Balham to Bollywood - Hardcover

England, Chris

3.75

63 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 034081988X ISBN 13: 9780340819883

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton, 2002

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For most actors, the idea of going to India for eight weeks to act in a Bollywood epic shot in the middle of a desert would send them scurrying back to their agent asking for some other work, any other work.

Not Chris England. He runs his own cricket team (An England XI), and since he was given the part of a cricketer in a British Army team playing against a small Indian village a hundred years ago, he wouldn't just be working. He would be representing his country at his favourite sport.

This is a cricket tour diary with a difference, as Chris England charts the progress of the film from his audition in a London park to the film's release eighteen months later. The author's ability to evoke the landscape and atmosphere of India is complemented by his skill in bringing to life the bizarre and often very funny world of film making.

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Review:

Part travelogue, part cricketing diary, part expose of Indian cinema, this irresistible and unlikely mixture combines to make a hilarious whole. If you only buy one book, buy this and get three books for the price of one. (Nick Hancock)

Chris England writes as he bowls, to great comic effect. His account of an acting/cricketing jaunt to a little known part of India sparkles with funny anecdotes about cricket, Bollywood, locals, actors, and of course, Chris England. A real page-turner. (Arthur Smith)

This is a charming, hugely recommended, fun book. (Cricketer)

Fascinating and funny...a hilarious sequence of adventures, misdaventures and downright oddities. Side-stepping or subverting the usual cliches of the British in India, England's book is a truly original read. (Wisden)

An extremely funny story of acting, movies, maleness, sport, and post-colonial India (Telegraph)

One of the most entertaining and enjoyable reads I've had in a long while...amusing, absorbing and splendidly illustrated (Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph)

An amusing mix of excitement and disaster, from the co-writer of An Evening With Gary Lineker (Mail On Sunday)

(A) laconically funny diary (The Times)

A real treat (Radio Times)

Book Description:

A pretend cricketer's diary.

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