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Joyce Grenfell
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 6, 2017
Enjoyable.As a youngster I remember Joyce Grenfell in the St Trinian movies and loved her funny performance.This interested me as I wanted to see where she had come from and why else was she famous.This biography surprised me as I had no idea of her well connected background ( related to Nancy Astor etc) or her fame on radio,the stage and touring.She was clearly a bossy person but lovable and kind.A thorough read from a friend and fan.I skimmed the last third as it was an account of her performances and friends,most of them long since dead and forgotten.It did though get me to visit YouTube which has quite a few of her recordings,which is the best way to remember her.
September 2, 2021
I first came across Joyce Grenfell as a teenager when Maureen Lipman did some performances of her work in the 1990s when I was a teen. I managed to track down some of Joyce's original work at the time and can still remember the Nursery School and Stately As A Galleon.
I'll admit that I accidentally grabbed this on Audible thinking that it actually was a performance by Joyce, and I've had it for quite a long time, rather cross that it wasn't what I thought, but I finally got round to listening to this. Ironically there was a part, near the end, where Reggie takes to severely editing Joyce's autobiography, going as far as taking to scissors and glue to chop bits up and rearrange them, and I feel like someone should have done the same to this book. It's not that Joyce didn't have an interesting life, she did, but while the book starts off going through in chronological order, the author gets distracted, tells you a lot more about something that happened later in her life and then you suddenly find yourself going back a decade or more. It got worse as the book went on and I noticed a few bits of information being repeated as they were reached again chronologically as opposed to a previous flight of fancy.
I'd say this was a book most suited to proper fans of Joyce Grenfell, it would be very annoying if you didn't actually know anything about her I feel.
I'll admit that I accidentally grabbed this on Audible thinking that it actually was a performance by Joyce, and I've had it for quite a long time, rather cross that it wasn't what I thought, but I finally got round to listening to this. Ironically there was a part, near the end, where Reggie takes to severely editing Joyce's autobiography, going as far as taking to scissors and glue to chop bits up and rearrange them, and I feel like someone should have done the same to this book. It's not that Joyce didn't have an interesting life, she did, but while the book starts off going through in chronological order, the author gets distracted, tells you a lot more about something that happened later in her life and then you suddenly find yourself going back a decade or more. It got worse as the book went on and I noticed a few bits of information being repeated as they were reached again chronologically as opposed to a previous flight of fancy.
I'd say this was a book most suited to proper fans of Joyce Grenfell, it would be very annoying if you didn't actually know anything about her I feel.
October 21, 2012
Heh, I don't know quite how often I've listened to this yet, it's lovely for a quarter hour in the dark before sleeping to calm down and listen. Eleanor Bron doesn't quite sound as much as Grenfell as Maureen Lipman, but she has a lovely voice and delivery.
I had read the book before, so I was just happy to get a full audiobook version to listen to. The book is huge and I ripped the 12 CDs to MP3 and can listen to it via my tiny Sony Walkman.
Hampton wrote this biography as far as I remember, after Reggie Grenfell's death. She shows that - because Joyce and especially Virginia kept so much of their papers and correspondence - a lot of the things Joyce didn't talk about out loud still were to be found in the papers. I would love to know how Hampton knew that Reggie never had heard about the Ali Khan situation.
I think this book makes Joyce more approachable as a person, as it shows her personal faults without turning into a hysterical expose - something which seems unlikely to have been true to her nature.
It's also a fascinating portrait of an incredibly changeable time from her Grandfather's railway baron days in America to her death in 1979.
I had read the book before, so I was just happy to get a full audiobook version to listen to. The book is huge and I ripped the 12 CDs to MP3 and can listen to it via my tiny Sony Walkman.
Hampton wrote this biography as far as I remember, after Reggie Grenfell's death. She shows that - because Joyce and especially Virginia kept so much of their papers and correspondence - a lot of the things Joyce didn't talk about out loud still were to be found in the papers. I would love to know how Hampton knew that Reggie never had heard about the Ali Khan situation.
I think this book makes Joyce more approachable as a person, as it shows her personal faults without turning into a hysterical expose - something which seems unlikely to have been true to her nature.
It's also a fascinating portrait of an incredibly changeable time from her Grandfather's railway baron days in America to her death in 1979.
June 18, 2010
Well this does give you more background and a clearer view of Joyce Grenfell with her pros and cons, although the writer is the daughter of a family friend who benefitted from Joyce's generosity and therefore never will write unbiased. There were a lot of quotes from monologues and bits I already heard/saw/read elsewhere, but it was a coherent whole.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews