In This Much is True, published in 2021, anecdotes about Miriam Margolyes’ full and sometimes bizarre life astounded many. This eccentric national treasure has done it again with Oh Miriam!

Anyone who has seen her interviewed on The Graham Norton Show will know what to expect.

The dictionary defines ‘smut’ as something obscene or indecent. There’s little of that this time. There is, however, unnecessary repetition of words that years ago were thought improper in polite society.

Reading the 300 pages over a few days is not recommended. It’s a book to leave on the coffee table and pick up now and again. The chapters are short, sharp and intended to shock.

Oh Miriam! is hilarious, outrageous, and candid.

Reviewed by Clive Hodges

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in Oxford, England in 1941 & educated at Newnham College, Cambridge, Miriam Margolyes OBE is an award-winning veteran of the stage and screen, and an internationally acclaimed voice-artist and documentarian.

Winner of the BAFTA Best Supporting Actress award for The Age of Innocence, she received an OBE in 2002 for Services to Drama. This Much is True, her long-awaited award-winning autobiography, was in the top ten for over a year. This is her second book.

From being escorted off the Today programme (for saying what we were all thinking) to declaring her love to Vanessa Redgrave; from Tales of the Unexpected to Graham Norton’s sofa, she is our most loved and most outspoken national treasure. Oh Miriam! takes you inside both her head and her heart. Buckle up for the most irrepressible, hilarious and moving read of 2023.

BAFTA-winning actor, voice of everything from Monkey to the Cadbury’s Caramel Rabbit, creator of a myriad of unforgettable characters from Lady Whiteadder to Professor Sprout, MIRIAM MARGOLYES, OBE, is the nation’s favourite (and naughtiest) treasure. Now, at the age of 80, she has finally decided to tell her extraordinary life story – and it’s well worth the wait.

Find out how being conceived in an air-raid gave her curly hair; what pranks led to her being known as the naughtiest girl Oxford High School ever had; how she ended up posing nude for Augustus John as a teenager; why Bob Monkhouse was the best (male) kiss she’s ever had; and what happened next after Warren Beatty asked ‘Do you fuck?’

From declaring her love to Vanessa Redgrave to being told to be quiet by the Queen, this book is packed with brilliant, hilarious stories. With a cast list stretching from Scorsese to Streisand, a cross-dressing Leonardo di Caprio to Isaiah Berlin, This Much Is True is as warm and honest, as full of life and surprises, as its inimitable author.