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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
Quite a rant. It's not that I disagree with what she says but it is a relentless read.
‘Old age should burn and rave at close of day.”
I have loved Sheila Hancock in her many guises - in tv drama, on radio comedy shows…for many years..and as the partner of the beloved and wonderful John Thaw.
Old Rage would probably make a better audiobook than a physical book. It is an outpouring…sometimes a rant, sometimes a reminisce, fuelled by emotions and memories..I could hear Sheila’s voice throughout and I would love to hear her actually reading this..
At first I was a little unsettled by the format - it is loose and fluid like a conversation which switches backwards and forwards between dates and ideas. Unconstrained by order, or real structure it flows like thoughts from the mind…which can appear random and sometimes the thread is difficult to grasp. This might be called a memoir but it is more than that..not for nothing is the title, ‘Old Rage.’ Sheila has something to to say…quite a lot in fact.
Views about Brexit, universal education, decent pay for NHS staff…punctuate memories of the author’s life, her family, her life on stage and the actors and mortals she has met along the way. As an older woman who shares so many of the author’s viewpoints this was a sheer delight. For me she talks so much common sense and I would happily rage by her side. What I loved most of all though was the sense of a long life, the witness to events - a world war, and to stars of the stage from long ago…Kenneth More, Kenneth Williams, James Mason..Margaret Lockwood. Reading these names connected me to memories of my own. This is a lady who has seen World War, learned to use Zoom and WhatsApp, acted on stage with the greats and walks the deserted streets of London during the pandemic. And then there is the revelations of a personal life lived through family bereavement, illness and crisis..and her own mortality.
A really lovely, fascinating and human account. Thank you so much to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for a digital copy of this book,
I have loved Sheila Hancock in her many guises - in tv drama, on radio comedy shows…for many years..and as the partner of the beloved and wonderful John Thaw.
Old Rage would probably make a better audiobook than a physical book. It is an outpouring…sometimes a rant, sometimes a reminisce, fuelled by emotions and memories..I could hear Sheila’s voice throughout and I would love to hear her actually reading this..
At first I was a little unsettled by the format - it is loose and fluid like a conversation which switches backwards and forwards between dates and ideas. Unconstrained by order, or real structure it flows like thoughts from the mind…which can appear random and sometimes the thread is difficult to grasp. This might be called a memoir but it is more than that..not for nothing is the title, ‘Old Rage.’ Sheila has something to to say…quite a lot in fact.
Views about Brexit, universal education, decent pay for NHS staff…punctuate memories of the author’s life, her family, her life on stage and the actors and mortals she has met along the way. As an older woman who shares so many of the author’s viewpoints this was a sheer delight. For me she talks so much common sense and I would happily rage by her side. What I loved most of all though was the sense of a long life, the witness to events - a world war, and to stars of the stage from long ago…Kenneth More, Kenneth Williams, James Mason..Margaret Lockwood. Reading these names connected me to memories of my own. This is a lady who has seen World War, learned to use Zoom and WhatsApp, acted on stage with the greats and walks the deserted streets of London during the pandemic. And then there is the revelations of a personal life lived through family bereavement, illness and crisis..and her own mortality.
A really lovely, fascinating and human account. Thank you so much to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for a digital copy of this book,