William Cook's books about comedy include: Ha Bloody Ha - Comedians Talking (Fourth Estate); The Comedy Store - The Club That Changed British Comedy (Little, Brown); Tragically I Was An Only Twin - The Complete Peter Cook, and Goodbye Again - The Definitive Peter Cook & Dudley Moore (both published by Century); 25 Years of Viz (Boxtree), Eric Morecambe Unseen - The Lost Diaries, Jokes & Photographs (HarperCollins), and Morecambe & Wise Untold (HarperCollins).In 2006 he named his top ten books about comedians for the Guardian. One title on the list:
Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilisation by John LahrRead about the other nine titles on Cook's list.
An absorbing backstage biography of the comedienne sometimes mistaken for Barry Humphries, by the theatre critic of the New Yorker - and the son of the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. Lahr taped 34 hours of interviews with Australia's finest (and funniest) cultural export, but it's his colourful descriptions of Dame Edna, Sandy Stone and Sir Les Patterson that make this book live and breathe. A life in showbiz, seen from the wings.
--Marshal Zeringue
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