And That Is What I Did

I’ve been helping to edit and publish Before I Go, a new memoir by renegade comedian John Dowie.

He’s an Escapologist, tried and true. Early in the book he writes:

After nine months I decided that working for a living was not for me. Apart from the intolerable repetition of getting up at the same time every day, catching the same bus, arriving at the same building, seeing the same people, doing the same thing all day and then doing it all again tomorrow, I also had to endure having a boss – someone who told me what to do, where to be and when. As if my life was not my own. There had to be something better than this, but what?

Later, he writes this, which gives me goose pimples:

[In the late 1970s] there were three recognized routes into performing comedy. All were beyond me. I was not going to don a frilly shirt and perform in Northern nightclubs. I was not going to be a jolly Red or Bluecoat in a holiday camp. I was not going to go to Oxbridge, be in a revue and storm the Edinburgh Festival before conquering Broadway and/or the BBC. The only realistic choice I had was to follow the example set by the theatre groups I admired: to write, perform and tour a one-man show in venues similar to Birmingham Arts Lab. And that is what I did.

“And that is what I did…”

We’re used to hearing “and that is what I’ll do” inside our own heads. But here’s a man at the end of that journey, looking back on the decision and a life well lived.

“And that is what I did…”

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Before I Go is due for release on August 25th, though a little bird tells me that pre-orders will be satisfied earlier than that. Here’s where to go for print and digital editions. You can also get his earlier memoir about a life on the road here (e-book only).