A Voyage Round My Father - Softcover

Mortimer, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141193417 ISBN 13: 9780141193410

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2010

Synopsis

In John Mortimer's most famous and highly autobiographical play, a young man looks back on an unconventional childhood and youth overshadowed by his irascible and eccentric father. Sent away to boarding school to be 'prepared for life', he finds teachers deranged by shell shock after the First World War and boys who try to coat their ordinary home lives with romance. As the Second World War begins, the mild-mannered protagonist tries to become a writer, but is compelled to become a barrister like his father - a towering character depicted with affection and exasperation.

Hugely popular since it was first performed, A Voyage Round My Father is a sublimely comic drama of warmth, nostalgia and wisdom.

About this title

Product Description:

A play featuring a young man who looks back on an unconventional childhood and youth overshadowed by his irascible and eccentric father. As the Second World War begins, the mild-mannered protagonist tries to become a writer, but is compelled to become a barrister like his father - a towering character depicted with affection and exasperation.

Review:

This is a memory play, suffused by nostalgia, and also a clever evocation of another era... [but] more seethes beneath the surface than is initially apparent. Though unashamedly old-fashioned and sometimes sentimental, the play is emotionally delicate too, and often astute about dependency, the way our parents shape us and how hard it is to say 'I love you'. --Lyn Gardner, The Guardian

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0141193417
• ISBN 13: 9780141193410
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192