A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever: The Story of Spinal Tap

by Rob Reiner with Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer

Sadly, I’ll have to wait until January when the sequel to the best mockumentary ever, Spinal Tap: The End Continues, is available for streaming, it was only on locally during one week and then at odd times. But I was able to console myself with a copy of the story of the band and the original film, signed by Rob Reiner too.

It wasn’t until I picked the book up in the bookshop and turned it over to discover that the back cover was upside down, that I twigged that the guys have also written in character too. If you turn the book and read from the other end you get Smell the Book: The Oral History of Spinal Tap, written by Marti DiBergi with Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins and Derek Smalls.

I can also report that both books remain essentially spoiler-free for the movie sequel, bar one last chapter in the main book which tells how they decided to letting the guys age rather than present them as having had work done (giving Nigel the ‘G-Force face’ as Rob describes (aka a Croydon facelift). Only David’s hair remains ‘as mysteriously long and blond as it was in 1972’. Also how they came up making their manager the daughter of the original Ian Faith, since Tony Hendra had died. Keri Godliman becomes Hope Faith, in a nod to Don and Sharon Arden, aka Sharon Osborne.

We begin with how the guys all got together via their stints scriptwriting and acting with various comedy groups. Reiner met Michael and Harry via their mutual friend David Lander. Michael and Chris had met at NYU. Apart from acting and writing they were all musicians and hung out with all the greats in LA – CSN&Y, Cass Elliot, Janis Joplin and many more. Reiner had been acting in the hit comedy show All in the Family, the US version of ‘Til Death Us Do Part, but wanted to make films.

Their original idea was to make a film about roadies, but once they developed the band the guys would roadie for, the band took over. Guest’s father was a British diplomat, his estuary English was already fine, McKean could do a great mockney accent, and Shearer as Derek, the quiet one, could do any voice anyway – Shearer chose Smalls as Derek’s surname because its slang for underwear – and of course in the finished movie there would be that scene where he was going through the airport detector with things stuffed down them.

It was a long and tortuous journey for This is Spinal Tap, as the studio executives didn’t get the mockumentary aims of the film at all, despite the success of the music documentaries being satirised notably, Scorsese’s The Last Waltz and the Led Zep film The Song Remains the Same.

It was a joy to read all about the guys’ artistic process, the inspirations and background to some classic scenes, and the film’s path to the big screen. I chuckled my way through, then chuckled some more by turning the book over to read the 67 pages of conversation between Marti, Nigel, David and Derek which was every bit as gormless/arch/silly as you’d expect; complete with a foreword by David Byrne no less.

This book remains one for fans really – even if its key gags have entered the mainstream (has anyone else noticed that the volume slider on the BBC iPlayer goes up to 11?). I am a fan, so I loved it, and I loved the first movie all over again…

Source: Own copy. Simon & Shuster hardback, 288 pages. BUY at Blackwell’s via our affiliate link (free UK+ P&P)