Bookshelf
| can't find it |

| browse books |
books
 

| book details |

Growing Up With Comedians: A collection of portraits of some of the finest comedians of our time

By (author) Roger Lewis





This book is currently unavailable. Enquire to check if we can source a used copy


| book description |

A collection of portraits of some of the finest comedians of our time. From the author of the acclaimed The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, as made into an award-winning film by HBO, and the dark and scabrous Seasonal Suicide Notes, which everybody loves, here at last comes the definitive book about comic genius by a man whom the Sunday Times has hailed as 'brilliantly funny... a comic genius.' Growing up in South Wales, the precocious Roger Lewis longed to lock himself away from the world and listen to bootleg cassettes of The Goon Show and count the fucks (144) and cunts (89) uttered on the Derek and Clive Live LPs. He screamed with horror at Jimmy Clitheroe. He was a connoisseur of Norman Wisdom and Terry-Thomas. He lapped up Marx Brothers films, Ealing films, and On the Buses, which to him was as sinister as Strindberg. Once he reached university, Lewis' love for the art of comedy never waned, and he could never fathom why the grisly hairy-nosed academics considered comedy trivial, comedians frivolous. In Lewis' view, comedy has more lasting significance than tragedy - the supposed pinnacle of art - because comedy, like real life, admits to misrule and incapacity, accepts the inconsequential, harbours extravagance and eccentricity, and endorses the fact that, in the end, nothing quite adds up. This book contains incisive portraits of the world's most treasured performers and complicated personalities - from Chaplin to Tati, Hancock to Hawtrey, Laurel and Hardy to Spike Milligan, Terry Gilliam to Barry Humphries, and Arthur Lowe to Benny Hill, amongst many others. The chapters comparing Kenneth Williams with Francis Bacon, Leonard Rossiter with John Reginald Christie, Groucho Marx with A.J. Ayer, Morecambe and Wise with Gilbert and George, and Joyce Grenfell with Kathleen Ferrier, in particular, will be heralded as criticism and commentary at their most profound and creative. Growing Up With Comedians asks what lurks beneath the public face; where does talent end, ego begin, and periods of madness take over? From pompous control freaks to unpredictable originals, Lewis, as only he knows how, examines the strangeness and hidden sorrow found behind the excrutiating facades. By turns lyrical, poignant, and always insanely perceptive, Growing Up With Comedians is another unforgettable high-heat masterpiece by Roger Lewis.

| product details |



Normally shipped | Enquiries only
Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton
Published date | 11 Jul 2024
Language |
Format | Hardback
Pages | 320
Dimensions | 240 x 156 x 0mm (L x W x H)
Weight | 0g
ISBN | 978-1-4447-4118-6
Readership Age |
BISAC | biography & autobiography / literary


| other options |


| your trolley |

To view the items in your trolley please sign in.

| sign in |

| specials |

Fifteen Dogs

André Alexis
Paperback / softback
176 pages
was: R 280.95
now: R 252.95
Available from overseas. Dispatched in aprox 4-8 weeks as local supplier is out of stock

A pack of dogs are granted the power of human thought - but what will it do to them? A surprising and insightful look at the beauty and perils of consciousness.

The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology

Ray Kurzweil
Paperback / softback
672 pages
was: R 731.95
now: R 658.95
Available from overseas. Usually dispatched in 14 days

In his latest, thrilling foray into the future, a great inventor and futurist envisions an event--the ""singularity""--in which technological change becomes so rapid and so profound that human bodies and brains will merge with machines.

Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End

Atul Gawande
Paperback / softback
304 pages
was: R 355.95
now: R 319.95
Available from overseas. Dispatched in aprox 4-8 weeks as local supplier is out of stock

From the international bestselling author of Better, Complications and The Checklist Manifesto and Reith Lecturer 2014, a revolutionary and emotionally searing account of death, dying and medicine.

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

Adam Grant
Paperback / softback
320 pages
was: R 275.95
now: R 247.95
Stock is usually dispatched in 6-12 days from date of order