention, they are entirely unrealistic given the relatively “real” world setting of the story. The one-dimensional characters and the desires of the producers to create artificial situations in order to drive viewing figures are, whilst a little ridiculous, are at least in keeping with the type of show the novel is based upon. The way things ended, however, were just a step too far away from even the fake reality of the show the novel is based upon and just added an additional layer of fantasy that muddied the waters into what was reality and what was reality television.

This is a very quick and easy read, although if you’re not a fan of “Big Brother” and the likes, you’re liable to find it a little vacuous, particularly as most of the book is set around what is going on in the house. That said, for a fan of the show, it probably reads better now than it would have done when it came out, as you won’t necessarily be as immediately able to draw the comparisons between the supposedly fictional characters and their counterparts in the early series of “Big Brother”. For all Elton’s dislike of the show comes through in Coleridge, there is ample evidence here that the research for “Dead Famous” potentially involved as detailed a watching of some of the early “Big Brother” as Coleridge was forced to in the course of his murder investigation.

To be honest, even with all the pitfalls, I did enjoy “Dead Famous”. It’s not terribly well written, it doesn’t have great characters and it has a ridiculous denouement, but it is still somehow quite gripping. The set up for the story is far better than the execution and manages to be enough to save the novel as a whole from being dreadful. It’s something that would pass a long journey or a beach holiday decently enough, as it’s something you can read and enjoy whilst leaving your brain on idle enough to still relax.

I am laying in bed, wedged firmly in between my two sleeping daughters (and one husband) desperately wishing I owned this book in ebook form.

Alas, I bought the hard copy and it is sitting in the lounge room where it will have to remain, unfinished, until tomorrow.

Can you tell I have enjoyed the book.

I have heard it said that Ben Elton becomes repetitive in his books. I have to agree, but I enjoy it, I love it. He has a way of mocking types of people by caricaturing them in his writing. He makes them overexcited, over zealous, amped, singular, unable to see past their own needs. This theme has carried through all three books that I have read... But I still enjoy it.

This particular story follows the police investigation of a murder in a "Big Brother" style television house. The story opens with the investigation underway as the detective-in-charge is familiarising himself with the contestants of the house, the suspects. It is a who-dunit with a twist, it isn't until half way through the book that we, the reader, learn exactly who was murdered and how they managed to do it under the gaze of cameras, producers, technicians, and a live Internet feed.

I can't wait to find out the end... Okay I can wait, but barely, and only because I have to get up early.

Ben Elton writes stories that are incredibly engaging, I love his caricatures. I am a fan of his books, and this book is no exception.

An insider's extremely cynical view of reality TV. One of the very few stories I have read where a non-linear structure actually enhances the experience. The writing style itself is a bit jarring and aggressive resembling a gossip column. But the story could not have been written in any other way.
In some ways reading the story was a bit like watching reality TV. At the time, I did feel like I was reading trash about 1D characters. But it was addictive fun and there were a series of well crafted reveals until the end when I felt like I wanted to read some more.

I truly enjoyed every moment of this book. A brilliantly written humour-mystery fiction by none other than Ben Elton.

I like how the story was not in chapters but instead in a skipping timeline, in which you read or watch different perspectives of the characters pre and post murder.

Nitpicking part!

There is one thing I noticed though and it is an inconsistency in the story. It was during a little back story of Sally Copple where it was revealed that her mother murdered her own husband and with that was a description of the mother's skin color, which was revealed to be black then we can assume that Sally too is a black woman.

Then, the final revelation came in the last few pages of the story is that Geraldine, the villain of the story, actually role played every female contestant in the house prior to the start of the show with wigs to match the hair or the lack thereof of the females in the house. Now, it was revealed that most of the footage were destroyed after Kelly's murder (you'll know what I'm talking about if you've read the book)

But it wasn't until Patricia or Trisha, one of the detectives in the story, recreated what Geraldine had done to cover up the story. She roleplayed all of the females with the correct hairstyles for it to be recorded and to setup Geraldine. This was then shown to the public — but here's the inconsistent part. Sally was a black woman and I assume Trisha isn't. How did she or Geraldine managed to think/managed to fool the public thinking she or they were actually Sally, if they didn't have the same skin color.

Anyway, I normally automatically dislike a book with inconsistent but I can overlook this one, I liked it. Solid four stars.

From the Goodreads Blurb: One house, ten contestants, thirty cameras, forty microphones, one murder ... and no evidence. Dead Famous is a killer read from Ben Elton – Reality TV as you've never seen it before.

I read this book years ago, and given my antipathy toward the whole """Reality TV"" genre, I thought this might be a good book to add to our Lutrecia/Maggee Read-alouds pile. Lutrecia wasn't taken with the admittedly unpleasant cast of contestants, so Maggee and I read the book on our own. The contestants don't get much more appealing, but the pace of the book picks up after the murder.

We see very distinctive echoes of Inspector Fowler from THE THIN BLUE LINE in the character of Inspector Coleridge, but we are big fans of THE THIN BLUE LINE so that was okay.

This was book #5 on our 2023 Read-alouds List.

These days, it feels like everyone wants to be Dead Famous, which is not only the title but also the premise of this great Ben Elton book.

“One house. Ten contestants. Thirty cameras. Forty microphones, one survivor” so runs the publicity blurb for the latest series of “House Arrest” brought to you by esteemed TV producer Geraldine Hennessy. 10 fame hungry wannabee’s enter the house for what is potentially the final series of this Big Brother rip off reality TV show, and everything settles down very quickly to the standard format for such programmes. Then, out of the blue, one of the contestants is murdered and, in a house locked off from the outside world, suspicion falls upon the remaining housemates.

I would like to think that if Agatha Christie was alive today she would be writing books like Dead Famous. There is much about the story that is familiar to readers of her work. A closed off location, a dead body who, in life, was disliked by everyone else. A set of suspects who portray themselves one way but have many secrets hidden inside. And, in Chief Inspector Coleridge, a detective quite out of step with the modern world. What could be more Christie than this?
However, Ben Elton isn’t a Christie imitator, but he does know both the rules of the detective story and the effect on reality television on the general public. The inmates in House Arrest are all characters we can easily recognise from any reality show currently doing the rounds, which gives the reader an instant connection and, at least on a superficial level, understanding of each of them. However, as in all good detective stories, each character has more levels to their personality than is at first apparent.

Ben’s writing style is relaxed and easy meaning that the reader can concentrate on the action taking place and trying to work out initially, who the murder victim was. This is a nice trick as we know someone is dead from Chapter 1 but don’t find out who the victim is until over halfway through the book. Once we know who is dead. And can understand who may have had it in for them, we can then concentrate on working out who the actual murderer is and how they pulled off the villainous deed.

I have to say that the final denouement is expertly written and delivered with a truly fabulous twist that once you see it, makes complete sense. My only criticism of the ending was the unnecessary introduction of a little revenge plot that didn’t add much to the narrative and was really a pointless sideshow I felt.

However, all in all, a good old fashioned/bang up to date whodunnit that is full of well written characters and keeps you guessing right up the final J’accuse moment.

I enjoyed and disliked this book in starts and stops. I liked the premise on the blurb, then I found the beginning of the book slow as none of the characters were likeable, and on top of that, there was a stinking, omnipresent haze of vulgarity and banal triviality that made me want to tear my hair out. Then as the investigation progressed, the characters got pretty damn interesting, as they learned about one another, and we saw how horribly manipulated the reality television got (which I'm sure also happens in powerful television networks airing reality television).

Then, the vulgarity swamped in again, and I just couldn't stand it any more, also the structure of the plot was unique in that they don't even tell you who was murdered, although they all knew who it was since page one. I stopped the book at the halfway mark.

I think the book requires a thorough cleansing before I can return to it, it is just too icky. The sad thing is that the author had plenty of opportunity to write the same story in which people had basic dignity and could communicate without sounding like airheads. Just an attitude adjustment by the story teller could go a long way.