About the Book:

HARD TO FIND BOOK, only a very limited number of copies are still available.

The Secrets and Lies director offers a biography of the English composers, Gilbert and Sullivan.

Mike Leigh, that master of contemporary British tragi-comedy, is one of the most consistently intriguing British auteurs of the past few decades. His unusual working methods, involving eschewing Hollywood stars and focusing on lengthy rehearsals and improvisation, has produced modern classics like Secrets and Lies, Vera Drake and Abigail's Party.

In an uncharacteristic break from his kitchen-sink realism, Topsy-Turvy transports us back to 1880s London and the lives of those much-loved masters of comic opera, Gilbert and Sullivan. Mike Leigh explores the collaboration of lyricist Gilbert, a complex individual childlessly married to a devoted wife and composer Sullivan, a brothel-hopping bon viveur with an American mistress. Having enjoyed a stream of successes, they abruptly suffer an unprecedentedly lukewarm press for their newest opus, Princess Ida. Owing impresario D'Oyly Carte a hit, the increasingly frustrated Gilbert finds Sullivan's ideas increasingly far-fetched and 'topsy-turvy'. Then, Gilbert's wife lures him to a London exhibition of Japanese culture, and he perceives the inspiration for The Mikado. Topsy-Turvy has been showered with critical acclaim in the US, was nominated in four categories at the Academy Awards, including Best Original Screenplay, losing to American Beauty.

Mike Leigh OBE FRSL is an English writer and director of film and theatre. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) before honing his directing skills at East 15 Acting School and further at the Camberwell School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design. He began as a theatre director and playwright in the mid-1960s. Later he made a number of films of varying lengths for British television and then moved into feature film production.