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Spike Milligan
Spike Milligan was one of our best-loved comics as well as one of our most original. In this first major assessment of Spike's life and career, the highly respected biographer Humphrey Carpenter has - through copious research and access to many of those closest to the great man - unearthed a character who could be as difficult and contradictory as he was generous and talented. The creator of The Goons was to influence a whole generation of comics, yet was never to feel fully valued. His periods of depression were matched by periods of high creativity - there were poems, novels, volumes of biography, as well as TV series and a one-man show as Spike searched for his best means of expression. There was also, as revealed here, his inveterate womanising. Married three times and with four children to whom he was devoted, two illegitimate children were to remain barely acknowledged. Detailing both his private and professional life, Humphrey Carpenter gives us the most revealing portrait yet of this highly complex genius.
344 pages, Paperback
First published May 24, 2004
About the author
Humphrey Carpenter
88 books74 followersHumphrey William Bouverie Carpenter was an English biographer, writer, and radio broadcaster.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
November 28, 2011
Spike Milligan is one of my intellectual heroes. He throughly entertained about two generations of people in the U.K. while having to deal with severe manic depression. Overall Carpenter's biography is solid. Carpenter only gets off track, in my opinion, when he tries to imply that Spike was more in control of his mood swings than he wanted us to believe. Carpenter also tries to say at one point that Spike might have been Schizophrenic because of his occasional bouts with auditory hallucinations and his sensitivity to certain noises. Maybe is was a touch of bad research as both are common symptoms reported by those suffering a severe depressive mood. In my depression I've had auditory hallucinations myself, but they are aren't to be confused with schizophrenic "voices" as they usually take the form of crashes, bells, or other random noises; in other words they are just brain cells mis-firing.
Carpenter seems to have the bias of someone who has never been personally touched by depression personally or in his family. Good for him, however he doesn't always have enough sympathy for a problem that often debilitated Spike. The attitude the book takes is very nebulous.
Other than that, this book is very solid.
Carpenter seems to have the bias of someone who has never been personally touched by depression personally or in his family. Good for him, however he doesn't always have enough sympathy for a problem that often debilitated Spike. The attitude the book takes is very nebulous.
Other than that, this book is very solid.
November 24, 2017
A flawed genius, absolutely. A flawed biography? Yes. But I couldn't rate it too poorly as I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know more about Spike through Carpenter's eyes. I felt the treatment of Spike's mental illness was a little lacking, but otherwise came away feeling I understood his life a little better.
June 2, 2020
Spike Milligan was a difficult, unhappy man. Also one of the most brilliant comedians of all time. This is a thorough memoir of one of my comedy gods.
March 24, 2021
A terrific and very interesting read. Being a huge Spike fan I thought I knew almost everything about the man, I didn't, Humphrey Carpenter introduces us to another side to Spike, I will not go into detail as this book should be read. If I could I would give 6 stars.
May 19, 2023
I like so many of my generation grew up with the Goon Show and absolutely loved the program plus all Spikes other output, but Spike the man? should we have ever met up? ......I don't think I would have understood or maybe even actually liked him and that makes me feel ever so slightly sad.
November 11, 2023
A few colloquialisms aside, the book is well written I just ended up liking the subject less by the end. Which is far from The writers fault. Never meet your heroes eh.
August 7, 2013
I wanted this book to be insightful, funny and informative - it was none of these. The problem seems to me to stem from the fact that Carpenter is a self-confessed Goons fan and therefore falls into a variety of traps that prevent him from doing a full and honest job of helping us to find out what made Spike tick. The fact that Spike was a racist is simply brushed aside. The fact that his "Q" programmes were dreadful is simply excused on the basis that earlier stuff was funny. The fact that other people wrote lots of the Goon stuff is basically ignored. Carpenter's style is dreadful - asides,pseudo-Milliganese and the most annoying habit of giving an opinion with nothing to back it up. I did the decent thing and read till the end and then left it in the French campsite where I was staying:I wonder what the French will make of it?
April 8, 2014
A fabulous biography to read. Spike Milligan was an interesting antagonistic character , but he had a heart of gold. His continuing battle with depression affected his life for a very long time sadly, and this biography by Humphrey carpenter handles that subject matter very carefully and sympathetically.
One of the best biographies I've read in a while.
One of the best biographies I've read in a while.
October 21, 2010
Difficult man to do a biography on. There can be little sympathy for the flawed genius that was Spike. This book does the job perfectly.
March 14, 2012
A complex, difficult man albeit very talented. An informative although not very sympathetic biography.
July 18, 2012
I am too many steps removed from Spike Milligan to fully appreciate this book. The only bit of his work I'm familar with at all is his poetry which I find very amusing.
November 29, 2016
This rather rotten bio is something of a cut-and-paste, and it is obvious that Carpenter didn't have access to the primary sources. Poor.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews