The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass
A series of works by British Christian humourist Adrian Plass based on his own day-to-day experiences, depicting a fictionalised version of himself as the main character - a husband and father and member of a Charismatic church perpetually getting caught up in the latest crazes and events, written in the form of a diary. The title is of course a pun on The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole.
It began as a regular magazine column, but has led to several volumes:
- The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass Aged 37¾
- The Horizontal Epistles of Andromeda Veal
- The Theatrical Tapes of Leonard Thynn
- The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass, Christian Speaker, aged 45¾
- The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass On Tour, age far too much to be put on the front cover of a book
The main cast besides Plass himself consists of his wife Anne, their son Gerald and Adrian's recovering alcoholic friend Leonard Thynn, but beyond that there are Loads and Loads of Characters.
- Absurdity Ascendant: Often.
- "Buy a tree-frog and call it Kaiser Bill"
- Richard Cook's "pictures", which he claims are heavenly revelations, tend to fall into this area, such as a vision of a jellyfish named Stewart nailed to a dartboard with a dagger.
- Acronym and Abbreviation Overload: Two characters in a sketch written by Gerald in Theatrical Tapes are prone to this.
Richard (complaining the sketch was unrealistic): All that stuff about acronyms was completely O.T.T.
- Alliteration: At one point Adrian becomes obsessed with giving a talk with three alliterative points because it's all the rage, but after coming up with "Humility" and "Holiness", is stuck. He unwisely turns to Gerald and Leonard for help, who suggest Henry Cooper, Haggis, Horstead Keynes...
- Composite Character: Gerald - the real Adrian Plass has four children.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Leonard Thynn
- Eccentric Mentor: Edwin Burlesford and Frank Braddock
- Embarrassing First Name: Stenneth Flushpool, who was so named because his parents couldn't agree on whether to call him Kenneth or Stanley and the hard-of-hearing vicar as the christening heard the medley as a portmanteau.
- Vladimir Spool, a very English Anglican vicar, so named because his father was a Russian vodka salesman.
- The Fundamentalist: Richard Cook is a harmless example, his wife Doreen...less so.
- Henpecked Husband: Stenneth Flushpool
- Kwyjibo: Thynn at one point insists that "vquex" is a valid Scrabble word, claiming it's a cross between a ferret and a giraffe. Gerald objects on the grounds that the mating act between the two would be physically impossible.
- No Except Yes: Mrs Thynn (Leonard's mother) maintains that she's not deaf, she just sometimes can't hear you.
- Noodle Incident: We never get a satisfactory explanation for why Leonard keeps borrowing Adrian's cat, though we are told that it involves a reel-to-reel tape recorder.
- Ridiculous Procrastinator: Adrian at times.
- Self-Deprecation: Plass writes his fictionalised version as hapless and slow on the uptake. This was Lampshaded in a Mind Screw moment when the fictional Plass got to see a production of The Theatrical Tapes of Leonard Thynn (which was of course written about the same version of the character) and was insulted by his portrayal (as was Thynn, who was offended at being played as a Cloudcuckoolander).
- Single-Issue Wonk: Stephanie Wigeon only ever seems to say one thing (that a church is a group of people not a building) and keeps telling people it as though she's never said it before.
- Spoonerism: After having accidentally signed up to give a children's talk, Adrian immediately puts his foot on it by starting with a spoonerism-
Adrian: Once upon a time there was a crappy little gab called Hordon - I mean a happy little crab called Gordon!
- Wham! Episode: Adrian comes to look past his own problems when Cool Old Lady Kitty Bird passes away in an emotional scene.