Review of Frankie Boyle’s <My Shit Life So Far> audio book
Narrated by: Angus King
Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
Release date: 11-10-2011
1st of all, what a name.
In fact a lot of Frankie Boyles books, TV shows etc have pretty harsh names. For example his 4 of 5 stand up shows have been titled:
Morons, I Can Heal You,
I Would Happily Punch Every One of You in the Face,
The Last Days of Sodom &
Hurt Like You’ve Never Been Loved.
His 2nd book is called Work! Consume! Die! But I’ve yet to listen to that.
This book isn’t just comedy for the sake of comedy, as the title hints at its an autobiography of sorts of Frankie Boyle. How he grew up, influences, education, work, and basically how he got to the point that we see him on Mock the Week, stand up performances and other great shows.
For more information on who Frankie Boyle is, read my article here which goes into lots of detail and has recommendations of clips and shows you can watch of his.
As with many comedians we find out that Frankie Boyle is actually incredibly intelligent, very well read, worked a magnitude of various jobs and has managed to integrate a lot of this into how he sees the world and the comedy he creates from it.
Just some of the things from the book – growing up in Glasgow he worked in a retirement home in his teenage years, studied Urban Planning, and then left that to get a BA in English Literature, worked at a mental hospital for a bit, then taught English to high school students at which it was during this time that he got into stand up comedy. And then getting a job writing for Jimmy Carr on the gameshow ‘Distraction’, for which his standup couple with his writing job and connections led him to where he is today appearing on gameshows, satirical news shows and eventually his own TV show.
Yes, this is a quick run down, but I didn’t really spoilt anything, because you could of got most of this by just reading his Wikipedia page. What matters though, is the story of how all this happened and the way that Frankie Boyle tells it.
Narration
The book isn’t actually really by Frankie Boyle, however its read by a Scottish narrator that does a perfect job of maintaining the flow, and the humour throughout. While it takes a bit to get used to at the start, realising it wasn’t Frankie, it feels completely natural after only a short time.
Recommendation
The book does contain some pretty strong language and some fairly melancholic and cynical descriptions of situations, yet when told through the lens of Frankie’s comedy, during different times you either managed to hear the humour in it, or it just sounds really interesting.
If you like Frankie Boyles stand-up comedy, liked his contributions to Mock The Week or various other British game shows, then you’ll definitely like this book.
Even if you have no idea who he is, a window into another life and how is was formed told in a humorous way is always enjoyable listening.
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