Newspaper articles
1961-12-18, The Times, ‘Teacher to be deported’
1971-04-26, The Guardian, Interview with Alex Hamilton
1971-09-04, Cambridge Evening News, ‘Hounded by the South African Police—and deported’
1973-03-24, Cambridge Evening News, ‘Sharpe turns his pen at Cambridge’
1974-04-18, Cambridge Evening News, ‘Crumbling college on the fiddle’
1975-05-17, The Scotsman, ‘Sharpe-witted’
1975-05-23, Daily Mirror, ‘Blotting my copybook…’
1976-03-05, Cambridge Evening News, ‘Wilt and Tom, have last laugh’
1976-03-27, The Daily Telegraph, ‘Funny and good at it’
1977-03-04, The Journal, ‘Tom’s below-the-belt humour’
1978-09-13, Dorset Echo, ‘Sharpe words’
1979-04-06, Cambridge Evening News, ‘Sharpe reminder’
1979-05-11, Evening Standard, ‘Sharpe’s progress’
1979-06-30, Wolverhampton Express and Star, ‘Sharpe’s sexy satires’
1979-07-04, Dorset Echo, ‘Life’s so serious, it’s a riot! says Tom’
1980-03-02, Sunday Telegraph, ‘West Country thinker at home’, by Auberon Waugh
1980-08-15, The Times Higher Education Supplement, ‘A novel instance of Sharpe practice’
1981-05-08, Evening Standard, ‘Wilting and hoinking’
1982-11-08, The Times, ‘The Sharpe end of reality’
1984-07-08, The Sunday Times, ‘Blott in the pipeline’
1984-10-18, Daily Record, ‘A blott on the horizon…’
1984-10-18, The Guardian, ‘The English history men’
1984-10-22, Sheffield Daily Telegraph, ‘Funny man who writes to shock the English liberal’
1985-01-27, Sunday Telegraph, ‘Sharpe focus put on plots, Blott and blight’
1985-02-01, Cambridge Evening News, ‘Jesting Tom is pining for the city’
1985-02-04, Wolverhampton Express and Star, ‘Why Tom would like to Blott out the bureaucrats’
1985-03-04, Daily Express, ‘Sharpe sense of the ridiculous’
1985-09-09, Cambridge Evening News, ‘Sharpe is back where he belongs’
1987-05-25, Derby Daily Telegraph, ‘Stroke of bad luck for porter’
1987-05-30, Torbay Express and South Devon Echo, ‘Tom Sharpe’s the word for comedy’
1987-11-29, The Selma Times-Journal, ‘Emmy winner enjoys Selma Thanksgiving’
1988-09-16, Peterborough Evening Telegraph, ‘Sharpe on humour’
1989-08-15, Cambridge Evening News, ‘Author recalls his haunts on the landscape’
1990-01-18, Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph, ‘Stage fright for top writer’
1990-02-12, Evening Standard, ‘Sharpe reply’
1990-05-23, Evening Standard, ‘Cat fever’
1990-05-27, Wales on Sunday, ‘A Sharpe viewpoint on life’
1991-05-31, Cambridge Evening News, ‘Author Tom finds answer to our blues’
1991-09-04, The Times, ‘Sharpe hails fall of porkpie hats’
1991-09-20, The Daily Telegraph, ‘A Sharpe look at South Africa’
1991-10-12, Manchester Evening News, ‘Posing problems for the posers’
1992-04-24, The Daily Telegraph, ‘Writer’s block on the landscape’
1992-07-13, The Times, ‘A serious effort to be funny’
1993-02-04, Shields Daily Gazette, ‘Sharpe look at comedy of life’
1995-05-19, Evening Standard, ‘Perfect tense’
1995-09-17, Scotland on Sunday, ‘Sharpe end of comedy’
1995-09-17, Daily Telegraph, ”Churches give me panic attacks”
1995-09-18, The Times, ‘“I know how bad my jokes are, but someone will like them”’
1996-09-29, Daily Telegraph, ‘Answer this’
1996-10-21, The Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Sharpe attack’
1999-10-11, Gloucestershire Echo, ‘Sharpe’s sugared pill’
1999-10-13, Western Daily Press, ‘A blot on Tom’s satire and a surprise for Clive’
1999-10-14, Daily Express, ‘I’m not so sharp says Tom as novel is binned’
1999-11-15, Yorkshire Post, ‘Life at the Sharpe end of the class war’
2003-04-08, The Times, ‘Sharpe wilts after fourth adventure’
2004-08-15, The Sunday Times, ‘Wilt beats writer’s block for comeback’
2004-10-13, Expatica.com, ‘Why Tom Sharpe left Cambridge for Catalonia’
2009, Cambridge News, ‘An audience with Tom Sharpe’
Magazine articles
1986, Club International, volume 15 number one, ‘Neil Gaiman talks to Tom Sharpe’
1987-08, Book and Magazine Collector, ‘The Comic Novels of Tom Sharpe’
1992-03, Million, ‘Attacking Pretensions’
2005-04, Book and Magazine Collector, ‘Staying Sharpe’
Books
1986, The Freelance Writer’s Handbook, by Paul Kerton
1992, In the Psychiatrist’s Chair, by Anthony W. Clare
2003, ‘Paul Bailey’, by Paul Bailey, in Mortification: Writers’ Stories of Their Public Shame, edited by Robin Robertson
Radio
1973-03-28, BBC Radio Four, Now Read On. With John Julius Norwich, the pick of the new books, including Indecent Exposure by Tom Sharpe.
1980-06-05, BBC Radio Four, Clubland Heroes, ‘Dornford Yates’. Tom Sharpe is interviewed.
1981-07-25, BBC Radio Four, Novels Up To Now: History Men. The second in Anthony Curtis’s series on post-war fiction considers the campus novel, including works by David Lodge, Kingsley Amis, Malcolm Bradbury, and Tom Sharpe — arguably our four funniest contemporary writers.
1982-08-14, BBC Radio Four, College Days… at Night. Lord Soper, singer Ian Wallace and writer Tom Sharpe relive their days at Cambridge University in an hilarious entertainment presented by Clement Freud.
1982-09-02, BBC Radio Four, Back To The Backs. University life over the years is examined and compared when Joan Bakewell plays hostess to a group of Cambridge graduates. At her punting party and picnic, reflecting on their youthful experiences, are Tim Brooke-Taylor, Margaret Drabble, Glyn Daniel, Tom Sharpe, Ian Wallace, and Lord Soper.
1984-11-03, BBC Radio Four, Desert Island Discs. Roy Plomley’s castaway is Tom Sharpe.
1985-02-16, BBC Radio Three, Critics’ Forum. A discussion on cinema, theatre, books, broadcasting and the visual arts. Subjects include the six-part BBC Two version of Blott on the Landscape by Tom Sharpe.
1987-03-15, BBC Radio Four, Literary Walks. Tom Sharpe joins Christopher Somerville on a walk through Cambridge. Hywel Bennett reads extracts from Porterhouse Blue and Wilt.
1988-10-30, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, Question Time. Recorded at Littlehay Prison with more than 100 prisoners taking part. Questionmaster Christopher South put questions on crime and punishment to a panel featuring Tom Sharpe, Cambridge University Students’ Union president Gillian Wilson, TUC regional secretary Ivor Jordon, and the secretary of the SLD on Cambridgeshire County Council, Sue Sutton.
1989-05-28, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, Turning Points. Ros Wright talks to Tom Sharpe.
1989-11-07, BBC Radio Four, The Local Network. Wall enthusiasts (cue “wally” jokes) are the subject. A potentially uninspiring subject matter produces some appealing eccentrics: the Lancashire brick collector who took his intended to look at a particularly fine wall on their evening out, and author Tom Sharpe, builder of a wall which looks as if someone has gone through it at speed.
1991-09-04, BBC Radio Four, In the Psychiatrist’s Chair. Dr Anthony Clare’s subject this week is author Tom Sharpe.
1993-01-13, BBC Radio Two, Comedy Bookcase. This week, Bill Oddie reads from one of his favourite satires, Tom Sharpe’s celebrated first novel, Riotous Assembly.
1996-12-09 – 1996-12-20, BBC Radio Four, Book at Bedtime: The Great Pursuit. A ten-part reading by Willie Rushton.
2000-03-10 – 2000-05-05, BBC Radio Two, Porterhouse Blue. A nine-part reading by Anton Lesser.
2000-11-03 – 2000-12-29, BBC Radio Two, The Wilt Alternative. A nine-part reading by Anton Lesser.
2002-11, BBC Radio Four, Front Row. Mark Lawson talks to Tom Sharpe.
2003-11-10, Oneword Radio, Porterhouse Blue. An audiobook serialisation. (Date of the earliest listing found in The Independent; the first broadcast may be earlier. The reader is not named in the listings.)
2003-12-16, Oneword Radio, Riotous Assembly. An audiobook serialisation. (Date of the earliest listing found in The Independent; the first broadcast may be earlier. The reader is not named in the listings.)
2004-09-01, BBC Radio Four, Front Row. Mark Lawson chairs the arts show and meets Tom Sharpe who has decided to write a new novel about the hapless lecturer Henry Wilt 20 years after his last appearance.
2004-12-10, Oneword Radio, Indecent Exposure. An audiobook serialisation. (Date of the earliest listing found in The Independent; the first broadcast may be earlier. The reader is not named in the listings.)
2005-03-16 – 2005-04-06, BBC Radio Four, The Great Pursuit. A four-part dramatisation by Ryan Craig, starring Mark Heap as the literary agent Frederick Frensic. Directed by Toby Swift.
2013-06-07, BBC Radio Four, Last Word. In the obituary programme, Mark Coles remembers the writer Tom Sharpe.
Television
1971, BBC Two, Late Night Line-Up. Tom Sharpe’s Riotous Assembly is discussed and extracts read.
1973-11-24, LWT, Cover to Cover, ‘Funny But It Hurts’. Introduced by Annabel Leventon with John Wells, Tom Sharpe, Margaret Forster and David Jason.
1981-04-15, BBC One, Paperbacks. Presented by Robert Kee featuring Martin Amis, Jessica Mitford, Douglas Adams, and Tom Sharpe (interviewed and reading an extract from The Wilt Alternative).
1983-05-26, Grampian Television, Cover to Cover. Gerry Davis is joined by Tom Sharpe, whose latest paperback, Vintage Stuff, has just been published, and by Alan Baddeley.
1984-03-23, BBC One South, Moments. Tom Sharpe talks to Jenni Murray about the people who’ve influenced his thought and the moments marking turning points in his convictions.
1984-08-23, BBC One, Look East. Tom Sharpe is interviewed.
1984-08-23, Channel Four, Robinson Country, ‘The Writers: Tom Sharpe and the Places I Hate’. Robert Robinson meets three West Country writers: Tom Sharpe, Nell Dunn and A. L. Rowse.
1984-10-06, TV-am, Good Morning Britain. Presented by Henry Kelly. The guests are Leo Sayer, Marilyn, and Tom Sharpe.
1984-12-09, Channel Four, Book Four. Humphrey Carpenter, Margaret Forster and Gillian Reynolds review books by Tom Sharpe, Christopher Priest, Breyten Breytenbach and the 1930s writer Denton Welch. With Hermione Lee.
1985-03-03, BBC Two, Did You See…? Ludovic Kennedy and guests, including the novelist William Boyd, discuss the BBC Two adaptation of Blott on the Landscape.
1985-03-13, BBC Two, Blott on the Landscape, episode 6, ‘Man in a Tree’. Tom Sharpe makes an uncredited cameo appearance as a wedding guest. (Source: IMDb only; not confirmed elsewhere.)
1987-07-04, Channel Four, Right to Reply. Viewers respond to Malcolm Bradbury’s adaptation of Tom Sharpe’s Porterhouse Blue.
1989-10-31, BBC One, Film 89. Barry Norman reviews Wilt, based on the bestselling novel by Tom Sharpe.
1989-12-25, BBC Two, Bookmark: Plum. Documentary on P. G. Wodehouse featuring contributions from Tom Sharpe.
1992-01-28, HTV Wales, Writers Two, ‘Tom Sharpe’. Eight-minute programme on Tom Sharpe in HTV’s series on writers. (Source: National Library of Wales catalogue, transmission tape; content not viewed.)
1993-02-04, Tyne Tees Television, Put It In Writing. Tom Sharpe discusses his colourful life and eleven hilarious novels with presenter Bob Langley.
1995-09-24, LWT, The South Bank Show: Tom Sharpe. In a rare interview, novelist Tom Sharpe, whose work revels in perversity and eccentricity, reveals the tricks of the comedy-writing trade, talks about his time in South Africa, his deportation and his new novel, Grantchester Grind, sequel to Porterhouse Blue.
2004-06-22, BBC Two, Mastermind. One contender’s specialist subject is the novels of Tom Sharpe.
2024-06-16, BBC Four, Eileen Atkins Remembers… She Fell Among Thieves. Dame Eileen Atkins looks back on Tom Sharpe’s 1978 adaptation of Dornford Yates’s novel.