Common Decency
It may be quiet in the suburbs, but it’s far from peaceful…
Oak Drive can be found nestled tidily in an unassuming part of England. Its neat front gardens overlook an average-sized common which the street’s residents survey with quiet, some might say, smug, pride. This is the sort of place where it pays to look after the small things, and let the big things look after themselves. Bins should be placed back in their right positions in a timely fashion and paintwork should share the same tasteful but muted palette. Sometimes, however, the big things do not look after themselves – and all hell can break loose in the sleepy streets of suburbia.
You can buy from Amazon here, or local bookshops here – or find full pre-order and signed copies, along with the latest book appearances, here.
Tom Allen in Conversation at Waterstones
Piccadilly, London, W1J 9HD
Tuesday 19th May, 6:30 pm
Hay Festival – Tom Allen talks to Poorna Bell
Meadow Stage
Friday 22nd May 2026, 4:00 pm
An Afternoon With Tom Allen
Booka Bookshop & Linghams Bookshop
Sat 23rd May, 12:30 pm
An Evening With Tom Allen
The West Kirby Bookshop
Saturday, May 23, 7:00 to 8:30 pm
Too Much
In Too Much, with his trademark wit and insight, Tom Allen takes a funny and moving look at how he’s been thrown into adulthood, as he finally leaves the family home and starts a relationship with a new boyfriend. He shares his unwillingness to move on from the arrested development of millennial life.
But ultimately, he has to grow up fast in the wake of the unexpected death of his father in late 2021. The book becomes an emotional ode to his beloved dad and how you learn to navigate grief. Tom writes beautifully about those days, weeks and months following his family’s bereavement, and how bewildering the minutiae and practicalities of life can be when you’re harbouring a loss, and life can all feel all too much…
No Shame
No Shame is an hilarious, candid, emotional ride of a memoir where the UK’s best and brightest stand-up comedian and presenter Tom Allen writes with humour and insight about his life, his loves and the shame of being ‘an outsider’ growing up in 90s suburbia.
Tom has always looked and behaved like a Victorian dandy even when he was 10 years old. Growing up in suburban Bromley, he stuck out even more. In these comic and heart breaking stories, Tom recalls observations on childhood, his adolescence, his family dynamic and living with his parents into his thirties, all through the candid lens of his experience as a closeted/out/not active/still trying gay man.