Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Anything Goes
    Unavailable
    Anything Goes
    Unavailable
    Anything Goes
    Ebook308 pages3 hours

    Anything Goes

    By John Barrowman and Carole E. Barrowman

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    From his Glaswegian childhood and American adolescence to his starring role in the Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood, this memoir traces the life and career of actor John Barrowman. John made a name for himself with remarkable West End achievements, including an Olivier Award nomination and success in the movies The Producers and De-Lovely. Television success was also assured when Torchwood won a Best Drama BAFTA. John also lays bare his personal life: his emigration as a child, coming out to his family, turning down a job at Disney, and his civil partnership with long-term partner Scott Gill. Revelatory and insightful, told with real heart and characteristic Barrowman charm, this is a wonderful tale of how one boy achieved his dreams.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMichael O'Mara
    Release dateMar 1, 2009
    ISBN9781843174257
    Unavailable
    Anything Goes
    Author

    John Barrowman

    John Barrowman has worked in television, musical theatre, and film, and stars as Captain Jack Harkness in Torchwood and Doctor Who.

    Read more from John Barrowman

    Related to Anything Goes

    Related ebooks

    Entertainers and the Rich & Famous For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Daniel Mays

      Feb 20, 2023

      Daniel Mays
      6 min read

    • Article

      Big Summer Energy

      Jun 14, 2022

      Big Summer Energy
      5 min read

    • Article

      Book Extract

      Jan 20, 2020

      My year off was also interesting, in that I didn’t feel any less loved, or cherished, or wanted. Why? Because my life is already rich with soulmates, and I got the chance to behold that. You don’t have to shag someone for them to be a soulmate. We do

      7 min read

    • Article

      15 Of My Favourite Things!

      May 3, 2022

      15 Of My Favourite Things!
      3 min read

    • Article

      15 Of My Favourite Things!

      Sep 13, 2022

      She’s been on our screens for over 30 years and a Loose Woman for more than 20, but how well do we really know Kaye Adams? The 59-year-old, who lives in Glasgow with partner Ian and their daughters Charley, 20, and Bonnie, 15, is about to take on Str

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Birthday Party

      Dec 3, 2023

      The Birthday Party
      9 min read

    • Article

      Your TV PICKS

      Sep 12, 2023

      Your TV PICKS
      3 min read

    • Article

      Woman About Town

      Oct 26, 2023

      BY THE TIME THIS MAGAZINE is in your hands, I will be — after much huffing, straining and shedding of tears — a published author. My book Toxic: Women, Fame and the Noughties will be on bookshop tables and readerly nightstands across the country. How

      3 min read

    • Article

      Four Of A Kind

      May 3, 2023

      Four Of A Kind
      4 min read

    • Article

      Letters to Kevin

      Apr 25, 2021

      Letters to Kevin
      3 min read

    • Article

      I’m your FAN

      Jul 27, 2023

      Anita Prosser, 52, a fitness instructor, has been an avid Duran Duran fan for more than 40 years. She lives in Kingston upon Thames with her two teenage children. I first saw Duran Duran on Top of the Pops in 1981, when I was 10. They sang Planet Ear

      5 min read

    • Article

      TV & REVIEWS

      Jun 27, 2023

      TV & REVIEWS
      4 min read

    • Article

      To My Amazement, I’m With the Band

      Oct 25, 2017

      It’s 10 o’clock on a Tuesday night. Everyone sensible I know is home, either already in bed or about to be. But I’m hurrying down a quiet street, balancing a 40-pound cymbal bag on my shoulder. Aiming at the one illuminated building on an otherwise d

      3 min read

    • Article

      Noël Coward's MeToo moment

      Aug 23, 2023

      Sadly, I didn't know Jane Birkin, the Anglo-French actress, singer and beauty, who died in Paris in mid-July at the age of 76. I had admired her since I was a teenager and saw her, naked, in Antonioni's seminal Sixties movie, Blow-Up. Later, I got to

      3 min read

    • Article

      Winning Letter

      Oct 21, 2022

      My BFF and I met in Standard 2 and formed an instant and lifelong bond. Although we haven’t seen one another in almost five decades, after she departed South Africa for foreign shores we were constantly in touch. My husband and I were extremely fortu

      6 min read

    • Article

      Adelaide, Liza & finding ME

      Mar 24, 2021

      Adelaide, Liza & finding ME
      9 min read

    Reviews for Anything Goes

    4/5

    115 ratings9 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      After listening to Mr. Barrowman's talk at the Gallifrey One convention, I went out and bought his two autobiographies. This is the first one. It is written in a breezy, open style, and is quite readable. It covers his family's move from Glasgow to Illinois when he was in grade school, giving him the opportunity to develop two distinct accents and ways of talking. It chronicles his theatre (Anything Goes, etc.), movie (The Producers, etc.), singing (several albums) and TV (Doctor Who and so on) experiences so far. It also notes that he is gay. In connection with roles, he noted that he lost the part of the lead in "Will and Grace" to a straight actor, because Barrowman didn't act "gay enough". I quite enjoyed the book.
    • 5/5
      I read this for the "a celebrity memoir" part of my 2018 reading challenge, and it was fantastic. I laughed out loud in every chapter, and loved all of the insights into his life. I already loved John before this, and love him even more now.
    • 4/5
      The Book Report: The life and times of fabulous Captain Jack Harkness, I mean I mean JOHN BARROWMAN of course I do, silly me to get the two confused, he of the TV show Torchwood, in all his dimpled and smiling glory. With butt shots. Two.My Review: One knows what one is getting with celebrity memoirs, right? Whitewash, excuses, justifications, and a little catty score-settling. It takes a pretty damned big ego to write an "autobiography" (which this ain't, it's a memoir) in the first place; to do it before the age of sixty is, well, it's a bit uppish.Yeah, so what, pretty people get to do what they want. And Barrowman is nothing if not pretty. Very pretty. Very very pretty. That he is also a talented actor, a fine musical-theatre singer, and a high-maintenance mess of a man makes it all the more fun that he didn't wait to write the book (with his sister, Carole). He takes it upon himself to tell us the tale of what brought Clan Barrowman from Glasgow to Illinois, what made the clan tick, and what happened as a result of this daring and quite unsettling move, made in the Malaise Years of the middle 1970s.Wait. Make that, he tells us the tale of what happened to John of the Clan Barrowman. This is a book that relentlessly focuses on John Barrowman, contextualizing his life with the necessary information, but skimping on the lives and times of the other people in his orbit. Quite forgivable in a memoir; less so in an autobiography, which is more about the life-and-times, less about the lifestyle.He's not forthcoming with details of his personal life, eg what his feelings were, what his thoughts were, around his coming out. He doesn't fail to mention them, understand; it's simply that, as is the gentleman's privilege, he goes very soft-focus and moves on quickly from the topic. He writes his most passionate, his most emotional, and his most harrowing stuff when he writes about the descent of a friend into madness. It's an amazing, painful, and quite wonderful passage in the book. It brings into stark relief, though, the absence of these very qualities in some other passages in his life that could have used the same treatment.That criticism aside, I would recommend the book to most all gay guys because here, gents, here is someone whose joie de vivre and whose enthusiasm for his work have led him down some fascinating garden paths, all the while declining to be stereotyped. It's a very instructive path he's on, for the most of us who aren't in the least famous or likely to get there. It's good to see someone skiing ahead on the trail, hollering back, "there's a crevasse over here, don't go there!" every so often. Good on him that he chose to do it. Good for us that it is, on balance, a fun book to read.The butt shots don't hurt.
    • 5/5
      John Barrowman's autobiography is a book I really enjoyed. If you are a fan of his I reccomend this book. You'll learn about his life in stages, from his early childhood to present and in no particular order. you'll learn so much from this book it will feel like you grue up with him in the time it takes you to read it.
    • 4/5
      John Barrowman's autobiography is frothy, feel-good fun. Famous for his work in musical theatre and for his starring role as Captain Jack on the British science fiction programs Doctor Who and Torchwood, Barrowman's charming, effervescent personality shine through on every page. His great sense of humor also makes this a joy to read. Anything Goes recounts Barrowman's life and career in a jumbled, almost haphazard way, which comes across as a bit ingenious and really delightful. There are anecdotes about growing up in a family that loved throwing big parties and playing elaborate practical jokes. His parents seem like wonderful, supportive people. There are also stories about his early singing and acting experiences in high school, and there are plenty of "behind the scenes" stories from his work on various theatre, television and film productions. There are stories which illustrate his friendship with his costars on Torchwood and throughout it all, Barrowman's love for his family and friends is always very clear. He also talks about coming out to his parents, and his civil partnership ceremony with the love of his life, Scott Gill. He talks about vacations with Scott, and the fun they have entertaining their nieces and nephews. John Barrowman lives an amazing, exciting life and his great love and enthusiasm for everything he does really comes across with this book. Anything Goes is extremely positive and sweet and will leave a smile on your face.
    • 4/5
      26 July 2009 - The WorksAfter reading some other reviews of this I was prepared not to like it too much, but I was actually pleasantly surprised. Yes, there was bottom-baring and some fart jokes, but they were set within the context of a family that loves playing practical jokes, and the need to let off steam when working in a pressurised theatre or film environment. I did like the stuff about the importance of family, and his realisation that he needed to be honest about being gay and support charities and foundations that helped those less fortunate than themselves. Some lovely photos (inc David Tennant in two!) and, although I'm glad I paid a quarter of the cover price, I'm still glad I picked it up on that BC Birmingham meetup day when I embarassedly showed everyone my new highbrow purchases!
    • 4/5
      I've very much enjoyed John Barrowman's performance as Captain Jack on Doctor Who (a show of which I am a huge and unabashed fan), and every time I've come across an interview with him, he's struck me as being full of appealingly goofy charisma, a kind of infectiously enthusiastic energy, and a deliciously raunchy sense of humor. So I figured his autobiography had to be fun to read, and I wasn't disappointed. This book would be worthwhile, really, just for the funny stories from his childhood, which he tells in a pleasantly rambling style with the assistance of hilariously cheeky footnotes. The rest of the book is a bit more of a mixed bag, I suppose: funny anecdotes, sad anecdotes, straightforward biographical information, lots of the usual celebrity name-dropping, and a fair amount of egotism that's pleasantly leavened with an occasionally self-deprecating sense of humor. Barrowman says at the outset that his hope is that "you'll feel as if you and I are lounging in our pyjamas on the couch in my Cardiff living room, sharing a bottle of champagne or a pot of tea, with music on in the background, having a blether and a laugh about my life so far." And that's exactly the feeling he manages to achieve.The 4/5 rating is a little generous, maybe, but doggone it, I had fun.
    • 5/5
      This is exactly what I would expect if I sat down and dished with John over a few cocktails. I love the fact that it isn't chronological - that's what usually drags a memoir down, since most people do not have an exciting childhood. The story is told in chapters named after songs from various musicals, skipping around a bit, but never getting you too lost. The best part of the book, hands down, is the way he uses footnotes. Snarky little side comments that had me laughing time after time. He's not afraid to talk about being gay in the entertainment world. Most of all, his clear and obvious love for his family and friends shines through in every page. A real pleasure to read.
    • 3/5
      "My ending isn't written yet, my show's not over. Stay in your seats. This is only the intermission." These final lines of John Barrowman's autobiography Anything Goes beg the question of why the life story of a young performer, hardly a lion of the theater, would be worth reading. Actually, though, it is. Barrowman, probably better known in the United Kingdom than in the USA, is a talented actor and singer, with wide-ranging experience in theatre, television, and music. He's also one of the few openly gay male entertainers in the business. So if you're interested in behind-the-scenes stories from the American and British entertainment industries told from the perspective of a multi-talented out performer, John Barrowman - with the help of his English professor sister Carole - delivers the goods spiced with a delicious sense of humor and a sprinkled with entertaining footnoted asides.There are a few aspects of Anything Goes that might bear some improvement, however. For one thing, Barrowman tends to be his own biggest fan, well aware of both his talent and his good looks. Then, his repeated mention of celebrity names – Simon Mackintosh, Stephen Sondheim, Cher, and Carol Burnett, among many others – at times come to resemble mere name-dropping. And finally, aside from a brief anecdote about the producers of the short-lived American nighttime soap Central Park West who suggested that he keep both his homosexuality and his partner Scott Gill under wraps, Barrowman tends to gloss over any negative experiences in favor of a Candide-like "best of all possible worlds" approach to recounting his life. Fortunately, though, the personality that comes through the pages of Anything Goes is so engaging and so likeable that any flaws in the book are easily overlooked or easily forgiven.Most Americans probably know Barrowman best for his roles in two BBC sci-fi series. So, for fans of Torchwood and Doctor Who, Barrowman's autobiography gives a fascinating insight into the life and career of the actor behind Captain Jack. And darn it, John's right - he does have killer good looks. Those physical charms make the photo of Barrowman demonstrating what he wears under his kilt just an extra added attraction to an already engaging read!