Fungus the Bogeyman

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He is a bogeyman who goes to the surface each night to cause havoc (literally: things that go bump on the night). This book was turned into a two-handed radio play with Peter Sallis in the male lead role, and subsequently an animated film, featuring John Mills and Peggy Ashcroft. Fungus goes to work up where the ‘drycleaners’ live, traelling very slowly on his flat wheeled bike. This adaption also starred Marc Warren, Keeley Hawes, Joanna Scanlan, Jimmy Akingbola, Paul Kaye, and also Victoria Wood in her final television role before her death in April 2016.

There's a really nice balance of gunk and slime that will appeal to the 5 year old target audience that this title is listed under in the 1001 book, whilst the mundane weariness of work will resonate with the parents.On this night, he startles a vicar, a woman in her bath, and stinks out a couple’s bedroom using his Bogey umbilical cord.

My teacher used to hate it when the class was reading (non-school) books and he'd see this well-worn tome on my desk. The book depicts the mundane details of Bogey life in loving detail, with definitions of Bogey slang and numerous annotations concerning the myths, pets, hobbies, literature, clothing and food of the Bogeys.And even considering that many children do seem to massively relish and cherish humour based on bodily functions and liquid excretions, I do have to wonder whether the massive amounts of the latter occurring in Fungus the Bogeyman might well end up being potentially distracting and even too much of a "good thing" (so much so as to even jade and feel dragging for children who usually enjoy this type of humour, these types of jokes).

Life in Bogeydom is full of snot, smells, slime, scum and other unspeakable things, and Bogeymen live under the ground revelling in all the nastiness imaginable.

Bogeydom is not a place I would particularly like to visit, but I am glad I am aware of it, and that while reading about its goings-on my dinner, and sense of humour, remained intact. Briggs continued to work in a similar format, but with more adult content, in Gentleman Jim (1980), a sombre look at the working class trials of Jim and Hilda Bloggs, closely based on his parents. A co-production with Pilot Theatre, the show was directed and adapted by Marcus Romer and designed by Ali Allen. Instead we are left with this dense and contemplative literary work that doesn't talk down to children but rather treats them as intelligent readers and throws in references to the likes of John Milton, Alfred Tennyson, William Oldys, Thomas Carlyle and John Donne. Briggs says that he invented Fungus, ‘to show the petty nastiness of life — slime and spit and dandruff, all this awful stuff which is slightly funny because it detracts from human dignity and our pretensions.

We learn about Bogey houses, their family structure, what they do for fun, how they live, the essentials of their health and well-being, and more. As his day progresses, he undergoes a mild existential crisis, pondering what his seemingly pointless job of scaring surface people is really for. Raymond Briggs at his very best – Fungus the Bogeyman is a delightfully, lovely story in all its disgustingly noxious glory. Yes, the characters and their world is beautifully drawn, with lots and lots of fascinating written detail for those whose imagination is sufficiently grabbed to enjoy the sheer grottiness of it all; or should that be ‘snottiness’? His graphic novel Ethel and Ernest, which portrayed his parents' 41-year marriage, won Best Illustrated Book in the 1999 British Book Awards.It tells of how Jessica, a human teenager, finds her way into Bogeydom and meets Fungus and his family. It didn't take long for the concept to sink in, and when I paged through the rest of the book, it seemed to be just more "Bogeymen love all things wet, smelly, and dirty" ad nauseum. Briggs not only gives the reader a clear indication of what the Bogeyman wears, eats and wash’s himself with but also the bogeyman’s hobbies, habitat and modes of transport. Skip forward [mumble mumble] years -- yes, that many -- and I've just found the very same book hiding in a forgotten, dusty stack at my parent's house. This is a delightful, eccentric book, the sort of book that genuinely IS all-ages, a claim often made but rarely merited.