"Just Resting" by Leo McKern: A Short Review
This is the autobiography of actor Leo McKern, best known for his wonderful portrayal of the character created by John Mortimer - Rumpole of the Old Bailey.
It is an honest and revealing book. One criticism might be than Leo McKern often undervalues himself. For instance, he claims that his prose is very poor, which I think is mistaken. But let the reader judge a typical example. Writing about his first visit to the ruins of post-war Germany, he says:
"I remember approaching a city by train on a banked viaduct, so that what remained could be seen on each side, stretching to the horizon: blunt-topped cones of rubble, the shell of an occasional building standing like the gutted monument to Armageddon; a somehow dreadful neatness of a chequer-board of cleared and empty streets, the debris simply shovelled back to where buildings had stood."
This is the autobiography of actor Leo McKern, best known for his wonderful portrayal of the character created by John Mortimer - Rumpole of the Old Bailey.
It is an honest and revealing book. One criticism might be than Leo McKern often undervalues himself. For instance, he claims that his prose is very poor, which I think is mistaken. But let the reader judge a typical example. Writing about his first visit to the ruins of post-war Germany, he says:
"I remember approaching a city by train on a banked viaduct, so that what remained could be seen on each side, stretching to the horizon: blunt-topped cones of rubble, the shell of an occasional building standing like the gutted monument to Armageddon; a somehow dreadful neatness of a chequer-board of cleared and empty streets, the debris simply shovelled back to where buildings had stood."
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