Richard Osman, the creator of BBC One’s Pointless and author of the bestselling Thursday Murder Club series, has revealed that he was once approached by MI6 while at Cambridge University but ultimately failed the selection process. ‘I would have been terrible,’ he said. ‘I’m too tall [6ft 7in], not bright enough, and if I have a secret, I tell everybody. You could not find a worse spy.’ He added: ‘I cannot tell a lie.’
Osman, 52, described the experience of being ‘tapped’ and undertaking ‘fun’ spy tests, including war-gaming scenarios and conversations with people ‘who got older and posher throughout the day’. Despite his failure, he joked: ‘I’m still available, by the way, if MI6 read this. I could be useful, because no one is going to suspect me now.’
The author’s Thursday Murder Club series – the fourth book, The Last Devil to Die, is out next week – has sold five million copies and grossed more than £25 million. The series has been optioned by Steven Spielberg, and Osman has signed a separate deal to write a crime series for Netflix. Penguin has reportedly signed him to a new four-book contract worth more than £10 million, though Osman was bashful about the advance: ‘I’ve been given an amount of money which makes sense for Penguin and makes sense for me.’
Osman, who describes himself as ‘testosterone-y’ and ‘fairly alpha at times’ despite a ‘gentle exterior’, said the four main characters in his books represent different parts of his own brain. He is most like Ibrahim, the psychiatrist with a maths-based outlook, and least like Elizabeth, the former spy. ‘She’s who I’d love to be,’ he said.
