Id been warned he was a grumpy old bugger so to break the ice I heard myself bragging that I was off to India to make a film for David Lean with Peggy Ashcroft Alec Guinness James Fox Judy Davis and What India he said his eyes glinting dangerously.

Youll die in India.

I bloody nearly did.

Nigel Havers didnt die in India.

But he did have to survive recalcitrant extras marauding monkeys and a rather grumpy Dame Peggy.

The story of the filming of A Passage to India is just one of the hugely entertaining memories that the inimitable Nigel Havers shares in a memoir that is as charming mischievous and engaging as the man himself.

His career has taken him from a schoolboy production of A Midsummer Nights Dream to the red carpet on Oscar Night with Chariots of Fire via starring roles in the West End classic television series like Dont Wait Up and a cameo in Little Britain.

The Hollywood blockbusters that made him a household name are only the beginning.

With characteristic modesty and a captivating eye for the absurd he treats us to the highlights and lowlights of a life like no other a life in which chilling reality watching his father Michael later the Attorney General begin his prosecution of the Yorkshire Ripper and beguiling fantasy sleeping with Elizabeth Taylor continuously and arrestingly collide.