Fight! Harry Hill

Hodder Studio, £20

Comedian Harry reveals in this memoir that one of his career highlights was being congratulated by his hero Barry Cryer for “bringing silly back”.

I’m with you there, Barry. Hill is probably the last in the great line of sublimely surreal comedians that began with The Goons and Monty Python.

This book is not a madcap memoir in the style of Spike Milligan, however, but a straightforward amble through Hill’s life, with thoughtful chapters of advice for aspiring comedians.

Although there are jokes, of course, it’s not a succession of non-stop gags and set pieces but rather Hill telling his life story.

It’s no misery memoir. He had little to complain of at school. “What can I say? I was a happy kid – deal with it.”

There are some funny and interesting insights into his early career as a doctor.

But he wasn’t cut out for it so he moved back in with his mum and began the long slog of building a career in comedy.

This is a far from boastful book. Hill describes the ITV show TV Burp as his only major success and talks candidly about his failures, such as stage show I Can’t Sing: The X-Factor Musical, and the unloved Harry Hill Movie.

He’s a comedian who seems refreshingly sane, one whose comedy doesn’t stem from his neuroses but is the result of hard work and craftsmanship.

I’m not sure the same level of craft has gone into this book. It’s honest and endearing but switches between the entertaining and the banal.

As a Hill superfan, I had a whale of a time gobbling up the behindthe-scenes details of his career.

But I wouldn’t place it among the classics of the comedy memoir genre.

BY