Adrian Mole's embarrassing (for him) mum, Sue Townsend's inspired creation is a few years older than moi, but we have the same seminal influences. Germaine Greer's "The Female Eunuch" really did change my life, as it did hers. To the point where, in the Upper VIth, I wrote a short feminist play called "Germaine, or Yes We Have No Bananas". The clever, funny Sue Townsend, who has just left us, claimed that there was a lot of Adrian in her, but I suspect there was a lot more of Pauline. Pauline thought that Adrian was totally self-absorbed, but Adrian maybe understood his mum more than she knew.
"I only got one Valentine's Day card. It was in my mother's handwriting so it doesn't count."
("The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾")
"My mother's ideal son would be intense and saturnine. He would go to a school for the Intellectually Precocious. He would fascinate girls and women at an early age, he would enthral visitors with his witty conversation. He would wear his clothes with panache, he would be completely non-sexist, non-agist, non-racist (His best friend would be an old African woman). He would win a scholarship to Oxford, he would take the place by storm and be written about in future biographies. He would turn down offers of safe parliamentary seats in Britain. Instead, he would go to South Africa and lead the blacks into a successful revolution. He would return to England where he would be the first man deemed fit to edit Spare Rib. He would move in sparkling social circles. He would take his mother everywhere he went."
("The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole")
"My mother said 'Adrian, you'll be thirty-one in a couple of months. I know you've had sex at least twice, but you don't seem to know the first thing about lust.' "
("Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years")
"As my mother was getting back into the car, a youth in a top with the hood pulled over his face approached her and said, 'Yo, woman, do you wanna score some draw?'
My mother said 'Not today, thank you,' as if she was refusing a Betterware catalogue."
("Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction")
"I told her that she couldn't possibly stay at the Piggeries on her own.
She said 'I'm not on my own; I've got Animal with me.'
I said that she couldn't stay with Animal because he was, without wishing to be rude, an animal.
She said 'Au contraire, he's one of nature's gentlemen.' "
("Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction")
Alison Steadman did Pauline justice with her interpretation in the television versions of the various stages of Adrian's progress through life.If there is ever a biopic of Sue Townsend, Alison Steadman is the only choice to play her. I think I shall write to the BBC's Head of Drama and suggest it.
