What's My Motivation? - Softcover

"Funny, engaging, perceptive and hugely entertaining" (Stephen Fry)

"Screamingly funny - set to become a classic" (Craig Brown Mail on Sunday)

"A real page-turner and a genuinely funny and honest book about the actor's life" (Michael Billington Guardian)

"Michael writes about disaster, humiliation, rejection and ridicule - the hilarious truth" (Nicholas Hytner)

"Casts an objective eye on the crazy world of the actor with an accuracy that is both chilling and charming" (Mike Leigh)

As a boy, Michael Simkins always wanted to be someone. While his friends were out getting laid and stoned, he was tucked up at home dreaming of his name in lights, of holding an audience rapt, of perhaps becoming a TV heart-throb, or having someone, anyone, ask for his autograph in the supermarket. This is the true story of an obsessive pursuit of acting fame. It is a life marked by occasional hard-fought successes and routine helpings of ritual humiliation: scout hut Gilbert and Sullivan, dodgy rock operas, sewage farm theatre workshop, Christmas panto hell, straight-to-video film flops, leading roles in Crimewatch reconstructions and dressing up as a chicken to advertise TV dinners. It is a hilarious tale of turgid theatre, tights, trusses and tonsil tennis with Timothy Spall.