A Pocketful of Happiness

Product Information

As with all celebrity autobiography, Grant is a victim of his own success. My mind wandered to other people who have experienced what Grant has without the exuberant wealth and high society support network that reaches the echelons of King Charles. Whilst you feel for Grant as a human, the way in which the book darts between trivial celebrirty anecdote and personal moments is emotionally draining and confusing. Not very good—it’s an impression rather than the real thing and you couldn’t sustain a whole performance doing that. Needs to be as accurate and authentic as possible.”

Grant’s prose is charming and witty... An engaging story of life, love, and grief that will resonate with anyone who has ever loved and lost.” I ask if his friends have started trying to fix him up with eligible women. “Some have, yes. And I find that absolutely bizarre. It’s not something I could even conceive of at this point. It’s still too raw and present, and I am still having an ongoing conversation with my wife in my head,” he says. But it’s not, of course, the same as the real thing. I was an out-of-work actor from the southern hemisphere, from nowhere, earning a subsistence wage as a waiter, schlepping home after midnight, listening to “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” on my prized Walkman. Not exactly a “catch” of any kind— and pipe-cleaner thin. Joan on the other hand was already a legend in her field. Such was the success of Richard Eyre’s landmark National Theatre production of Guys and Dolls in 1982, and Joan’s accent coaching, that Barbra Streisand enquired, “Who are these American actors I’ve never heard of?” Which resulted in Joan being interviewed to coach Mitteleuropean accents for Streisand’s directorial debut movie, Yentl. As I’ve been a Streisand fanatic for half a century, the details she recalled of their first meeting have been imprinted, like a talisman, on my memory ever since. Even after almost four decades together, the teacher in her never missed the opportunity to correct this defect in my speech. Occasionally, when we were mid-argument, she’d go Henry Higgins on me, with an accent correction, simultaneously increasing my fury and trip-switching us into hilarity. Talking about her keeps her memory alive, and is a vital part of his journey with grief, enabling him to continue living.Newly arrived in London, I was waitering at Tuttons brasserie in Covent Garden, and had just secured an acting agent, who suggested getting accent coaching to help me play Northern Irish, as there were so many dramas being made about the Troubles and “you’re dark-haired and blue-eyed, so you could go up for Irish roles.”

For Australian fans, Richard E Grant will be live and on stage in November 2022 when he brings his very personal show “An Evening With Richard E Grant” to Australia. Was there a temptation to not keep a diary during his wife’s illness, so that it wouldn’t seem real? I didn’t want it to be, 'Oh, she was marvellous and everything was so wonderful’ because that’s not how life isDo not read if you have someone very ill in your life just now but for me despite losing many family members and friends in death, two this year, it’s such a wonderful book.

Something metaphysical is certainly happening to me!!! I’ve never written a letter like this before. How wonderful life is. I love you, my darling. Joan X I entered into this book under the notion it would be solely focussed on Grant’s experience of losing his wife. Understandably so, given the memoir’s title is the parting advice upon her death, in addition to Grant’s press tours where he continually touted this as a memoir on Joan’s terminal cancer.

The details of Joan’s diagnosis with lung cancer, the various tests and treatments she undergoes, how she and her family come to terms with her terminal prognosis, and her death are all described with an honesty that I know many readers will appreciate. It is great to hear that they were so well-supported by the NHS and by their friends so that Joan could die at home. Our panel of authors and literary experts choose 100 English novels that changed the way they see the world. The Novels That Shaped Our World

Joan’s distinctive “gravy” voice—full of rich, delicious brown notes—has begun to alter, as her breath support has halved, and sounds more like her Scottish mother, sometimes leaping into a higher octave. Her Central School of Speech and Drama–trained standard English accent is sounding more Aberdonian than I’ve ever noticed before. Grant’s profoundly moving book, part love letter to his beloved wife, part gossipy memoir about his life and times, will resonate with anyone who ever lost a loved one.”

Table of Contents

This honest and frequently hilarious memoir is written in honor of that challenge—Richard has faithfully kept a diary since childhood, and in these entries he shares raw detail of everything he has experienced: both the pain of losing his beloved wife, and the excitement of their life together, from the role that transformed his life overnight in Withnail and I to his thrilling Oscar Award nomination thirty years later for Can You Ever Forgive Me? In 2005 on the set of Wah-Wah, the film about his childhood he wrote and directed. Photograph: Lions Gate/Allstar His decision to form the book’s narrative jointly out of the most enchanting highs (the Oscars, karaoke with Olivia Colman in a house formerly owned by Bette Davis) and the bleakest lows (Joan’s diagnosis, her fury when Grant inadvertently used the word terminal one day to describe her illness) came, he said, out of his desire to accurately capture what most people’s lives are like… [Richard and Joan’s] relationship is the fascinating central pillar of the book.” Grant’s nomination for an Oscar sparked an almighty row with Washington, because she told him she didn’t want to go to the ceremony. She always hated all that exhausting hobnobbing, and she’d be the plus-one again. He was devastated, and instead took Oilly, who loves socialising as much as him, so it was, he says, the right decision in the end. Mother and daughter hug each other and our brave child says, “Let’s have a great Christmas together.”