Frank Skinner on the Road: Love, Stand-up Comedy and The Queen Of The Night

Description

'Quite possibly the best book about stand-up ever written' GQ 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 performed his first stand-up gig in December 1987, and four years later went on to win the prestigious Perrier Award. Frank has established himself as a major name in entertainment - both in live comedy and on television. Frank has created and starred in a succession of hit comedy shows, including The Frank Skinner Show, Fantasy Football and Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned. Frank has attained three number one hits with the iconic football anthem Three Lions alongside David Baddiel and the Lightning Seeds. He has starred in the West End in both Art and Lee Hall's Cooking with Elvis; and his critically acclaimed first book Frank Skinner was the bestselling autobiography of 2002, spending a total of 46 weeks in the Sunday Times bestsellers' list. In 2007 Frank Skinner returned to stand-up with another sell-out tour of the UK.

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 *