Frank Skinner on the Road

Nov 17, 2024 7:45 PM

Author: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.

Reviews

I cannot recall a book that so entertainingly lays bare the neediness, self-consciousness and weirdness of the professional comic's life. His one-liners are immaculate, too

—— Daily Telegraph

Skinner is insightful, erudite and, naturally, funny when dissecting the craft of writing and performing successful stand-up comedy

—— Esquire

He manages to provide a fascinating insight into the world, and the insecure mind, of a stand-up comedian . . . This is a real, honest account of life on the road. And you can't expect more from a tour diary than that

—— Chortle

Quite possibly the best book about stand-up ever written

—— GQ

A minor masterpiece

—— The Guardian

One of the most frank (excuse the pun), funny and best written books ever about being a comedian. Surprisingly brilliant

—— Dominic Maxwell , The Times

It's f**king brilliant. The best book about stand-up I've ever read, hands-down. So, f**king well done, I didn't want it to end. Thank you and f**k you and congratulations. Great great great great

—— Jimmy Carr

A fascinating insight into the world, and the insecure mind, of a stand-up comedian

—— Dennis Leary

Holroyd's sweeping biography...proceeds at a furious pace, and, in less expert hands, the detail packed onto the page might bewilder; instead, the effect is of an epic, perfectly balanced by intimacies of setting and character.

—— The New Yorker

As unconventional as it is fascinating

—— The Times

A fabulous cavalcade of a book, written with infectious verve

—— John Carey , The Sunday Times

To attempt the biography of even one of these giants of the 19th Century English stage would be a challenge to most, but the energetic Michael Holroyd tackles both...Amazingly he carried it off in a ripping yarn spiced with melodrama and tinged with pathos

—— Judith Rice , The Guardian

Holroyd's charmingly modest intention is to "carry readers back in time and convey a sense of adventure and intimacy with the past". In this he triumphantly succeeds

—— Katie Owen , Sunday Telegraph

A funny, gossipy epic

—— Christopher Hirst , Independent

Self-depracating yet never self-pitying, irreverent yet never truly cynical, she comes across as a woman genuinely at ease with herself ... French is engaging company, and at her best she writes about heartbreak and elation with such grace that her book is impossible to dislike

—— Boston Standard

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