Steve Roud was Local Studies Librarian for the London Borough of Croydon and served as Honorary Librarian of the Folklore Society for over fifteen years. He has been researching British folklore for over thirty years and is the joint author of the Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore, plus other books on traditional drama and folk song, and the Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland, which won the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award in 2004. His publications include London Lore (2008) and The Lore of the Playground (2010). He also compiles the Folk Song Index and the Broadside Index, two internationally acclaimed computer databases of traditional folk and popular song. He lives in Sussex.

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Steve Coogan

Steve Coogan was born and raised in Manchester in the 1960s, the fourth of six children. From an early age he entertained his family with impressions and was often told he should 'be on the telly'. Failing to get into any of the London-based drama schools, he accepted a place at Manchester Polytechnic School of Theatre and before graduating had been given his first break as a voice artist on the satirical puppet show Spitting Image. 
 
The late eighties and early nineties saw Coogan developing characters he could perform on the comedy circuit, from Ernest Moss to Paul Calf, and in 1992 he won a Perrier award with John Thomson. It was around the same time, while working with Armando Iannucci and Patrick Marber on On The Hour and The Day Today, that Alan Partridge emerged, almost fully formed. 
 
Coogan, once a tabloid fixture, is now a respected film actor, writer and producer. He runs his own production company, Baby Cow, has a raft of films to his name (from 24 Hour Party People to Alpha Papa, the critically-acclaimed Partridge film), six Baftas and seven Comedy Awards. He has found huge success in recent years with both The Trip and Philomena, the latter bringing him two Oscar nominations, for producing and co-writing. 
 
In Easily Distracted he lifts the lid on the real Steve Coogan, writing with distinctive humour and an unexpected candour about a noisy childhood surrounded by foster kids, his attention-seeking teenage years and his emergence as a household name with the birth of Alan Partridge.

Easily Distracted

Jem Roberts

'It's a great missing piece of the jigsaw - people go on endlessly about Python and Peter Cook, which is all well and good but there's basically this great corpus of work stretching for decades - and consistently good ... A major piece of work, and universally loved.' 
 
So says John Lloyd, brains behind Blackadder, QI, Spitting Image, and so much besides - all shows with a massive debt to I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again and I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. Together they form a body of work stretching across five decades, from Cambridge in 1960 to today's world-beating Antidote to Panel Games, a laughter-bringer which has inspired unparalleled adoration in millions over fifty series. This book tells the whole story, from Footlights to Broadway to the ferret-filled madness of Radio Prune - comedy's answer to the rock &amp; roll revolution of the sixties. Offering an exhaustive guide to the comedy world that brought us Mornington Crescent, besides episode guides, glossaries and rare facsimiles, Jem Roberts will take the story right up to the present day, celebrating the lives of Willie Rushton, Sir David Hatch and of course, the irreplaceable Humphrey Lyttelton. With exclusive input from the Teams, plus Bill Oddie, Stephen Fry, Bill Bailey, Neil Innes and many more, this is the long-overdue authoritative, entertaining and, above all, very silly lasting celebration of an unsung comic legacy that both shows so richly deserve.

The Fully Authorised History of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue

The Clue Bible from Footlights to Mornington Crescent

J. F. Roberts

___________________ 
They had a cunning plan. 
 
A few decades ago, three young grads from England's greatest universities - Oxford, Cambridge, and Hull (actually, Manchester) - came up with a historical comedy series. Few thought it would live long in the memory. 
 
Today, Blackadder is a timeless comic masterpiece, and its stars have gone on to glittering careers. The True History of the Black Adder is the first ever history of one of Britain's greatest and most unique sitcoms, from its medieval beginnings to its legendary tragic finale. 
 
Informed by exclusive - and hilarious - interviews with essential figures like Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Ben Elton, Stephen Fry, Brian Blessed and many more, this the definitive account of how a British institution came to be, as well as a fascinating look into how this classic comedy was almost very different - and a compendium of brilliantly funny anecdotes from a team of Britain's most celebrated comedians. 
 
British history is a patchwork of questionable stories, constantly rewritten, re-evaluated and ridiculed; final editorial control has always belonged to the winners. And nobody likes winners... 
 
At last, Blackadder enthusiasts can now uncover THE cunning plan, in all its hideous hilarity.

The True History of the Blackadder

The Unadulterated Tale of the Creation of a Comedy Legend

Boy George

From his days as a club face alongside Philip Sallon, Marilyn and Steve Strange, through the years of global pop superstardom with Culture Club, his rebirth as a world-class DJ, as a leading light of musical theatre with the award-winning Taboo, a cutting edge photographer and a confrontational and acclaimed fashion designer, one of the many things you can say about George is: he's never stood still. 
 
It's been one hell of a trip. A decade and a half ago, George was coming to terms with the fall-out from serious drug addiction, the failure of his relationship with Jon Moss and the collapse of Culture Club.For lesser men this would have been the end but for George it became the start of a period of remarkable reinvention. 
 
Told with George's trademark biting wit, brutal honesty and sparkling insight, this book reveals the whole story, reappraising his rise to stardom and all the madness that followed.He talks about his solo singing career, his initiation into the dance music scene, and his role as the driving force behind theatrical sensation Taboo.George also discusses the achievement of the apparently impossible task of reuniting the famously fractious Culture Club. 
 
It is only now, many years on from the glittering, glossy Eighties, that George makes an insightful and often hilarious assessment of the impact of that extraordinary era.

Straight

Richard Attenborough

Diana Hawkins

Richard Attenborough and Diana Hawkins have been friends and colleagues for nearly 50 years.They have now teamed up to write this frank and funny account of their unlikely partnership and his extraordinary life. 
 
Together, laughing and squabbling, they have travelled the world, meeting people and making films. Among the eclectic cast of characters who appear in this two-handed memoir are Steve McQueen, Mother Teresa, Charlie Chaplin, Robert Mugabe, Edward G Robinson, Ronald Reagan, David Lean, Margaret Thatcher, John Mills, Steven Spielberg, Noel Coward, Indira Gandhi, Gordon Brown and Nelson Mandela. 
 
Prompted by his adventures in the movie business, Attenborough reflects on the highs and lows of a long life, both in and out of the public gaze. He writes revealingly of his passion for football and politics, of his avuncular relationship with Princess Diana and finally about the tsunami tragedy which engulfed his family in December 2004.

Entirely Up to You, Darling

Adrian Edmondson

Julian Mann, the hard drinking, preening, and sexually provocative star of the TV sitcome Richard the Nerd, feels caught on the horns of a dilemma: should he be concentrating on his career, which is on the slide after an unseemly bout of fisticuffs at the BAFTA awards; or following his baser instincts and bedding every young girl in sight? 
 
His twin dreams of comic immortality and a penthouse flat full of booze and young models seem to be frustrated by his wife and children; by Tom, his wife's best friend from university days, a pretentious 'National Theatre Player' who appears to be competing with Julian on the small sreen and in the bedroom; by the tax man, who's chasing him for sixty thousand pounds; and by Lillith, a psychotic fan, and member of a strange Herculean cult whose eight-year cycle of death and regeneration might augur Julian's imminent nemesis...

The Gobbler

Craig Brown

Listeners to Radio Four have long reserved a very special place in the hearts for Wallace Arnold. For over four decades, he has delighted his ever-increasing band of followers with his sparkling mixture of wit and wisdom. A regular panellist on Any Questions, Stop the Week and Just a Minute, the occassional host of You and Yours, Wallace Arnold has also long been the Housewives' Favourite on Woman's Hour. 
 
In Welcome to my Worlds! Wallace Arnold takes us behind the scenes of the worlds of politics, high society, the literary life and the wireless, in all of which he continues to play a crucial role. 
 
Why was Sir Robin Day seen in the bar of the Garrick Club dressed as Widow Twankey? In what year did John Bratby paint Lord Goodman naked on an ironing board? How did Major Ronald Ferguson gain his role as the headmistress in the remake of the classic St Trinian's comedy series? In a series of marvellously erudite and entertaining vignetters, Wallace Arnold answers all these questions and many more.

Welcome To My Worlds!

The Dread Decades of Wallace Arnold

Bruce Dessau

Beyond a Joke is a celebration of comedy - one of the modern world's most dominant and compelling art forms - but it is also the story of comedy's dark side, homing in on the scandals that have surrounded some of light entertainment's biggest stars, and telling it as it is, featuring insight from one who was there at the time. 
 
While Beyond a Joke explores the extremes of this world it also addresses another question. Are comedians naturally dysfunctional, or does the stress and pressure of the job make them dysfunctional? Ruby Wax once told the author that she had builders in her house who were just as emotionally unstable as most stand-up comedians she had worked with. But they don't want to go on stage and plead with an audience to love them. 
 
Bruce Dessau is the only person who could write this book. From Russell Brand slashing his chest onstage to Jo Brand trashing a friend's car on the motorway, he has heard it all. Bruce Dessau knows where the bodies are buried.

Beyond a Joke

Inside the Dark World of Stand-up Comedy

Rick Wakeman

What do Postman Pat, Tommy Cooper, Norman Wisdom and George Best have in common with being abandoned in a Costa Rican jungle after a severe bout of flatulence? Indeed, how are they also connected to trying to buy an Australian brewery just to get a beer, owning twenty-two cars, an American soccer team and a Swiss mail-order pornography company? 
 
The common feature is of course a certain Richard Wakeman. 
 
The Further Adventures of a Grumpy Old Rock Star takes you, the privileged reader, on a trip of absurd excess, a cultural car crash of side-splitting hilarity and an unforgettable glimpse (again) into the life of one of Britain's most legendary showmen, rock stars and all-time great raconteurs.

Further Adventures of a Grumpy Old Rock Star

Richard Webber

In August 1958, the opening scenes of a low-budget black and white film flickered onto cinema screens up and down the country. No one could have foreseen what impact Carry on Sergeant would have then and in the future. Not only did it become one of the top three grossing films for that year, it also kick started the longest running and most successful comedy series of all time. 
 
Here, for the very first time, is the essential biography of this most treasured institution in the world of British cinema. Complete with exclusive interviews with cast and crew, and the debut publication of Vince Powell's script of Carry On Down Under, Fifty Years of Carry On is a must for any fan of the unique and ever hilarious spectacle that is Carry On.

Fifty Years Of Carry On

Lin Cook

An intimate and entertaining portrait of one of comedy's greatest geniuses by those who knew Peter Cook best and can write abut his rare talent. The contributors include Clive Anderson, Alan Bennett, John Cleese, Stephen Fry, William Goldman, Barry Humphries, Eric Idle, Dudley Moore and Michael Palin.

Something Like Fire

Robert Wagner

In this moving memoir, Robert J. Wagner opens his heart to share the romances, the drama and the humor of an incredible life. Under the mentorship of stars like Spencer Tracy, he became a salaried actor in Hollywood's studio system among other hot actors of the moment such as his friends Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis. Wagner began to appear in a number of films alongside the most beautiful starlets. As his career blossomed he met the woman who would change his life forever, Natalie Wood. They fell instantly and deeply in love and stayed together until the stress of their careers drove them to divorce. 
 
Trying to forget the pain, he made more movies and spent his time in Europe with the likes of Steve McQueen, Sophia Loren, Peter Sellers, Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Liz Taylor and Joan Collins. He would meet and marry the beautiful former model and actress Marion Marshall. Together they had a daughter, and made their way back to America, where he found himself at the beginning of a new era in Hollywood - the blossoming of television. 
 
Despite his new found success, his marriage to Marion fell apart. He looked no further than Natalie Wood, for whom he still pined. To the world's surprise, they fell in love all over again. Their life together was cut tragically short, though, when Wood died after falling from their yacht. For the first time, Wagner writes about that tremendously painful time. After a serious bout with depression, he finally resurfaced and eventually married Jill St. John, who helped keep his family and his fractured heart together.

Pieces of My Heart

David Jason

Winner of the National Book Awards Autobiography of the Year 
 
The long-awaited autobiography of one of Britain's best-loved actors 
 
*As seen in David and Jay’s Touring Toolshed on BBC Two* 
 
Born the son of a Billingsgate market porter at the height of the Second World War, David Jason spent his early life dodging bombs and bullies, both with impish good timing. Giving up on an unloved career as an electrician, he turned his attention to acting and soon, through a natural talent for making people laugh, found himself working with the leading lights of British comedy in the 1960s and '70s: Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Bob Monkhouse and Ronnie Barker. Barker would become a mentor to David, leading to hugely successful stints in Porridge and Open All Hours. 
 
It wasn't until 1981, kitted out with a sheepskin jacket, a flat cap, and a clapped-out Reliant Regal, that David found the part that would capture the nation's hearts: the beloved Derek 'Del Boy' Trotter in Only Fools and Horses. Never a one-trick pony, he had an award-winning spell as TV's favourite detective Jack Frost, took a country jaunt as Pop Larkin in the Darling Buds of May, and even voiced a crime-fighting cartoon rodent in the much-loved children's show Danger Mouse. 
 
But life hasn't all been so easy: from missing out on a key role in Dad's Army to nearly drowning in a freak diving accident, David has had his fair share of ups and downs, and has lost some of his nearest and dearest along the way. 
 
David's is a touching, funny and warm-hearted story, which charts the course of his incredible five decades at the top of the entertainment business. He's been a shopkeeper and a detective inspector, a crime-fighter and a market trader, and he ain't finished yet. As Del Boy would say, it's all cushty.

David Jason: My Life

Peter Cook

William Cook

For his many friends and fans, Peter Cook was quite simply the funniest man they'd ever encountered. And nearly eight years since his death, his status as one of Britain's greatest comedians shows no sign of shrinking. Despite his reputation for idleness, Peter Cook was a great comedy writer, who created countless outrageous sketches and articles and was famed for his prolific role in the satire boom of the 1960s. The very best, the most famous and some of the most unusual of his comic masterpieces are collected here. Some of these pieces have never been published before, others are out of print, a few only survive in print, and many have only ever been seen or heard - never read. This collection ranges from Cook's first writing, at school and university, via Beyond The Fringe, with Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller, his dualogues with Moore as Pete &amp; Dud and Derek &amp; Clive, and their brilliant TV series, Not Only But Also, to transcripts of his late, great TV appearances, and a selection of his journalism for the Daily Mail, the Evening Standard and Private Eye.

Tragically I Was an Only Twin

The Comedy of Peter Cook

David Nobbs

As a small boy David Nobbs survived the Second World War unscathed, until his bedroom ceiling fell on him when the last bomb to be dropped on Britain by the Germans landed near his home. It was the nearest he came to the war, but National Service would later make him one of Britain's most reluctant soldiers. It was an unforgettable and often unpleasant experience. 
 
As a struggling writer, David was catapulted into the thrilling world of satire at the BBC when he rang THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS with a joke and got through to David Frost, who sent a taxi for the joke. He never looked back. His greatness as a modern comic writer was confirmed by the publication of THE FALL AND RISE OF REGINALD PERRIN, which he adapted into the immensely successful television series that has entered the fabric of British cultural life, through phrases, images and brilliant humour. 
 
A mesmerising, beautifully told tale of life in writing and comedy, I DIDN'T GET WHERE I AM TODAY is the hilarious, poignant and very personal story of David Nobbs' life, which also describes some of the most famous comedians of the last century and captures a golden age of British television.

I Didn't Get Where I Am Today

John Cleese

A candid and brilliantly funny memoir... 
 
...of how a tall, shy youth from Weston-super-Mare went on to become a self-confessed comedy legend. 
 
En route, John Cleese describes his nerve-wracking first public appearance at St Peter’s Preparatory School at the age of eight and five-sixths; his endlessly peripatetic home life with parents who seemed incapable of staying in any house for longer than six months; his first experiences in the world of work as a teacher who knew nothing about the subjects he was expected to teach; his hamster-owning days at Cambridge; and his first encounter with the man who would be his writing partner for over two decades, Graham Chapman. 
 
And so on to his dizzying ascent via scriptwriting for Peter Sellers, David Frost, Marty Feldman and others to the heights of Monty Python. 
 
Punctuated from time to time with John Cleese’s thoughts on topics as diverse as the nature of comedy, the relative merits of cricket and waterskiing, and the importance of knowing the dates of all the kings and queens of England, this is a masterly performance by a former schoolmaster.

So, Anyway...

The Autobiography

Arthur Smith

'My name is Arthur Smith, unless there's anybody here from the Streatham tax office. In which case, I'm Daphne Fairfax.' This has been Arthur's opening line at hundreds of stand-up comedy performances. In fact, he is neither Daphne nor Arthur. Friends and family know him as Brian. 
 
One of the 'alternative comedians' who shook up light entertainment in the eighties and nineties, Arthur (and Brian) is also a broadcaster, an opening bat for Grumpy Old Men, a West End playwright (his plays include An Evening with Gary Lineker) and a guest on innumerable radio and TV panel shows. 
 
In My Name is Daphne Fairfax he reflects on the nature of comedy and his days as a scruffy kid on the bombsites of Bermondsey, a wild-haired undergraduate, a roadsweeper, an English teacher, a failed rock star, a boozed-up sexual adventurer and an intensive care patient who has been told never to drink again. 
 
Hilarious, scandalous and rude, his memoir incorporates a tender tribute to his parents and a vigorous account of the peculiar business of being alive.

My Name is Daphne Fairfax

A Memoir

Lisa Gee

When Lisa Gee's six-year-old daughter, Dora, goes to an open audition for the West End production of The Sound of Music, it's just a fun way to occupy some time in the Easter holidays. But when Dora unexpectedly lands the role, Lisa soon learns that Dora's brush with fame has less to do with paparazzi and lucrative paydays and more to do with endless rehearsals and outsize egos. 
 
Part fairy tale, part cautionary tale, this is the hilarious, engaging account of one child's step into the limelight. From the initial try-out with over a thousand Von Trapp hopefuls to performing on the London stage with Connie Fisher and an encounter with Julie Andrews, mother and daughter navigate the minefield of rehearsals, auditions and fame. This is a heart-warming glimpse into the sometimes not-so-glamorous world of show business and the delicate balance between being proud and being pushy. Stage Mum is a story for every parent who dreams big and every child who dreams bigger.

Stage Mum

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore are the greatest double act that Great Britain has ever produced. This collection of their works is a comprehensive compilation of the finest comedy sketches that Cook and Moore ever wrote together - from the beginning of their partnership, in the groundbreaking stage show, Beyond The Fringe, to the notorious taboo busting Derek and Clive LPs that captured the spirit of punk rock, and inspired the scatological anarchy of Alternative Comedy. Featuring transcripts of one night stands long since almost forgotten, as well as a wealth of virtually unknown material, including previously unpublished scripts for Not Only But Also, Goodbye Again is a revelation, even for Cook and Moore's most informed fans. 
 
As well as illuminating their work, this book also promises to shed light on their intimate yet turbulent relationship. It will show how these two diametrically opposed men; tall and athletic Cook from a middle class public boarding school background, and diminutive, club-footed Moore, working class but with an impressive musical talent, came together to develop the closest of partnerships based on an instinctive, virtually intuitive sense of humour. Goodbye Again will chart the extraordinary friendship between the two men and its almost telepathic intensity, which not only bought them together but also pulled them apart time after time, until their eventual reconciliation.

Goodbye Again

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore

Julianna Baggott

The best day of Pixie's life was the day she won the Miss New Jersey beauty pageant. Her dreams stretched in front of her: a Miss America could go anywhere, be anyone. Fame and fortune were at her fingertips - until she fell pregnant. Now, the mother of a teenager, on her second marriage, she is beset by memories of her glittering career. 
 
Ezra, her sixteen-year-old son, notices none of this. It's the start of the long summer holiday and his main preoccupation is the girl next door and his quest to lose his virginity. Engaging and honest, he tells his own story of what it means to be the child of a woman whose American dream went nowhere. 
 
Soulful and mordantly funny in the vein of American Beauty, Pixie and Ezra unfold a story of the American family that is at once touching and fiercely honest.

The Miss America Family

Dawn French

A SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER 
___________________________ 
The hilarious and heartwarming memoir from one of Britain's best-loved comedians and Women's Prize longlisted author, Dawn French. 
 
Dawn French is one of the greatest comedians of our time with a career that has spanned nearly four decades. Loved for her irreverent humour, Dawn has achieved massive mainstream success while continuing to push boundaries and challenge stereotypes. Here, she describes the journey that would eventually establish her as a perhaps unlikely, but nevertheless genuine, national treasure. 
 
As part of the much loved duo French and Saunders, Dawn helped create a repertoire of brilliantly observed characters, impersonating everything from Madonna and Harry Potter to The Exorcist. Dawn's iconic role in the Vicar of Dibley showcased not only her talent but also her ability to take a controversial and topical issue and make it mainstream - and very funny. 
 
From her early years as an RAF child and her flat-sharing antics with Jennifer Saunders, to her outspoken views on sizism and her marriage to Lenny Henry, Dear Fatty chronicles the extraordinary and hilarious rise of a complex, dynamic and unstoppable woman.

Dear Fatty

Frank Skinner

In this new volume of memoirs, Frank Skinner describes his experience of going back on the road doing stand-up again, after many years spent working mainly on television. His adventures on tour are by turns funny and moving as he meditates on growing older, the terrors and joys of trying to make a live audience laugh night after night and on the nature of comedy itself. 
 
For the first time we read a comedian's account, in his own words, of how his act is put together; his return to a world of dark little clubs and the strange encounters he has there. But what is perhaps most startling and original about Frank Skinner's writing is his honesty nbout not only the highs and lows of his career, but more intimate and personal issues - male sexuality and matters of the heart.

Frank Skinner on the Road

Love, Stand-up Comedy and The Queen Of The Night

Ronnie Barker was one of our most respected and best-loved comedy actors and here, in this fascinating biography, Richard Webber delves deep in to the heart of Barker's life and career, peppering his narrative with original and incisive memories from some of Barker's closest contemporaries, including Ronnie Corbett, Michael Palin and Barry Cryer. 
 
Star of the much-adored comedy classics Porridge, The Two Ronnies - one of the most successful and long-running television comedy shows ever on British television - and Open All Hours, Ronnie Barker was universally admired by the public and industry insiders alike. From his early days writing for and performing skits on The Frost Report right up to his retirement in 1988, he lit up television screens across the country with his wonderful gift for comedy and his remarkable skill for character acting. 
 
Beyond his performances on the stage and screen, Barker was also an accomplished comedy writer, providing many of the sketches and songs for The Two Ronnies and contributing material to a number of other television and radio shows. And despite his retirement he retained pole position in the public's affection, returning to the screen in 1999 to team up with his erstwhile comedy partner and great friend Ronnie Corbett for a Two Ronnies night on BBC1, followed by a BAFTA tribute in 2004 and a final appearance on television in 2005 on The Two Ronnies Christmas Sketchbook. 
 
Effortlessly funny, universally adored and an actor and writer responsible for some of Britain's best-loved and most-respected comedy, Ronnie Barker was a true comedy legend. Here he's brought to the page in winning style as he's remembered by those who best loved and knew him.

Remembering Ronnie Barker

Simon Pegg

From a filthy flat in Tufnell Park to the starship Enterprise, it's fair to say that Simon Pegg's career didn't go quite the way he expected. 
 
Zombies in North London, death cults in the West Country, a warp engine beyond the final frontier: Simon Pegg has been ploughing some bizarre furrows in recent times. Having blasted onto the small screens with his now legendary sitcom Spaced, his rise to the status of the nation's favourite son has been mercurial, meteoric, megatronnic, but mostly just plain great. 
 
From his childhood (and subsequently adult) obsession with Star Wars, his often passionate friendship with Nick Frost, and his forays into stand-up which began with his regular Monday morning slot in front of his 12-year-old classmates, this is a joyous tale of a homegrown superstar and a local boy made good. 
 
CONTENT WARNING: This book features discussion of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, a film which some readers may find distressing.

Nerd Do Well

Paul Merton

On the surface it may seem slightly surprising that a master of verbal humour should also be a devotee of silent comedy, but Paul Merton is completely passionate about the early days of Hollywood comedy and the comic geniuses who dominated it. His knowledge is awesome - as anyone who watched his BBC 4 series Silent Clowns or attended the events he has staged nationwide will agree - his enthusiasm is infectious, and these qualities are to be found in abundance in his book. 
 
Starting with the very earliest pioneering short films, he traces the evolution of silent comedy through the 1900s and considers the works of the genre's greatest exponents - Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and Harold Lloyd - showing not only how each developed in the course of their career but also the extent to which they influenced each other. At the same time, Paul brings a comedian's insight to bear on the art of making people laugh, and explores just how the great comic ideas, routines, gags and pratfalls worked and evolved. His first book for ten years, this is destined to be a classic.

Silent Comedy

Bridget Christie

Bridget Christie is a stand-up comedian, idiot and feminist. On the 30th of April 2012, a man farted in the Women’s Studies Section of a bookshop and it changed her life forever. 
 
A Book For Her details Christie’s twelve years of anonymous toil in the bowels of stand-up comedy and the sudden epiphany that made her, unbelievably, one of the most critically acclaimed British stand-up comedians this decade, drawing together the threads that link a smelly smell in the women’s studies section to the global feminist struggle. 
 
Find out how nice Peter Stringfellow’s fish tastes, how yoghurt advertising perpetuates rape myths, and how Emily Bronte used a special ladies’ pen to write Wuthering Heights. 
 
If you’re interested in comedy and feminism, then this is definitely the book for you. If you hate both then I’d probably give it a miss. 
 
“Christie is adept at turning on a sixpence between being comical, or serious, or both at once, and at pricking her own earnestness.” Telegraph 
 
‘Christie piles derision and tomfoolery upon everyday sexism, while never pretending that jokes alone will solve the problem.’ Guardian

A Book for Her

A hilarious autobiography from one of Britain's funniest and most successful comedians. 
 
Born Chris Collins in 1957, Frank Skinner he grew up in the West Midlands where he inherited his father's passion for football - and alcohol. 
 
Expelled from school at 16, Frank had been nurturing a serious drink problem from the age of 14, but managed to go teetotal in 1987. 
 
Along with personal revelations, it helped turn his life around. His first television appearance in 1988 was met with raucous laughter from the audience - and 131 complaints, including one from cabinet minister Edwina Currie. 
 
He met fellow comedian David Baddiel in 1990, and the two went on to share a flat throughout the early 90s and to create the hit TV series Fantasy Football League. Winner of the prestigious Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival, Skinner's comedy is a groundbreaking mix of laddish and philosophical humour, one which has helped shape the British comedy scene ever since. 
 
From The Frank Skinner Show to co-writing the football's-coming-home classic Three Lions, his career has never been boring. Here, for the first time, Frank candidly tells us of the highs and lows of his fascinating life.

Frank Skinner Autobiography

Simon Elmes

It’s now ninety years since the BBC made its first broadcast and the British love affair with radio began. 
 
This book is a journey through that fascinating history and a celebration of the many wonderful voices that were part of it: Marion Cran, who pioneered the first gardening programme in the 1920s; The Goons and Kenneth Horne, comedy greats of the 1950s; John Peel, Alan Freeman, Kenny Everett and other heroes of the pirate stations; all the way up to Eddie Mair, Fi Glover and Danny Baker, the much-loved voices of today. 
 
A delightful blend of insight, history and nostalgia, Hello Again will appeal to any radio aficionado.

Hello Again

Nine decades of radio voices

Bob Monkhouse

Bob`s journals of the last few years are interwoven with memories of a life in comedy. There are meetings with remarkable comedians -some like Paul Merton at the height of their powers, others like Dick Emery and Benny Hill in sad decline - and Bob reflects on what makes comedians great. Above all here is a wealth of wonderful true adventures, star scandals and gossip about the famous and infamous personalities he`s known initmately, with more stars than the most lavish Royal Variety Performance, including: Peter Sellers, Rex Harrison, Les Dawson, Elton John, Larry Grayson, Bing Crosby, Beryl Reid, k d lang and Luciano Pavarotti. As Bob puts it, `All the good stuff I couldn`t put in my autobiography because there wouldn`t have been room for me!' There has always been room for Bob in the hearts of the British public, and this very, very funny book is just one more reason why he so richly deserves his place in our affections.

Over The Limit

Alan Alda

He's one of America's most recognisable and acclaimed actors-a star on Broadway, an Oscar nominee for The Aviator, and the only person to ever win Emmys for acting, writing, and directing during his eleven years on M*A*S*H. Now Alan Alda has written a memoir as elegant, funny, and affecting as his greatest performances. 'My mother didn't try to stab my father until I was six,' begins Alan Alda's irresistible story. The son of a popular actor and a loving, but mentally ill mother, he spent his early childhood backstage in the erotic and comic world of burlesque and went on after early struggles to achieve extraordinary success in his profession. 
 
Yet Never Have Your Dog Stuffed is not a memoir of show business ups and downs. It is a moving and funny story of a boy growing into a man who then realizes he has only begun to grow. It is the story of turning points in his life, events that would make him what he is - if only he could survive them. 
 
From the moment as a boy when his dead dog is returned from the taxidermist's shop with a hideous expression on his face, and he learns that death can't be undone, to the decades-long effort to find compassion for the mother he lived with but never knew, to his acceptance of his father in him, personally and professionally, he learns the hard way that change, uncertainty and transformation are what life is made of, and the good life is made of welcoming them. 
 
Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, filled with curiosity about Nature, good humour and honesty, is the crowning achievement of an actor, author, and director, but surprisingly, it is the story of a life more filled with turbulence and laughter than any he's ever played on the stage or screen.

Showing results for: ‘Steve Roud’

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