Beside myself - Antony Sher

This is the autobiography of actor, author and artist Anthony Sher. It offers an insight into his first 50 years. Starting with his time in the sinister paradise of white South Africa, we follow Sher through his time as a rifleman during conscription in Namibia, his feelings of being an outsider and his escape to London. Small, weedy, Jewish and conscious of his homosexuality Anthony found a refuge in art and later theatre. Sher was turned down by RADA and Central but still went on to create a series of triumphs on stage, including "Richard III" and "Macbeth", as well as write novels and a theatre-journal full of his own illustrations. Sher reveals his personal experiences of theatre figures, such as Olivier, Stoppard and Mike Leigh, and the time when his cocaine habit threatened his survival. This is a personal odyssey through the approvals and dismissals, awards and addictions, doubts and dreams which go to make up Anthony Sher's life so far.