The first major biography of comic genius Spike Milligan, who died in February 2002, by one of Britain's leading biographers.
Humphrey Carpenter wrote many biographies and won the Somerset Maugham Award, the E.M. Forster Award, the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize and was a runner-up for the Whitbread Prize for biography. He died in 2005.
'Carpenter gets to the heart of the gloomy monster.' -- Sunday Herald 20040504 'Carpenter's Milligan biography has some great comic riffs ...(this) very readable biography shows him at his most flawed and most human.' -- Guardian 20040504 'This biography delves deep behind the comic genius' many masks, exposing a depressed, self-centred and fascinating individual.' -- OK! 20040504 'In this definitive biography, Humphrey Carpenter demonstrates how Milligan was his own worst enemy... The beauty of Carpenter's biography is that this man of contradictions is laid before us in all his crazy glory.' -- Sunday Express 20040504 'Carpenter has made a very good job, scholarly and entertaining, of turning the adventures of one of Britain's strangest ever talents into a reliable narrative.' -- Word 20040504 'This experienced and genial biographer settles down into his familiar, businesslike style, unafraid of addressing the less savoury aspects of his subject.' -- Observer 20040504 'Takes us at a cracking pace through Milligan's war service, the Goon Show years, his literary career, and his attempts, largely unsuccessful, to repeat the mass appeal of The Goons ... It is all part of a complex personality that Carpenter has done well to grapple into a readable biography.' -- The Sunday Times 20040504 'as close a likeness as you will get.' -- Spectator 20040504 'Chronicles all Spike's antisocial and depressive behaviour with tremendous diligence.' -- Mail on Sunday 20040504 'A vivid picture of life at the Beeb when Spike was at his creative acme. Carpenter is good at describing the chemistry and backstage tension of The Goons, and the extracts from shows are well-chosen ... Carpenter's elegant scissors-and-paste job will probably become the new standard text.' -- Evening Standard 20040504 'Humphrey Carpenter's chatty yet perceptive biography charts the fascinating ebb and flow between the poles of [Spike's] personality ... Carpenter soberly charts Spike's indiscretions without salaciousness or sycophancy.' -- Independent 20040504 ' a fascinating portrait' -- The Times Literary Supplement 20040504
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