Are You Going to do That Little Jump? A life in acting.

Friday, March 16th, 2018

Robert Gillespie on how books are born out of a lifetime of acting.

 

I didn’t expect to have a daughter. I didn’t expect to be English. Or, more accurately, British.

 

I really didn’t think I’d be on the same stage as Richard Burton and Claire Bloom – or Robert Hardy. Heard of them?

 

My adorable, and beautiful, daughter Lucy turned up so late in my life that she wasn’t around for any of this.

 

And so what? I thought.

Then the nagging started – especially from Lucy’s mother. Get some of this story down, there’s forty years of it Lucy’s missed. Tell how you were nearly French, how you slipped – rather late – through Adolf Hitler’s grasping fingers.

 

Write it down!

 

Well, I had written satire for That Was the Week That Was – but a book?! How d’you do that? Every experienced writing pro round me said `get an editor’.

So I did.

 

Oxford Editors’ advice and patient, detailed text work has helped me transform an exciting, but craggy, original into a sleek, spare, enjoyable read.

 

And I wanted the book to be richly illustrated. Paul Warrington – brilliant graphic designer – has done a wonderful job. Before my book, he designed some of my best theatre posters. When I found all kinds of half-forgotten treasures in my personal store Paul magicked them, with huge relish, onto the page to make Are You Going to do That Little Jump? a pleasure to look at, as well as read.

 

Are You Going to do That Little Jump? by Robert Gillespie