The Gutter Bar
A darkly funny, painfully accurate satire of advertising, ego and the glorious stupidity of human ambition.
Ben Putney should be on top of the world. He’s just been made President of the Cannes Lions jury — the highest honour in an industry that hands out awards like confetti. But with a marriage collapsing back home, a father who treats him like a walking disappointment, and a creative department that would happily see him drowned in rosé, Ben is discovering the truth:
being “top of the industry” mostly means surviving idiots with better PR.
Cannes should be paradise. Mediterranean heat. Endless rosé. Hotels last refurbished around an Elton John video.
Instead Ben is fighting jury-room politics, a suspiciously perfect yoghurt campaign, a colleague who’d stab him for a Bronze Lion, and a philosophical vagrant who seems to understand the business better than anyone in a suit.
As the week unravels, Ben faces the decision every ad person eventually meets:
play fair and lose — or cheat and win.
Fast, funny and agonisingly recognisable, The Gutter Bar skewers the madness of modern advertising, the absurdities of corporate life, and the delusions we all need to get through the day.
Perfect for fans of John Niven, Douglas Adams, David Nobbs, Ben Elton, and anyone who’s ever had to smile through a meeting that should have been an email.
If you’ve ever worked in advertising, you will meet someone you know in The Gutter Bar. Possibly yourself.