THE SECRET DIARY OF ADRIAN MOLE AGED 13 3/4

Using Adrian's diary as her vehicle, Sue Townsend takes us on an illuminating and entertaining two-pronged journey into the mind of an adolescent boy and into the glamourless world of down-at-heel Britain. Nicholas Barnes' sparing performance as the young diarist is convincing and deferential to the author's acerbic wit and satirical purpose. While he is careful to convey Adrian's clashes of emotion, querulousness and self-absorption, earnestness and unwitting naiveté, the narrator never overplays the role. His audience is left to enjoy the subtleties of the bathos, humor and irony that pepper the story. Though too risqué to be appropriate for young children, this is a very funny revisitation of a life stage many might wish to strike from memory. B.M.W. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 95]