One Thing and Another: Selected Writings 1954-2016

by Jonathan Miller, Ian Greaves

‘Do you sometimes think that you might wish that you were a national treasure, like Alan Bennett?’

‘I’m rather glad I’m not. I’m quite pleased to be what I
think I am, which is a sort of national liability.’

Over the course of seven decades, Jonathan Miller has been at the forefront of developments in theatre, opera, comedy, philosophy and scientific debate. This new collection brings together the very best of his acerbic writing. In keeping with Miller’s grasshopper mind, One Thing and Another leaps from discussions of human behaviour, atheism, satire, cinema and television, to analyses of the work of M. R. James, Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens and Truman Capote, by way of reflections on directing Shakespeare, Chekhov, Olivier and opera. A celebrated conversationalist, the book also features a selection of key interviews focusing on his working method. Jonathan Miller is internationally celebrated as one of the last great public intellectuals.

Read One Thing and Another to find out why.

669 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 3, 2017

About the author

Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE was a British theatre and opera director, author, television presenter, humorist and sculptor. Trained as a physician in the late 1950s, he first came to prominence in the 1960s with his role in the comedy review Beyond the Fringe with fellow writers and performers Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett. Despite having seen few operas and not knowing how to read music, he began stage-directing them in the 1970s and became one of the world's leading opera directors with several classic productions to his credit. His best-known production is probably his 1982 "Mafia"-styled Rigoletto set in 1950s Little Italy, Manhattan. He was also a well-known television personality and familiar public intellectual in the UK and US.

Reviews

[Becky Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic and thorough anthology of a life curiously lived.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I skimmed this book and read all the entries having to do with theatre. Fascinating insights into KING LEAR. I got bogged down in the opera sections and the mental health portions. Honestly, he left me in the rearview mirror a few times as I did not follow where he was going but that's okay because I picked it up for the theatrical insights.