First Houses - On becoming an actor

by Peter Barkworth

Following the huge success of About Acting, Peter Barkworth has now written a lively, witty and fascinating account of his early years as a struggling actor. As the author says: "The reactions to About Acting provided me with many ideas for a sequel to be called More About Acting. At first I thought it would be a single book in two halves, the first being mainly autobiographical. Then the two halves separated themselves and became two books: this one, First Houses, to be followed shortly, hopefully, by More About Acting. First Houses deals with my early years and my background, which pushed my ideas, remedies, exercises and everything else to the fore."

This entertaining autobiographical interlude will delight all who benefited from About Acting or who admire Peter Barkworth for his many fine performances, and is a piquant horsd'oeuvre to the eagerly awaited More About Acting.

Grey boards / Silver inscribed spine

Elstree - The British Hollywood

by Patricia Warren

with a foreword by Dame Anna Neagal

As well as being 'that solid rock on which the British film industry is based', the B.I.P. Studios at Elstree were a unique training ground for a long line of cinematographers, technicians and writers, British and American stars, producers and directors who gave and learnt their skills with affection and dedication . . . At various times and under various names and managements, a host of famous people were to pass through Elstree's portals: Bogarde, Bergman, Buchanan, Cooper, Daniels, Dietrich, Fairbanks, Flynn, Gable, Hay, Hancock, Hitchcock, Huston, Leigh, Laughton, Mason, Mills, Neagle, Oberon, Peck, Todd, Tauber, Wilcox... and many more.

Maroon boards / Gold inscribed spine

A Mixed Bag (mostly about the Theatre)

by Derek Salberg

with a foreword by Leslie Crowther

As the title implies, the book is not confined to any one subject, although the strong emphasis is on the theatre and the very large number of performers the author has met during a life time dedicated to it. But whatever the subject it is spiced with humour and brimming with splendid anecdotes. This is also true of the chapter Let the punishment fit the crime, which draws on his experience as a magistrate of long standing; and at the same time, gives him the opportunity of making some trenchant observations on human behaviour. Derek Salberg's first three books My Love Affair with a Theatre, Ring Down the Curtain and Once Upon a Pantomime, have given great pleasure to an ever widening relationship, and his latest book will undoubtedly give similar enjoyment to its readers.

A Small Thing - Like an Earthquake

An Autobiography

by Ned Sherrin

Ned Sherrin was one of the creators of the satire boom in the 1960s. After being in at the start of British commercial television and the early weeks of the BBC Tonight programme, he devised That Was The Week That Was, a show often blamed or praised for changing the course of television. This zesty record of his life (so far) embraces his merry, pleasing, occasionally snide, snappy memories of current affairs, television, cinema (he produced nine movies, including The Virgin Soldiers, during one of the most difficult periods of the British cinema) and the theatre - amongst other successful projects he devised, directed and starred in Side by Side by Sondheim. As an impresario he has introduced many performers to small or large screen success - David Frost, Millicent Martin, Michael Crawford, Bernard Levin, Eleanor Bron, Marty Feldman...

Blue boards / Gold inscribed spine

Moon Boots and Dinner Suits - The early years

by Jon Pertwee

Jon Pertwee's acting career began with a public performance at the age of four. He seems to have been expelled from most of the schools his actor-writer father Roland Pertwee sent him to and finally joined RADA in 1936. From there too, he was asked to leave. Jon went into Rep and had a checkered career. In Brighton panic set in when he dressed as an old gardener in Love from a Stranger instead of as a young cleric in Candida.
...When war came he joined the Navy, ramming Douglas Pier with an Isle of Man Steam Packet boat. He was blown up twice, once being put on a marble slab presumed dead, and spent many months stationed in the Scapa Flow. He was the founder of the Service Players in the Isle of Man...
Whether telling stories of a misspent youth, of his posterior's first painful introduction to a fives bat or of his exploits with the McKenzie sisters in the north of Scotland, Jon Pertwee's humour and natural wit never fail him. Moon Boots and Dinner Suits is a wry, funny and endearing portrait of the early years of a most innovative and well loved actor.

Brown boards / Gold inscribed spine

The Nigel Rees Book Of Slogans & Catchphrases

by Nigel Rees

Hundreds of slogans and catchphrases from the world of entertainment and advertising, brought together from two books, Slogans and Very Interesting . . . But Stupid!, into an updated, one-volume paperback - now published for the first time.

'a splendid book . . . a colourful trip down the Mass-Market's Memory Lane' The Listener

'of historical as well as entertainment value' Daily Telegraph

'entertaining, enlightening' Sunday Express

'touches the old nostalgic nerve very nicely' Birmingham Post

Desert Island Lists

by Roy Plomley with Derek Drescher

If all the castaways ever to feature on Roy Plomley's Desert Island Discs programme were marooned together the island would - after over forty years - have a population approaching 1800, an impressive library of favourite books, a huge and eccentric selection of chosen luxuries and, of course, a massive record collection. Not quite as many as one might suppose, since castaways' choices of music frequently overlap. Here, for the first time, are the favourite recordings of every single castaway in chronological order.
The Islanders - all celebrities in their day, although some may now seem intriguingly obscure - range from stage and sports personalities, writers, politicians, pop stars to Princess Margaret, who chose Beatle music as well as ballet. Elizabeth Schwarzkopf selected seven of her own recordings; Barbara Woodhouse wanted Mr Acker Bilk whilst Daley Thomson went solely for soul music. Desert Island Lists thus presents a potted history of celebrity since 1942, reveals quirks in the taste of the castaways and shows changing fashions in music and books. Probably the ultimate list of lists.

Tony Hancock appeared on programme number 346 of Desert Island Discs, on the 5th August 1957. His eight chosen records, and luxury item, can be seen listed with the Hardback copy of Desert Island Discs here

Glenda Jackson

by David Nathan

Glenda Jackson is a great actress, not just because she is technically brilliant, but because she has a rare openness, a direct line of communication with her audience both in her theatrical and cinema performances.
This book explores the relationship between the private woman and the major roles she has played: Ophelia (to David Warner's Hamlet); Charlotte Corday in the Marat/Sade; Hedda in Hedda Gabler; her Oscar-winning role in Women in Love; her film comedies with George Segal and Walter Matthau; and on television her outstanding performance as Queen Elizabeth I.
Photographs illustrate the text and a complete list of her roles for the theatre and on film complete this essential source book.
David Nathan has been a theatre critic for more than twenty years, first on the London Daily Herald/Sun, latterly on the Jewish Chronicle. His books include a biography of Tony Hancock, 1969; a novel The Freeloader, 1970; and The Laughtermakers, 1971. He wrote scripts for That Was The Week That Was, and his television play A Good Human Story, 1978, gained an award. He has also written two plays for radio, The Belman of London, 1982, and The Bohemians, 1983.

Pictorial laminated boards / No dust jacket

The Wrong Box

by Robert Louis Stevenson & Lloyd Osbourne

The Wrong Box is black comedy at its best, with fast-paced action, outrageous characters, and a generous portion of unconventional British humour - guaranteed to keep you laughing right to the very last page.

This book was the inspiration for the film, which was released on video - click here to see the video...

Just Williams - An Autobiography

by Kenneth Williams

Already with one bestselling book to his name - the splendid collection of insults and put-downs, Acid Drops - here is Kenneth Williams's longawaited autobiography, the story of his career from his days as a child in the London of the 1930s up to his present position as one of the country's foremost raconteurs and wits. Barrack-room life in Singapore at the end of the Second World War, post-war repertory, his roles in revue and on the London stage of the 1950s and 60s, his famous cameos in great radio shows such as Hancock's Half Hour, Round the Horne and Just a Minute, his friendships with people such as Ingrid Bergman, Maggie Smith, Orson Welles, Noel Coward, Joe Orton, Stanley Baxter and Gordon Jackson, the making of the enormously popular Carry On films - all these are described with affection and insight.

Red boards / Gold inscribed spine

Television.

by Francis Wheen

Published to tie-in with the screening of the major 13-part TV series and lavishly illustrated with over 300 photographs, Television is an exhaustive survey of the medium from its hesitant beginnings in the 1920s to the multimillion dollar extravaganzas of today and the cable and satellite technologies of the future. Tackling the medium as a worldwide phenomenon, the book opens with a chapter on the invention of television. Francis Wheen explains the technical magic that made it possible, recapturing the excitement and competition which inspired the work of people like John Logie Baird and Vladimir Zworykin, and describes the effect of its arrival in different countries.

Black boards / Silver inscribed spine

A Clown Too Many - An Autobiography

by Les Dawson

"I love Blackpool, it's sort of Bournemouth with chips. I've got nice digs here, just like home . . . filthy and full of strangers. We often come to see the wife's mother here, she lives in Birmingham but looks better from Blackpool. Before I came on I said to the producer that I felt a bit funny, he said get out there before it wears off." So ran Les Dawson's patter on a trial run for Blackpool Night Out in 1965 - and, in show business parlance, he murdered them. After a ten-year struggle round northern clubs, Les Dawson became an 'overnight success'. Television stardom, culminating in Royal Variety Performances and his own show at peak Saturday night viewing time, was his. The road to the top had been long and wearing: dead end jobs selling vacuum cleaners and insurance, punctuated with occasional bookings as pub pianist or comic and frequent moments of despair. Marriage to Meg brought great happiness, but this was followed by the heartbreaking (and inaccurate) diagnosis that they would never have children...

Red boards / Gold inscribed spine

Up To You, Porky - The Victoria Wood Sketch Book

by Victoria Wood

'Right, I'm your official guide. Now, before I show you round, I'll just fill you in on a few details, as we call them...'
From 'Bronteburgers' to 'Dotty on Women's Lib'; from 'The Woman with 740 Children' to the documentary on the making of 'Bessie!' the biographical musical, Up To You, Porky is a dazzlingly funny collection of over thirty sketches written by Victoria Wood for her own stage shows, and for the television shows Wood and Walters and Victoria Wood, As Seen On TV.
These scripts bring some amazing aspects of human nature out in the open. As Dotty observes, 'I was the first woman in our crescent to say "boob", and I've never regretted it...'
If you have ever needed to know the French for 'Could you bung up my hole till I get back to Blighty?', then this book is of absolutely no value.
So should you read it at all? We can only echo the advice given to the size 14 customer seeking to try on the size 10 trousers - 'It's up to you, Porky'.
Illustrated with performance photographs, this is a feast of wit and humour from one of Britain's funniest living writers.

Pictorial laminated boards / No dust jacket

Which One's Cliff?

An Autobiography

by Cliff Richard

What is it like to be catapulted in a single year from teenage obscurity to top-of-the-bill celebrity? What is it like to combine a passionate Christian faith with all the glamour and glitter of the showbiz circuit? Once called the bad boy of pop and too sexy for television, Cliff Richard is today acclaimed the world over as a top entertainer - yet he still finds time to visit refugee camps in Bangladesh and missionary outposts in the Sudan. Which One's Cliff. brings you Cliff's astonishing and engaging story in his own words.

Pictorial laminated boards / No dust jacket

Permission to Speak - An Autobiography

by Clive Dunn

Permission to Speak is the autobiography of one of Britain’s best-loved comedians.

Taking its title from his immortal catch-phrase as Lance Corporal Jones in Dad's Army, Permission to Speak is the life-story of an actor whose roots are firmly founded in music hall - Clive Dunn's grandfather was a comedian and comic songwriter in the 1880s and both his parents, Connie Clive and Bobby Dunn, performed and presented tours in the 1920s and '30s . . . It is for his classic role as Lance Corporal Jones in the long-running series Dad's Army in which he starred with John Le Mesurier and Arthur Lowe that he is best and most affectionately remembered. He was awarded the OBE in 1975.

This witty and candid autobiography entertainingly recalls a full and varied career both on and off the stage.

Brown boards / Gold inscribed spine