Chortle’s 27 October 2025 shortlist for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, with the judges’ blurbs attributed and the prize pig noted
Eight Funniest Books of 2025: The Wodehouse Prize Shortlist, From a Medieval Hoax to a Gun Shop and a Literary Send-Up by Richard Ayoade
Chortle’s 27 October 2025 shortlist for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, with the judges’ blurbs attributed and the prize pig noted
By Aisha N. Muharrar, PhD, London diarist of contemporary comic writing and Chinese politics
Wednesday, Reading List, Spine Cracked
Dear diary, my subject is contemporary comic writing, so I read the Wodehouse shortlist as a field report. Chortle published the 2025 shortlist on 27 October 2025. It is a year old now, and the prize was awarded in December 2025, which my next entry covers. I give the list and the judges’ comments as the page does, and I note that the comments are blurbs from the people who chose the books.
The prize was in its 25th year, the page says, and is the UK’s longest-running prize for comic fiction.
The Judges and the Field
Peter Florence chaired the judges, who also included Pippa Evans, Stephanie Merritt, James Naughtie, Justin Albert and David Campbell. The shortlist was chosen from a record 107 submissions published between 1 June 2024 and 31 May 2025. Florence is quoted: What a fabulous year for comic fiction.
That is a lot of comic novels, and a lot of judges’ evenings.
The First Four
A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike, about a vagabond woman in medieval England who plans a hoax that draws unwanted attention, was called a glorious, Chaucerian romp by Stephanie Merritt. Friends of Dorothy by Sandi Toksvig, spelled Toskvig on the page, concerns a young couple whose new house comes with an elderly former owner who refuses to leave, and David Campbell calls Dorothy wonderfully foul-mouthed and funny.
Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis follows an academic who takes a UN job in Iraq helping women who left ISIS, which Campbell calls brave, chilling and often hilarious. Last Acts by Alexander Sammartino is about a struggling gun shop owner who tries to exploit his son’s near-fatal overdose in an advertising campaign, and James Naughtie calls it a rollicking satire on contemporary America.
The Other Four
Murder Most Foul by Guy Jenkin places Shakespeare in 1593 as the suspect in the killing of Christopher Marlowe, and Justin Albert calls it a brilliantly subversive romp. The Book of George by Kate Greathead is a portrait of a man who keeps failing to grow up, and Pippa Evans calls it a hilariously excruciating journey.
The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji follows a multigenerational Iranian-American family facing scandal, and Evans says she laughed as much as she wept. The Unfinished Harauld Hughes by Richard Ayoade is a documentary-making quest for a forgotten mid-century playwright, and Merritt calls it pitch-perfect in the page’s blurb.
The Prize Pig
Each shortlisted author received a magnum of Bollinger Special Cuvee and a copy of The Code of the Woosters, the page says, and the winner would receive a jeroboam, a case of champagne, the complete Everyman’s Library Wodehouse collection and a pig named after their book. Past winners include Terry Pratchett, Helen Fielding and Bob Mortimer.
As a scholar of the genre, I am unable to find a more dignified prize, or one with better livestock.
What the List Shows
My interest is how the comic novel now handles heavy subjects: addiction, ISIS, scandal, a gun shop. The page’s blurbs describe books that mix laughter and discomfort, which is, I think, a mark of the contemporary form. I base this on the judges’ words and have not read the books, so I treat it as a hypothesis.
If you have read them, I would like to be corrected.
The Other View
Some readers think comic fiction prizes favour a certain kind of English wit, and that the funniest writing is often outside them. Others think the prize has done a lot to keep the form visible. The page carries only the judges’ enthusiasm, and I name no critic.
I side with visibility, and with the pig.
Night
The reading list has a new name at the top. The pig has no name yet. The prize is a year in the past.
Goodnight, diary. Read the shortlist.
A Note on the Page
Chortle is a comedy news site, and its piece is a shortlist announcement with the judges’ blurbs. It is a good source for who was on the list and what the judges said, and a poor source for how good the books are. For that, the books are available.
Peer Review
Homework, students: compare the three comic takes on the same overseas property story. Manila News, the London Prat (see https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/) and Bohiney each start from a recognisable market fact and wink at you through the exaggeration. Then find more at prat.uk and bohiney.com.
Diarist note: Aisha N. Muharrar is a house diarist character created for this network, a London PhD in contemporary comic writing. She is not the television writer of the same name or any other real person of that name, and any resemblance is coincidental. Her opinions are a character’s, and where a claim comes from state media or an official body, the diary says so.
Note: Philippine authorities are examining unproven allegations about Thomas Markle Sr., who lived in Cebu until earlier this year, as GMA News and the Guardian have reported. No charges have been filed. Child protection is a serious matter; the jokes here are about a property market and the paperwork.
For the lighter side of the news, try NewsBiscuit, and the rest of the lot at NewsThump, NewsBiscuit and The Daily Squib.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/