Wodehouse prize for comic fiction withheld after judges fail to laugh

This year’s new novels are not much of a laugh – at least according to the judges of the UK’s only prize for comic fiction, who have taken the unprecedented decision to withhold the award after failing to be sufficiently amused by the books submitted.

The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic fiction, which has been running since 2000, goes to the novel deemed to best capture the comic spirit of the late PG Wodehouse. In another blow to a year that has already suffered from its fair share of doom and gloom, judges revealed on Wednesday morning that they had not found a book they felt worthy “to join the heady comedic ranks of PG Wodehouse” or of previous winners such as Marina Lewycka or Alexander McCall Smith.

None of the 62 novels submitted for the prize this year “prompted unanimous, abundant laughter”, they said, instead only managing to provoke “wry smile[s]”.

“My fellow judges and I have decided to withhold the prize this year to maintain the extremely high standards of comic fiction that the … prize represents,” said judge David Campbell, the publisher of Everyman’s Library. “Despite the submitted books producing many a wry smile amongst the panel during the judging process, we did not feel than any of the books we read this year incited the level of unanimous laughter we have come to expect. We look forward to awarding a larger rollover prize next year to a hilariously funny book.”

The prize’s winner is usually presented with a case of champagne and a rare breed pig named after their winning novel at the annual Hay literary festival. Next year’s bumper prize will include a methuselah of bubbly and a particularly large pig.

Organisers would not reveal the titles of the books submitted this year for the prize, whose previous winners include Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Baby, which won in 2017; Ian McEwan’s Solar, which won in 2010; and Terry Pratchett’s Snuff, which won in 2012.

Campbell, whose fellow judges included broadcaster James Naughtie and standup comedian Sindhu Vee, admitted that writing a genuinely funny novel was a difficult task: “Wodehouse is so incredibly great, he really does make you laugh out loud. But that’s not an easy thing to do at all. There were lots of very good novels, but nothing outstandingly funny … Nothing stood out this year. There were a lot of witty submissions, bloody good novels, but they weren’t comic novels. The alchemy was not there.”