A Mind of My Own

My favourite Kathy Burke moment was in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous, where she played – I think – the editor of the magazine the leads worked for. She marches into a planning meeting, demands to know what they’ve got lined up for the next issue, then proceeds to ditch every idea they’ve offered and dictate the contents herself. All in about 90 seconds.

This book reads just like that. Fast and punchy, direct and memorable. With a lot more laughs. And I’m not going to say any more about it, except to quote a passage from her memory of working on Alex Cox’s film Walker, in Nicaragua in the late 80s. 

She’d objected to the fact that the actor’s bus was half-full – with one actor so large he sprawled over two seats - while the crew bus was so packed people were having to stand. This led to her being shouted down and ignored for a day by almost everyone, until Cox himself intervened to set things straight. At which point the star, Ed Harris, stood up in the bus the next day and apologised to her. She continues:

"That’s alright,” I mumbled back, feeling a bit embarrassed but mightily relieved. The fat two-seat twat tried to apologise but I knew he didn’t mean it and was just following Ed’s lead so I told him to go fuck himself."

What a great book.