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This Much is True

On sale

16th September 2021

Price: £24.99

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Selected: Audiobook Downloadable / ISBN-13: 9781529379921

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From Blackadder to Call the Midwife, from the Cadbury’s Caramel Rabbit to Harry Potter, Miriam Margolyes is the outspoken great aunt (after two sherries) we all wish we had — this is (at last) her extraordinary life story and it’s well worth the wait.

‘There is no one on earth quite so wonderful’ STEPHEN FRY

Award-winning actor, creator of a myriad of memorable characters from Lady Whiteadder to Professor Sprout, Miriam Margolyes is a national treasure.

Now, at last, at the age of 80, she has finally decided to tell her extraordinary life story. And it’s far richer and stranger than any part she’s played.

Find out how being conceived in an air-raid gave her curly hair; what pranks led to her being known as the naughtiest girl Oxford High School ever had; how she ended up posing nude for Augustus John aged 17, being sent to Coventry by Monty Python and the Goodies and swearing on University Challenge (she was the first woman to say F*** on TV). This book is packed with unforgettable stories from why Bob Monkhouse was the best (male) kiss she’s ever had to being told off by the Queen. With a cast list stretching from Scorsese to Streisand, Leonardo di Caprio to Isaiah Berlin, This Much is True is as warm and honest, as full of life and surprises, as she is.

(P)2021 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Reviews

Daily Telegraph
Potty-mouthed and thrillingly candid, Margolyes's account of her career from teenage nude modelling for Augustus John to sexy voiceover work for Ann Summers to playing Harry Potter's Professor Sprout is a riotous joy
Eva Wiseman, Observer
Gleefully outspoken and bursting with hilarious anecdotes, gloriously larger than life . . . I pity every person that is not me right now, drinking in the glory of Margolyes at 80
Simon Callow
Reads like the Wife of Bath's memoirs
Lynn Barber, Daily Telegraph
Startling, thrillingly outspoken, provocative, potty-mouthed and exhilarating . . . THIS MUCH IS TRUE is never boring. Her personality is so likeable she can only leave you wanting more
DAILY MAIL
There's never been a memoir so packed with eye-popping, hilarious and shockingly candid stories.
ROGER LEWIS, THE TIMES
Unstoppably ebullient and rollicking
Hadley Freeman, Guardian
Wickedly honest . . . When I was reading this book on a train, a stranger asked if I was OK because I was crying with laughter
Sunday Post
An irreverent, straight-talking, riotous romp through an extraordinary life
Charlotte Heathcote, Daily Mirror
If there is a silver lining to last year's lockdown, it's the fact that Miriam Margolyes finally had time to write her life story . . . invigoratingly outspoken . . . gloriously shocking . . . and captures her force-of-nature personality. Buckle up, you're in for a wild ride
The i
Now 80 - and no less outrageous and outspoken, the actress presents vignettes from her life that will induce guffaws as much as gasps
Daily Record
Blisteringly honest and hugely entertaining
Roger Lewis, The Times
Ebullient and bosomy
Radio Times
Stories galore . . . Miriam Margolyes has a life worth immortalising in print . . . An unapologetic account of a life well lived. As irrepressible as ever, Margolyes's warmth and wit shines through
Daily Record
Blisteringly honest and hugely entertaining
Irish Examiner
There's so much in the book; each chapter offering a tidbit of information both interesting and hilarious... It's full of life and vigour, as if you're conversing with a friend you've known for a long time
The Guardian
Brilliant stories abound in this memoir... which is honest, poignant and wildly indiscreet.
Choice Magazine
As compelling, forthright and irrepressible as its author
Good Housekeeping
Miriam Margolyes' autobiography is crass, brash, rude, crude, funny and sad, and as delightful and surprising as Miriam herself
Daily Express
As outrageously entertaining as you'd expect