David Mitchell: Back Story (47 page)

Smog schmog.

Of course, it’s an honour just to be nominated. Then again, fuck them.

Sam Bain, Jesse Armstrong, Rob and me, at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival as usual.

A publicity shot from
Magicians
.

With Rob Brydon, Alan Davies, Stephen Fry and John Lloyd, for the special
QI
-themed edition of
The Unbelievable Truth
.

The end.

Copyright

HarperCollins
Publishers
77–85 Fulham Palace Road,
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperCollins
Publishers
2012

FIRST EDITION

© David Mitchell 2012

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

All photographs are courtesy of the author, his friends or family, with the exception of the following: image 30 reproduced from the Hampstead & Highgate Express; image 33 Objective Productions; image 42 Intermedia Productions; image 43 Janie Airey

While every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright material reproduced herein and secure permissions, the publishers would like to apologise for any omissions and will be pleased to incorporate missing acknowledgements in any future edition of this book.

David Mitchell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN 9780007351725
Ebook Edition © October 2012 ISBN: 9780007382941
Version 1.0

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Table of Contents

Dedication

Introduction

1 The Fawlty Towers Years

2 Inventing Fleet Street

3 Light-houses, My Boy!

4 Summoning Servants

5 The Pianist and the Fisherman

6 Death of a Monster

7 Civis Britannicus Sum

8 The Mystery of the Unexplained Pole

9 Beatings and Crisps

10 The Smell of the Crowd

11 Cross-Dressing, Cards and Cocaine

12 Presidents of the Galaxy

13 Badges

14 Play It Nice and Cool, Son

15 Teenage Thrills: First Love, and the Rotary Club Public Speaking Competition

16 Where Did You Get That Hat?

17 I Am Not a Cider Drinker

18 Enthusiasm in Basements

19 God Is Love

20 The Cause of and Answer to All of Life’s Problems

21 Attention

22 Mitchell and Webb

23 We Said We Wouldn’t Look Back

24 The Lager’s Just Run Out

25 Real Comic Talent

26 Going Fishing

27 Causes of Celebration

28 The Magician

29 Are You Sitting Down?

30 Peep Show

31 Being Myself

32 Lovely Spam, Wonderful Spam

33 The Work–Work Balance

34 The End of the Beginning

35 Centred

Picture Section

Copyright

About the Publisher