Hot on the heels of winning Best Actor at the What’s on Stage Awards for his playing of Oscar Wilde in The Judas Kiss, Rupert Everett has now also carried off the Sheridan Morley Book Prize for his memoir Vanished Years (published by Little Brown).
The winner was announced by critic, writer (and now cabaret producer) Ruth Leon who established the prize in memory of her husband critic, writer and director Sheridan Morley. It is awarded every year for the best theatre or show business biography, autobiography or diary.
Introducing the private presentation event, hosted by the Garrick Club, Ruth spoke of the many extraordinary books they had to choose from this year. They were narrowed down to a shortlist, each of which was introduced by one of the judges: actress Isla Blair, who was also the winner of last year’s prize, director Braham Murray and critic Mark Shenton.
Simon Callow, another former winner, now becoming known as much as a writer as for his work in the theatre, was again a contender with his Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World (Harper Press). Braham Murray declared “he writes with a passion, which is terrific and it is almost like reading a novel.” Braham also introduced Sue Prideaux’s Strindberg, A Life (Yale) commenting that "it seems often the case that the greater the artist more monstrous the person” and found this a book offered “so much I didn’t know and that was new” about a dramatist he thought he knew well.
Mark Shenton spoke on The Rest Of The Story by Arthur Laurents, the late playwright and director’s third volume of memoirs, published posthumously, and fellow critic Kate Bassett’s In Two Minds: A Biography Of Jonathan Miller (Oberon Books). She achieved a great feat in producing this massive and beautifully researched study which he described as a “magnificent book” about a man who works in so many fields.
Isla Blair introduced actor Michael Pennington’s for Sweet William (Nick Hern) which, like his one man show of the same name, explores his relationship with Shakespeare (having spent 20,000 hours performing him. “I defy anyone to read it,” she said, “and not then share the enthusiasm he has for Shakespeare.”
Isla also spoke about Vanished Years saying that “it is achingly funny and also deeply moving, utterly composed and also terribly true. I think he also deprecates more sharply than himself.”
When Ruth Leon announced his book the winner, Everett, in accepting, told the other writers “you are all so much better than I am. But I am 100% so thrilled!”