A lot of terrible things happen to Kathy Burke in her memoir, though you won’t find her mired in self-pity. Burke was a toddler when her mother died from stomach cancer, meaning she has no memory of her. In the Islington council flat where she grew up, she shared a bedroom with her alcoholic dad who would give up booze only to fall off the wagon and, at his worst, became violent. When a stranger on the estate called her ugly in front of her friends, she cannily deflected the insult with laughter. “I’m the best dancer at the ugly bug ball though,” she hooted, and did a little dance.
Burke would find her tribe on London’s punk scene and, in her teens, got the acting bug and a place at London’s Anna Scher Theatre school. This put her on the path to a brilliant and varied acting and writing career that saw her appearing in comedy sketches with Harry Enfield and French and Saunders, being called a genius by Peter Cook and taken by Luc Besson’s private jet to collect the prize for best actress at Cannes film festival for Gary Oldman’s 1997 film Nil By Mouth. There, much to her chagrin, she found herself “accepting a bellini cocktail from Harvey fuckface Weinstein”.
Such gobby one-liners are to be expected from a no-nonsense comic actor who finds fame “embarrassing”, but they are extra delicious when delivered by Burke herself. Her narration, much like her prose, is funny, evocative and reliably down-to-earth.
• Available via Simon & Schuster Audio UK, 9hr 30min
Further listening
Does This Make Me Funny?
Zosia Mamet, Penguin Audio, 8hr 17min
A collection of essays by the actor best known for playing Shoshanna in Girls. Mamet discusses life as a nepo baby offspring of a celebrated playwright (David Mamet), her struggles with anorexia and her journey to an acting career. Read by the author.
The Traitors Circle
Jonathan Freedland, John Murray, 12hr 41min
The Guardian columnist reads his gripping tale of a network of German dissenters – educators, aristocrats and diplomats among them – who opposed Hitler during the war and were betrayed by one of their own.
