On Tuesday evening I went to the Assembly Rooms, in Bath, to see David Mitchell. I haven't been to the Assembly Rooms for years, and I had forgotten what an impressive set of rooms they are. We were in the ballroom. It does make one feel that one ought to be wearing an empire line dress and carrying a reticule, ready to exchange witticisms with Captain Wentworth or Mr Darcy. However, no dashing Regency gentlemen were to be seen, so we all settled down to wait to hear from Mr Mitchell.
He started by explaining that he is not David Mitchell the novelist, author of 'Cloud Atlas', and asked whether anyone had attended by mistake (one person admitted to having done so)...This David Mitchell is the comedian - I am mostly familiar with him for being one half of 'That Mitchell and Webb Look' (one of my favourites is here). He has now written his autobiography, Back Story, and read several passages from it, in the course of an interview.
It's probably not a surprise to hear that it is funny...
David explained that he had been going to write a misery memoir, but didn't really have any terrible traumatic childhood experiences to base one on (except for the lobster incident, obviously..)
He read passages from the book about the lobster incident, about his school and about his early experiences as an actor, before answering questions from the audience.
I think the book will be well worth reading, and of course you can also read David's weekly columns in the Observer newspaper.
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