46% of British adults have lied about reading books in a bid to impress
The top 10 classic books which we fail to finish revealed!
War and Peace tops the boring blockbuster books list followed by Hamlet and Moby Dick
Snooze worthy books including Hamlet, Wuthering Heights, Animal Farm and The Great Gatsby get modern comedy makeover from TV Channel Dave to mark World Book Day
Comedian Rachel Parris reads the new passages https://vimeo.com/680996820 featuring Boris the boar and Starmer the horse in Animal Farm, Heathcliff attending counselling for toxic masculinity and The Great Gatsby as a modern day finfluencer
-
War and Peace, Hamlet and Moby Dick have been named as books Brits are least likely to finish according to new research released today.
Comedy channel Dave teamed up with Professor Sam Haddow from St Andrews University to conduct the study, which surveyed 2,000 British adults, to identify the definitive list of the literary blockbusters that send the nation to sleep.
Dave is encouraging the nation to revisit some of the books named in the study via a series of witty comedy rewrites, following data which suggests a staggering 46 per cent of adults have lied about reading a classic book in a bid to appear more intelligent.
The top 10 books (including a precis from Professor Haddow) that we fail to finish were named as follows - warning spoiler alerts:
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy - Napoleon took six months to lose his war with Russia. Tolstoy took six years to write about it. That probably tells you everything you need to know??
Hamlet, Shakespeare - The worlds most self-loathing man spends a lot of time talking about himself, to himself. Also, Denmark collapses
Moby Dick, Herman Melville - An overlong list of whale facts, and after 137 chapters, an altercation between a man and a whale. The man loses
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bront - A man becomes obsessed with vengeance when his soul mate literally ghosts him
Animal Farm, George Orwell - A lot of pigs who are not really pigs, but are actually pigs, convince other farm animals to work on a farm. And communism?
Bleak House, Charles Dickens - A 750-page book about a legal dispute lasting 117 years
Les Mis rables, Victor Hugo - Over a quarter of this 3,000-page novel is made up of moral philosophy arguments. No, really. It got better when they condensed it to three hours and added songs
Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Victor Hugo - A terrible man does awful things which the novel ignores and focuses on the buildings
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald - An American learns that capitalism is bad, whilst drinking martinis in a mansion. Leonardo Di Caprio does NOT feature
Ulysses, James Joyce - A man walks through Dublin towards his wife, who is at home having an affair. Meanwhile, everybody in Ireland says everything that has ever been said. Loudly?
The sheer length of many of these books is a top reason Brits struggle to get through them. For example, Leo Tolstoys 1,225-page epic novel War and Peace, has an average reading length of 37 hours and 48 minutes*.
The Dave research revealed that the vast majority (71 per cent) of adults admitted to being impressed by someone who are well read in the classics, which might explain why so many lie about having read these books.
The study also revealed that men are more likely to mislead with 48 per cent prepared to lie about their literary credentials compared to 44 per cent of women. And young people aged 18 to 24 are the biggest book bluffers of all with 77 per cent willing to lie that they have read a heavyweight novel.
Interestingly 67% per cent of those who took part in the study said they would be more likely to complete the classics if only they made them laugh.
Thus, Dave commissioned a crack team of comedy writers, including Nikesh Shukla, Mollie Goodfellow, Steven Vinacour, Ivo Graham and Flo Perry, to bring some levity and add a bit of Dave to six of the impenetrable classics named on the list:
Wuthering Heights - new version sees Heathcliff sent to counselling for anger management and toxic masculinity
Moby Dick - the classic loses 132 chapters (yet none of the story) and ends with a sole survivor clinging to a makeshift cheeseboard
Animal Farm - featuring Boris the Boar and Starmer the Horse, oh and a farmyard campaign to get Hexit Done
The Great Gatsby - sees Gatsby as a self-described Fin-influencer - posting insane self-congratulatory and overembellished posts across his social media
Hamlet - where the would be King considers jacking it all in for an easier life abroad -the To be or not be to scene rewritten with striking parallels to Harry & Meghan
Bleak House - embracing the chaos of this mindboggling book by drawing parrels with dreaded conference calls and the iconic Handforth Parish Council meeting
The rewrites come complete with a new illustrative cover which speaks to the revamped plot, characters and storylines from leading illustrator Bob Venables.
Rachel Parris, stand-up comedian and star of Late Night Mash, runs through key passages for the likes of Moby Dick in a series of video readings. Each witty remake is now available to download at https://dave.uktv.co.uk/article/bit-dave.
Professor Sam Haddow, of the School of English at St. Andrews University, said:
It has been a delight to work with Daves writers to take a silly-stick to the stuffiness surrounding some of our most revered works of literature. I hope that readers get as many laughs out of these re-drafted stories as I have - and, perhaps, that theyre inspired to go back to the originals with fresher, less-jaded eyes...
Cherie Cunningham, Dave channel director said:
At Dave, were always looking for new ways to add a little humour to the mundane and every day. For World Book Day this year, we wanted to not only celebrate these literary works of art but
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
46% of British adults have lied about reading books in a bid to impress 
