John Shuttleworth is to release a new book of song lyrics and short stories. 

The collection, which is out in March, will also feature long-time collaborator Kevin Baldwin.

John Shuttleworth Takes the Biscuit: A Crumbly Selection of Songs & Stories is the character’s third book, following 2020’s Two Margarines and Other Domestic Dilemmas, which was billed as his guide to everyday life, and 1997's 500 Bus Stops, a tie-in with his BBC Two series of the same name.

Publication by Omnibus Press will come during the next tour from Graham Fellows’s Yamaha organ playing character. Raise The Oof plays 33 venues in the spring, and marks 40 years of the alter-ego.

In character, Shuttleworth said: ‘I feel rather calm – although after 40 years and still no chart success, perhaps I should be slightly anxious. 

‘My wife Mary says I should get a proper job, but there's not time, I’m about to retire! Besides, Comet - where I used to demonstrate audio equipment - no longer exists. As for the sweet factory in the Rotherham area where I worked as a security guard in the 1980s - that’s now an Axe Throwing Centre. Oof!

'But I'm still posting off my songs (on cassette tape with Dolby so it's not too hissy) to cutting-edge pop acts like Chris Rea and the Lighthouse Family, plus I'm still being booked for nostalgic singalongs at the local hospice (for petrol money only) so we have every reason to celebrate my long and illustrious career. Do come along and join me in punching the air, and helping - in an orderly and controlled fashion - to Raise The Oof!’ 

Fellows was a musician – who had had a hit with Jilted John – when he created the character of Shuttle worth in 1985,  recording an audio cassette with the character chatting to an imaginary A&R man and playing half written songs as a joke to befuddle staff at his label, Chappell Music.

His Radio 4 show The Shuttleworths ran for five series between 1993 and 2010, with a sixth in 2022 – a span that means it can lay claim to being the channel’s longest-running sitcoms, even if other shows have had more episodes.

John Shuttleworth Takes the Biscuit is available from Amazon, priced £12.99 – or from uk.bookshop.org, below, which supports independent bookstores.

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