There are plenty of comedian memoirs this year… The pick of the bunch is probably Frank Skinner on the Road, which distinguishes itself by being a) unusual, b) funny, and c) actually written by the person named on the cover… I cannot recall a book that so entertainingly lays bare the neediness, self-consciousness and weirdness of the professional comic's life.
Andy Miller, Daily Telegraph
Frank Skinner On The Road is to be released in paperback on 6th August 2009. The Richard & Judy Book Club Award-winning autobiography offers a comedian's detailed account of how an act is put together as FRANK describes his return to a world of dark little clubs, meditates on growing older, on the terrors and joys of trying to make a live audience laugh night after night, and discusses the nature of comedy.
FRANK also tackles more personal matters; not only the highs and lows of his career, but the highs and lows of his love-life. From his former laddish behaviour to the story of a woman from his past who suddenly comes back into his life just as he is about to go on tour. FRANK asks himself: is it finally time to grow up?
FRANK’S first book, Frank Skinner by Frank Skinner was one of the bestselling show business autobiographies of all time selling over 600,000 copies and spending 46 weeks in The Sunday Times Bestsellers list. Now, in this follow-up, FRANK describes the experience of resuming the prolific stand-up career - which, by 1997, saw him sell out four national tours and play a record-breaking 6,000-seater gig at Battersea Power Station - by returning to the road, gigging unannounced in tiny comedy clubs, touring 200-seater art centres before embarking on a twice extended, 100,000-ticket sell-out tour culminating in five nights at Birmingham’s National Indoor Arena and London’s Hammersmith Apollo.
It was announced this month that Frank Skinner’s Credit Crunch Cabaret is to take up residence in Edinburgh for the Festival Fringe with a nightly hour-and-a-half show in the Assembly Rooms from the 14th to 30th August. It will resume its London-based Monday night residency at The Lyric Theatre, with a 10-date run starting on 12th October. This week saw Frank extend his Saturday morning Absolute Radio show for a year, while a packed twelve months has also seen him: author a special Panorama episode on taste and decency on television following the infamous Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand furore; make numerous appearances, as both a panellist and host, on Have I Got News For You; join the panel on BBC ONE’s flagship political debate show, Question Time; write a weekly column; and appear at literary events including the Hay Festival, the Cheltenham Literature Festival and the upcoming Latitude Festival.
ends
‘On The Road’ written by Frank Skinner is available in paperback on 6th August 2009.
Some things said about ‘On The Road’:
It’s fucking brilliant. The best book about stand-up I’ve ever read, hands-down. So, fucking well done, I didn’t want it to end. Thank you and fuck you and congratulations. Great great great great.
Dennis Leary
Quite possibly the best book about stand-up ever written.
James Mullinger, GQ
One of the most frank (excuse the pun), funny and best written books ever about being a comedian. Surprisingly brilliant.
Tim Arthur, Time Out
I love Frank Skinner despite, not because of, this book. It’s a painfully, butt-clenchingly honest portrayal of what it is to be a touring comedian.
Jimmy Carr
For a paperback copy, pictures, information, or to make interview requests please contact: Dan Lloyd or Jo Cross at Avalon on: 020 7598 7222 or danl@avalonuk.com / joc@avalonuk.com; alternatively contact Rina Gill at Random House: Rgill@randomhouse.co.uk
OTHER THINGS THE PRESS HAS SAID ABOUT ‘FRANK SKINNER ON THE ROAD’
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.
Steve Bennett, Chortle
Skinner is insightful, erudite and, naturally, funny when dissecting the craft of writing and performing successful stand-up comedy.
Esquire
Juicy insight into the inner workings of the job, weaved in with perceptive, original takes on fame, money, love, ageing and god.
Lottie Moggach, thelondonpaper
Quite possibly the best book about stand-up ever written...it’s a staggeringly honest account of the last two years of his life during which time he fell in love and decided to hit the road with a stand-up show some ten years after his last performance. Detailing the intricate way in which a stand-up tries and tests material to create a winning set, it’s even more informative than Seinfeld’s seminal documentary Comedian….You’re worth every penny, Frank.
James Mullinger, GQ
Unfailingly honest, Skinner is funny whether talking about male sexuality, dying on stage or just growing old.
FHM
An honest and very funny account, a brilliantly written account…I love this book.
Richard Madeley, Richard & Judy’s New Position
There are plenty of comedian memoirs this year… The pick of the bunch is probably Frank Skinner on the Road (Century, £18.99), which distinguishes itself by being a) unusual, b) funny, and c) actually written by the person named on the cover. Skinner penned a surprisingly good memoir several years ago; this book is an account of his return to stand-up after a 10-year break. Can he still cut it? Skinner's obvious models here are Jerry Seinfeld's movie Comedian and Steve Martin's memoir Born Standing Up. But where Seinfeld and Martin let light in on magic, Skinner seems hell-bent on letting in darkness. 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: "In Aldershot…they laughed like Hitler laughed: not very often and for all the wrong reasons."
Andy Miller, Daily Telegraph
SOME THINGS THE PRESS SAID ABOUT FRANK SKINNER’S RETURN TO STAND-UP
Behind the casual delivery this was one of the most tightly structured stand-up performances I have ever seen, full of back-references, mock spontaneity and subtle pacing…Best and most uncharacteristic of all, however, was his closing tour de force, a spleen-venting confessional about obsessiveness, which ended with Skinner flat on the floor and the audience blown away. Not merely a comedy gig, a masterclass.
Bruce Dessau, Evening Standard
He prowls the NIA stage with as much spunk as any of the rock gods that play here, his new gold tooth glinting out from the three megascreens high above the stage…Skinner marshals his material brilliantly, interacting with the crowd or launching into set pieces as if it were all part of the same spontaneous thought process. He’s one of the few comics who can play a room this big because, like Billy Connolly or Victoria Wood, his language is so evocative: “like a lizard’s inner thigh,” he says of his laugh lines. One man and a mike becomes a vivid visual experience.
Dominic Maxwell, The Times
The pay-off to one blue anecdote elicited such hard laughter, I thought I’d developed lockjaw. Yet Skinner is far more than a smut-merchant. There’s a sharp cultural observation in his comparison of entertainers churning out anti-Hitler ditties for mass consumption during the Second World War and Skinner’s own George Formby-style Osama Bin Laden (sample lyric: ‘He had one big hit, then he went away/like a terrorism Macy Gray’) which, feels Skinner, ‘wouldn’t work on The Lottery Show’.
Mark Wareham, The Mail on Sunday
This show is a timely reminder of just why the Black Country comic stood out from the crowd in the first place. Welcome back Frank.
Alan Chadwick, Metro
Only a curmudgeon would fail to be impressed by this cracking comeback.
Dominic Cavendish, The Daily Telegraph
Fun-time Frankie’s got his mojo back - and is back on scintillating form. Skinner is one of those acts you suspect was always destined to be a comedian. His style is so natural and relaxed, that engaging 3,000 people comes as second nature. Plus he lives - or at least lived - the sort of reckless life that’s sure to throw up a rich catalogue of embarrassing anecdotes ready to be shared with an eager audience. Skinner knows his demographic: the lads shouting encouragement from the stalls as if they were on the terraces. His appeal, though, is wider than that. His anecdotes are raucously hilarious, his charm palpable and his mischievous spirit as lively as ever. Welcome back, Frank.
Steve Bennett, Chortle
SOME THINGS THE PRESS SAID ABOUT ‘FRANK SKINNER BY FRANK SKINNER’
A minor masterpiece… a classic of its kind.
The Guardian
Frank Skinner is up there with Tristram Shandy as a brilliantly effective book… hilariously honest and deeply moving.
The Independent
A rattling good read, written with humour and honesty.
The Sun
I cried, and also laughed so much I fell off my chair. Warning: this book is much better than you have any right to expect.
The Independent on Sunday
Skinner has a pathological need to tell the truth - and that can only be to the advantage of any autobiography.
The Scotsman
Reads like one long stand-up routine.
Heat
Funny? Yes Very.
The Evening Standard
Hilarious - often shocking…
The Mirror
FRANK SKINNER
FRANK SKINNER performed his first stand-up gig in December 1987 and, only four years later in 1991, went on to win the prestigious Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival. During the mid 90’s FRANK sold-out two massive UK tours, the second of which, in 1997, closed to a world record breaking packed house at London’s Battersea Power Station. He also established himself as a leading name in television entertainment, going on to star in a succession of smash hit comedy shows, including Fantasy Football, The Frank Skinner Show, and Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned.
FRANK SKINNER’S prolific career to date has also seen him attain three number one hits with the football anthem ‘Three Lions’, alongside DAVID BADDIEL and The Lightning Seeds; star in the hit West End show Art in 1999; and publish his first book, Frank Skinner, which became the top selling entertainment autobiography of 2002, with a total of 46 weeks spent in The Sunday Times Bestsellers list. In 2006, Frank went on to create an online sensation with over one million downloads of Baddiel and Skinner’s World Cup Podcasts and learnt to play the banjo as part of BBC ONE’s Play It Again series.
Frank returned to live stand-up in 2007 with his unique blend of philosophical yet not for the faint-hearted humour, a decade since he played his last major live gig. His third tour sold-out 69 dates across the UK, including three nights at Birmingham’s National Indoor Arena.
2009 has already seen FRANK: host a ten-week London-based residency of Frank Skinner’s Credit Crunch Cabaret, a sell-out show which offers Londoners respite from recession doom-and-gloom by giving them the chance to experience a variety of award-winning acts like CHRIS ADDISON, DAVID BADDIEL, CONNIE FISHER, DAVE GORMAN, RICHARD HERRING, RUSSELL HOWARD, LEE MACK, MICHAEL McINTYRE, AL MURRAY - THE PUB LANDLORD and PUNT & DENNIS - alongside brand new stand-up from FRANK and his moral-boosting George Formby-esque ditties - for just £10 a ticket; write a weekly column; present a Panorama special, exploring taste and decency on television; launch his Saturday morning radio show on Absolute; make numerous appearances, as both a panellist and host, on Have I Got News For You; join the panel on BBC ONE’s flagship political debate show, Question Time; and appear at literary events including the Hay Festival and the Cheltenham Literature Festival.
