The Diary of a Nobody the first, "The Diary of a Somebody", is a direct reference to the Grossmith original. Reviewing this volume in "The Spectator", Benny Green points out several parallels with the original, in both character and event. Matthew's book, says Green, is amusing, but the Grossmiths' book is superior; it is "affecting as well as comical, in a way that the Matthew pastiche is not". In 1982 came the first appearance of Sue Townsend's teenage creation, Adrian Mole, whose passage into young manhood and early middle age is charted in a long series of diaries. The more middle-aged he becomes, says Morton,
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ (musical) Cavendish in "The Telegraph" wrote that "this all-singing, all-dancing Mole comes up trumps; in fact, it's so good it could burrow its way to the West End... the evening does that rare thing: it makes you laugh, tugs at your heart-strings and honours the spirit of the original while being playfully inventive... this fresh, funny, stirring spin on a Thatcher-era classic may be around for a long time to come." Dominic Maxwell in "The Times" wrote 'it's no small achievement to make this first musical version such a lively, evocative pleasure... amusing and affecting enough to leave you glowing... a