Publisher: Michael Joseph
Published: 29th September 2011
Pages: 385
Main Characters: Autobiography
Date Started: 18th January 2012
Date Finished: 22nd January 2012
Ratings Given: ****
Goodreads:
Lee Evans is one of the best-loved comedians in the country; a Hollywood star able to sell out arenas in the blink of eye.
But he was not always such a roaring success.
The Life of Lee is an utterly hilarious and very moving autobiography charting his ups and downs on the way to the top. Lee takes us on a darkly humorous journey through his childhood spent running wild on a Bristol housing estate and his unconventional school days, when he was publicly derided as 'a failure' by a sadistic teacher.
In this brilliantly entertaining and engaging tale, he also guides us through a grim teenage period of numerous dead-end jobs. When he was cleaning toilets and plucking turkeys, he could never have imagined that one day he would be playing to thousands of adoring fans at the O2 Arena.
The book also reveals how as a boy Lee got his first taste of showbiz, living out of a suitcase and accompanying his entertainer father around the smoky, rowdy, unforgiving working-men's club and theatre circuit.
Desperately struggling to be accepted, this quiet young loner always saw himself as an outsider. But he finally met the love of his life and accidentally discovered the one place where he felt at home: the stage.
The Life of Lee is a story that is like its subject: compelling, touching, charming and, above all, fantastically funny.
I don't read many autobiographies as they don't usually make me want to continue reading them but this one was different...
Lee Evans is one of the most well know British comedians and definitely my favourite.
When Christmas was coming up I asked for this as I love Lee Evans and I just had to find out how he came to where he is today but what I wasn't expecting the dark times that he had which there was plenty of them.
Lee's life didn't even start off brilliant as he was born with a hole in his heart and couldn't run around for long as he would pass out and if you have seen Lee perform you know that he can't stand still for five seconds so I definitely wasn't expecting to hear that.
He has been in fights a plenty, had a stick in his eye, bullied by adults children and even teachers, and that's just the first few chapters I won't tell you everything that has happened to him but put it this way it wasn't pretty!
It wasn't all dark as he would make light of the situations and made me laugh out loud which is hard for me to get that kind of connection with a book. I also was awwing out loud and even being grossed out (yes the stick in the eyes gets explained which made me feel ill) I definitely got into this book.
There was times when I did get confused as some of the chapters are going back and forward in time so I had to pay very close attention so I didn't get lost.
Overall a great book and now I just need to watch his latest DVD and I for one can't wait but I won't be seeing him in the same light as I have even more respect for someone I idolised in the first place.
