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The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi: Laughter, Madness and the Story of Britain's Greatest Comedian

The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi: Laughter, Madness and the Story of Britain's Greatest Comedian

by Andrew McConnell Stott (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2009

    $5.05
Synopsis

'I make you laugh at night but am Grim-All-Day' The son of a deranged Italian immigrant, Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1837) was the most celebrated of English clowns. The first to use white-face make-up and wear outrageous coloured clothes, he completely transformed the role of the Clown in the pantomime with a look as iconic as Chaplin's tramp or Tommy Cooper's magician. One of the first celebrity comedians, his friends included Lord Byron and the actor Edmund Kean, and his memoirs were edited by the young Charles Dickens. But underneath the stage paint, Grimaldi struggled with depression and his life was blighted with tragedy. His first wife died in childbirth and his son would go on to drink himself to death. In later life, the extreme physicality of his performances left him disabled and in constant pain. The outward joy and tomfoolery of his performances masked a dark and depressing personal life, and instituted the modern figure of the glum, brooding comedian. Drawing on a wealth of source material, Stott has written the definitive biography of Grimaldi and a highly nuanced portrait of Georgian theatre in London, from the frequent riots at Drury Lane to the spectacular excess of its arch rival Sadler's Wells; from stage elephants running amok to recreations of Admiral Nelson's sea battles on flooded stages at the height of the Napoleonic Wars. Joseph Grimaldi left an indelible mark on the English theatre and the performing arts, but his legacy is one of human struggle, battling demons and giving it his all in the face of adversity.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 464
 Edition: Main
 Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd
Published: 29 Oct 2009
ISBN 10: 1847672957
ISBN 13: 9781847672957

Media Reviews
Grimaldi is once more the tragic anti-hero - to be loved and reviled in equal measure. This is a wonderful book: beautiful, heartbreaking and absolutely fascinating. -- Amanda Foreman
This interesting and entertaining book gives a real insight into how much professional comedy has changed over the last 250 years, and how much it hasn't changed. -- Frank Skinner
Fascinating, informative and compelling, this is essential reading for lovers of theatre and comedy. -- Jack Carreira * * Waterstones Books Quarterly * *
A round of applause is due to this exuberant, impassioned portrait, for bringing the great Grimaldi, 'Joey the Clown', into the limelight again. -- Jenny Uglow * * Observer * *
As a portrait of London life in all its mutinous and anarchic variety this book would be hard to beat; as a history of pantomime it almost makes one want to go to one. Almost. -- David Crane * * Spectator * *
The biographer once did a comic turn himself and it animates his account. Stott doesn't just bring the man to painful life but his world as well. -- Brian Morton * * Scottish Review of Books * *
[The] vivid life of the man who revolutionised clowning but was plagued by black depressions. * * Sunday Times Culture * *
Sad though his decline was, his story, as McConnell Stott tells it, conveys an overwhelming impression of verve and ingenuity . . . [McConnell Stott] recounts these wonders with infectious brio. -- John Carey * * Sunday Times * *
Grimaldi's is a story of comedy mixed with pathos, endurance with absurdity. It is exceptionally well told here. -- Sam Leith * * Daily Mail * *
Always vivacious and engaged, Stott's writing is earthed in research that gives resonance to the amplitude of detail he provides, tactfully tucking away documentation of sources in endnotes that are a pleasure in themselves. -- Jennie Renton * * Sunday Herald * *
Rich in detail . . . [Stott] succeeds in evoking the London theatrical world of the time in all its riotous energy. -- Patrick O'Connor * * Times Literary Supplement * *
Stott writes for the general reader with sympathetic wit and a free descriptive hand ... exceptionally well told. -- Sam Leith * * Daily Mail * *
In this attractively written, well-illustrated and well-researched biography Andrew Stott brings this extraordinary genius vividly before us, in the process richly evoking the tumultuous life of the London theatre in the age of Sheridan and Kembles. -- Michael Slater * * Literary Review * *
Author Bio
Andrew Stott was born in 1969 and grew up in the south of England. For many years he was a stand-up comedian. He performed with Al Murray, Ricky Gervais, Stewart Lee, Daniel Kitson and most of the prominent stand-up comics of the late 90s. Andrew is now Associate Professor of English at the State University of New York, Buffalo, where he specialises in comedy, popular culture and the history of the theatre from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. In 2005 he wrote Comedy(Routledge), an academic study of the art, and has since become a comedy pundit, offering commentaries to New York's WNYC radio and Slate magazine.