The House of Beckham by Tom Bower, review: a ghastly portrait

The old joke about book reviews is that some poor sod reads something so that you don’t have to. Regarding The House of Beckham: Money, Sex and Power by Tom Bower, please allow the poor sod in question to insist: “Look, you genuinely don’t have to.”

I say this as no slight on Bower. A former reporter for the BBC’s Panorama, he’s distinguished for his critical, unauthorised biographies of powerbrokers such as Robert Maxwell, Mohamed Al-Fayed and Simon Cowell, plus an award-winning investigation into corruption in English football. 

Brand Beckham is indeed an empire. Behold, then, this tale of epic self-aggrandisement, benefiting from tabloids desperate to flog papers. The talents in question seem limited: a patchy sporting career, from Manchester United via Real Madrid to LA Galaxy, plus some degree of physical beauty (David); an ambitious gift for merchandising, plus vulgarity marketed as “humour” (Victoria). All this is set against a backdrop of allegations of multiple infidelity, breast enlargements, high heels, hair extensions, flopping music and questionable style status.

In terms of research and truth-telling, The House of Beckham must score highly. Yet Bower never gets beyond the ghastliness of his subjects, while the narrative is oddly flat – nothing here feels new. Instead, years of Fleet Street rumours, and plenty of tabloid stories published but unknown to a younger generation, are one by one regurgitated. David is stingy, squeaky-voiced and volatile. Victoria is a tuneless, furious-faced WAG whose fashion line is a much-puffed vanity project. 

Their PR machine trades off a happy-families image, but their relationship is portrayed as a devil’s bargain. Victoria directs her energies into competing with her spouse for airtime; David’s chief prowess seems to lie in the sack, as it’s claimed that he enjoys a string of sexual liaisons from Rebecca Loos downwards, and simultaneously projects the image of “world’s best Dad”.