Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 11 December 2008.
One of the UK’s best loved and funniest comedians tells us about going back on the road touring after 10 years away from stand up. As you would expect this is hilarious and heart warming stuff. Frank is ‘old school’ humour and it comes across brilliantly in this book.
Frank Skinner by Frank Skinner, his first book, was one of the bestselling show business autobiographies of all time - and perhaps the best reviewed. It was variously hailed in the national press as 'hilarious - often shocking', 'painfully and incisively truthful', and 'a classic of its kind'.
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 anbout not only the highs and lows of his career, but more intimate and personal issues - male sexuality and matters of the heart.
He recalls his former laddish behaviour and also tells a love story about a woan who has drifted in and out of his life for years but suddenly returns just as he is about to go on tour. Frank Skinner asks himself: is it finally time to grow up?
'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
'The best book about stand-up ever written. Staggeringly honest.' GQ
Author
About Frank Skinner
Frank Skinner performed his first stand-up gig in December 1987, and four years later went on to win the prestigious Perrier Award. During the 1990s Frank established himself as a major name in entertainment - both in live comedy and on television. In 1994 and 1997 he sold-out two UK tours, the second of which culminated in a performance at London's Battersea Power Station - what was then the largest ever audience for stand-up comedy in the UK. On television, Frank has created and starred in a succession of hit comedy shows, including nine series of The Frank Skinner Show from 1995 to 2005; and with his comedy partner David Baddiel, Fantasy Football (1994-2004), and Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned (2000 - 2005).
As well as live stand-up and television, 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 2006, Baddiel and Skinner's world Cup podcast caused an online sensation with over one million downloads, leading to yet another number one chart hit.
In 2007 Frank Skinner returned to stand-up with another sell-out tour of the UK.
Frank currently divides his time between London and Birmingham - and, of course, his beloved West Brom.
