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Jokes, Jokes, Jokes

My Very Funny Memoir
Brief Description
Jokes, Jokes, Jokes is Eclair's account of how she elbowed her way into the male-dominated world of 1980's stand-up. Her journey began via drama school, cider, sausage rolls, and sleeping with men who looked like they lived under a carpet. It includes her experiences with punk... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
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Jokes, Jokes, Jokes is Eclair's account of how she elbowed her way into the male-dominated world of 1980's stand-up. Her journey began via drama school, cider, sausage rolls, and sleeping with men who looked like they lived under a carpet. It includes her experiences with punk poetry, anorexia, bedsit misery, waitressing, and not really having a clue about anything.

This narrative covers years spent getting changed next to a deep fat fryer in rooms above pubs, with audiences expecting 'a song' or at least 'some impressions'.

Set in a world before microphones, mobile phones, and when everyone smoked and hadn’t yet started taking coke, Eclair was on the comedy circuit before there really was a comedy circuit. Forty years later, she is still gigging. This book provides a snapshot of a 'once upon a time' period, starting in Lancashire, then Manchester before it became Madchesterβ€”when the canals still stank, and the entire population was nicotine stainedβ€”to London, where Covent Garden was still a market. It also describes the time before, when little Jenny Hargreaves, daughter of Major Derek Hargreaves (spy) and June Hargreaves (spy's wife), and sister to Sara (born to be head girl) and Ben (of very little interest), was growing up.

Jokes, Jokes, Jokes charts the changing face of women in comedy since the very early 80's.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781408732069

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 03 October 2024

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Sphere

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 30.0mm

Width: 150.0mm

Height: 230.0mm

Weight: 540g

Pages: 400

About the Author

Stand-up comedian Jenny Eclair was the first woman to win the Perrier Award - the UK's top comedy award - in 1995. Since then, she has also found fame as the author of six critically acclaimed novels and one non-fiction book. Her latest, Older and Wider, combines Jenny's quintessential wry humour whilst covering the almost taboo topic of menopause. Jenny serves as a wise - but always witty - guide to others on the experience of menopause.

Jenny is currently touring the UK with SIXTY! (Ffs). This tour serves as a timely sequel to her previous stand-up show How to be a Middle-Aged Woman (without going insane), that sold out in venues across the UK - and as far afield as Australia! Her biggest theatrical hit to date has been co-writing (with Judith Holder) and starring in all three Grumpy Old Women Live shows, both in the UK and Australia.

She is the writer of the popular BBC Radio 4 series of monologues, Little Lifetimes. Jenny also co-hosts the Menopausal-friendly podcast, Older and Wider, with Judith Holder and has many TV and radio credits to her name.

Small screen highlights include all the Grumpy Old Women series, The Apprentice: You're Fired!, Room 101 (BBC), Loose Women (ITV), Alan Davies As Yet Untitled, QI (UKTV), plus of course reality TV shows such as Splash (ITV) and I'm a Celebrity (ITV) in 2010, where she came third.

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