The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole - Read by Nicholas Barnes

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ is the first book in the Adrian Mole series of comedic fiction, written by Sue Townsend. It focuses on the worries and regrets of a teenager who believes himself to be an intellectual. The book is written in a diary style and set in 1981 and 1982. It chronicles the supposed intellectual awakening of Adrian Albert Mole, and his wonderings, worries and woes. In the background, it refers to some of the historic world events of the time, such as the Falklands War and the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.

Apart from the sometimes hilarious events described in the diary, a lot of the typical humour originates from the reader immediately seeing through particular observations, while the boy pertinently and naively misinterprets them.



Adrian Albert Mole (born April 2, 1967) is the fictional protagonist in a series of books by English author Sue Townsend. The character first appeared (as Nigel Mole) in a BBC Radio 4 play in 1982. The books are written in the form of a diary, with some additional content such as correspondence. The first two books appealed to many readers as a realistic and humorous treatment of the inner life of an adolescent boy. They also captured something of the zeitgeist of Britain during the Thatcher period.

Adrian Albert Mole was born in 1967 and grew up with his parents in Leicester, a quintessentially ordinary town in the English Midlands, where in fact the author has spent most of her life. Adrian's family are largely unskilled working class/lower middle classes. He is an only child until the age of 15, when his polar opposite sister Rosie is born. Adrian is an average boy in many ways, not especially popular or sporty, but he does well enough at school and has friends. Deep inside, however, he perceives himself as a thwarted Great Writer, and spends years working on his novel, Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland, never to be published. Over several books, he developed a script for a white van comedy serial killer programme, which for some reason the BBC was reluctant to produce.

As a young man he moves to London and takes a job in a Soho restaurant catering to media types. London is going through a foodie renaissance and offal is all the rage. Adrian is persuaded to feature in a television cookery programme called Offally Good, supposedly to be a celebrity chef; although he is told the programme is a comedy, he typically fails to realise he is being set up as the stooge, the comic straight man.

Adrian ends up working in an antiquarian bookshop. Having lived in relative poverty for much of his life, and for some time in London in actual squalor, he overextends himself financially, lured by the banks' promises of easy credit, and buys a converted loft apartment.


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