Peter Cook

I wanted Tania. She was light. She was the lynchpin that kept me from flying into madness. My father taught Maksim and me with fists and cruelty that we were not allowed to want anything more than the life we were born into. When I was kidnapped and tortured by a rival Mob, I came out of it a different man. I was a fool. I'm covered in scars and now I truly see my place in the Morozov Bratva. There's no room there for happiness. There's no room there for her. But I can't let her go.

"To his many friends as well as his legion of fans, Peter Cook was quite simply the funniest man ever. His unique gifts, the way he led the transformation of British comedy (from music hall to perverse absurdity), and his clear comic influence on Monty Python's Flying Circus and every show since, have been much written about. But never before has there been a collection of Cook's own writings." "Tragically I Was an Only Twin gathers the treasures of Cook's comic career, from school and university via the satirical revue Beyond the Fringe, where he performed alongside Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller, and Dudley Moore, to his surreal, satirical journalism for Private Eye. It includes his monologues, the cream of his irreverent essays, and highlights from his much celebrated partnerships with Dudley Moore as Pete & Dud and Derek & Clive. Illustrated with his own drawings, this is the first, the only, and certainly the definitive collection of the transformative genius of comedy that was Peter Cook."--Jacket.