Porterhouse Blue

Porterhouse Blue is a novel written by Tom Sharpe, first published in 1974. There was a Channel 4 TV series of the same name in 1987 based on the novel, adapted by Malcolm Bradbury. The novel itself has a sequel, Grantchester Grind, but Porterhouse Blue has a stand-alone plot.

A satirical look at Cambridge life and the struggle between tradition and reform, Porterhouse Blue tells the story of Skullion, the Head Porter of a fictional Cambridge college, Porterhouse.

The central characters are Skullion, the Head Porter; Lionel Zipser, a research graduate student; Sir Godber Evans, the Master; Lady Mary, the Master's wife; the Dean; and Mrs. Biggs, Zipser's bedder.

For the first time in five hundred years, the master of Porterhouse fails to name his successor on his deathbed before dying. He succumbs to a Porterhouse Blue - a stroke brought about by overindulgence in the college's legendary cuisine. Sir Godber Evans is appointed as his successor. Sir Godber, egged on by his zealous wife, Lady Mary, announces sweeping changes to the centuries of college tradition, much to the concern of Skullion and the Fellows, who plan a counter-attack on the proposed contraceptive machines, women students, and canteen.

Meanwhile, the only research graduate student in the college, Lionel Zipser, visits the hard-of-hearing Chaplain and explains his fixation for Mrs Biggs, his middle-aged, large-breasted bedder, through a megaphone, and is therefore overheard by the whole college. Mrs Biggs is not within earshot, but nevertheless senses that something is up from Zipser's awkward behaviour around her every time she comes to clean his room and especially when she teases him sexually, the climax of which is when she asks him to help her take off her bright red PVC raincoat from behind, in the tight confines of the "gyp".

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