The Gnome King reviewed Absolute Pandemonium by Brian Blessed (author)
Review of 'Absolute Pandemonium' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Good old Brian Blessed, a national treasure, you gotta be pretty evil to dislike him. He has been on the TV for many many years and any scene he is in he steals it. Most memorable is his part in Flash Gordon, loved that movie when I was a kid. I picked up this book thinking it was a biography, instead it is a collection of anecdotes with a whole load of side-stories thrown in.
What I loved about the book was hearing about his childhood, he was one crazy young man that caused his parents no end of grief, even at such a young age you can still see the man he was going to be. His first job at the undertakers was very interesting, especially from Brian's outlandish point of view. Also reading about his time with his Dad, some real love there, was great. His dad seemed like quite a character too.
Reading about how he got roles, the people he met and the movies he saved was interesting at first, but I did find myself getting a bit bored with all the unbelievable stories and all the name dropping. Some of the stuff he did on set was borderline worrying, his treatment of some of the smaller actors in Flash Gordon would definitely cause him to get fired today. One thing that was only briefly covered was his time up mountains, I would have loved to read more about that, I think it may be covered in a separate book so will have to look into that.
I've learnt loads and been inspired to watch a number of his movies. I've also recently seen that the man himself actually reads the audiobook so maybe that would be a better format to check out for this book. All in all it was good fun even if it has it's weak points.
Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/01/30/absolute-pandemonium-my-louder-than-life-story-by-brian-blessed/