As You Wish

Princess Bride memories

Release Date: OUT NOW!

256 pages | £ 11.89 ( hardback)/£ 9.99 ( ebook) Authors: Cary Elwes and Joe Layden Publisher: Simon & Schuster part making of, As You Wish is a breezy but entirely toothless trip down memory lane for fans of The Princess Bride.

Penned by the Man In Black himself, it’s an account of Cary Elwes’s journey on the film from the day he first met director Rob Reiner to a cast/ crew reunion 25 years later. Pictures and interview snippets with most of the key players are sprinkled throughout, giving the book an oral history feel – though peculiarly people occasionally feature before they’re introduced in Elwes’s prose, leaving you to wonder who the heck some of them are.

Elwes offers plenty of insight and anecdotes, a lot of which will be new, even to people who’ve sat through all the Blu- ray special features. Barely a single scene goes unmentioned, with the iconic clifftop swordfight covered in the

Part autobiography,

greatest depth. “Inconceivable” may be a stretch, but there are a handful of surprising and hilarious tales, most featuring Andre The Giant, whose voice is sorely missed elsewhere.

It’s lovingly written – Elwes’s passion for the film plainly evident throughout. Elwes is so enamoured with the production and everyone involved, however, that after the twentieth time hearing about how wonderful someone or something was his boundless praise starts to lose impact. It’s difficult to escape the sense there’s a better warts- andall story to be told. Jordan Farley