2019-06-04
Much of this book covers Tony’s formative life experiences working in theatre and drama school. It’s uncompromisingly open and honest, which is refreshing to see. I doubt anyone under the age of 40 will recognize most of the actors he encounters, though – I now appreciate why big stars name drop, as it provides a useful and entertaining context.
However, it’s not until the second half of the book that we see anything about Blackadder or Time Team, and even then they formed a couple of short chapters, which I found a little disappointing, especially when they covered nearly 30 years of his life.
Also, the ending – it appears he’d suddenly reached his required wordcount while writing about visiting the Titanic, so he suddenly stopped the narrative to wrap up with a quick paragraph to end the book. Er, no, that’s not how you do it.
It’s not a bad book, and it is richly written, but it would have been nice to see more on subjects he was better known for – though to be fair it he appears to have been very busy with a hand in many, many theatrical and political projects.
Rating: 3/5