Rory Sparkes is a boy with a head full of dreams. He might become a strongman and travel the world with the circus. Or he might try to make it as a cowboy – that would be a fan-tas-tic second best. Although at the moment he’d settle for missing his maths lesson and making his torch work properly.

As he plots to help his best friend, Guy, earn enough money to buy the latest top-of-the-line model boat (so they can set sail for South America), the circus rolls into town and everything spirals out of control. With Guy needing help doing odd jobs for the terrifying Madame Lowe, and with Clare, Rory’s annoying older sister, planning a dastardly prank, will Rory’s plans ever work out? Let’s see ?

Filled with brilliantly funny illustrations from Lorretta Schauer.

‘I don’t remember when I last read a book that gave me so many laughs’ Christina Patterson, Sunday Times
‘Tremendously entertaining’ Rachel Cooke, Observer
‘A writer of considerable urbanity and wit’ Lynn Barber, Daily Telegraph
‘You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll love Hugh even more’ Woman & Home

Hugh Bonneville is one of Britain’s most accomplished actors, familiar to audiences worldwide for his roles in Notting Hill, the Paddington films and Downton Abbey. From getting his big break as Third Shepherd in the school nativity play, to mistaking a Hollywood star for an estate agent, Hugh creates a brilliantly vivid picture of a career on stage and screen. What is it like working with Judi Dench and Julia Roberts, or playing Robert de Niro’s right leg, or not being Gary Oldman, twice? A wickedly funny storyteller, Hugh also writes with poignancy about his father’s dementia and of his mother, whose life in the secret service only emerged after her death. Whether telling stories of working with divas, Dames or a bear with a penchant for marmalade, this is a richly entertaining account of his life as an actor.

‘I don’t remember when I last read a book that gave me so many laughs’ Christina Patterson, Sunday Times
‘Tremendously entertaining’ Rachel Cooke, Observer
‘A writer of considerable urbanity and wit’ Lynn Barber, Daily Telegraph
‘You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll love Hugh even more’ Woman & Home
‘Deliciously witty’ Celia Imrie
‘Utterly charming’ Jack Whitehall
‘A great read’ Graham Norton
‘Beautiful. Touching. And funny’ Gary Oldman

Hugh Bonneville is one of Britain’s most accomplished actors, familiar to audiences worldwide for his roles in Notting Hill, the Paddington films and Downton Abbey. From getting his big break as Third Shepherd in the school nativity play, to mistaking a Hollywood star for an estate agent, Hugh creates a brilliantly vivid picture of a career on stage and screen. What is it like working with Judi Dench and Julia Roberts, or playing Robert de Niro’s right leg, or not being Gary Oldman, twice? A wickedly funny storyteller, Hugh also writes with poignancy about his father’s dementia and of his mother, whose life in the secret service only emerged after her death. Whether telling stories of working with divas, Dames or a bear with a penchant for marmalade, this is a richly entertaining account of his life as an actor.