When Michael Gambon’s memory began to fade, he found it increasingly difficult to remember his lines. Ultimately the job fell to Milly Ellis, to be his ‘earwig’, which she did for fifteen years, giving him his lines through an earpiece.

This gave her the opportunity to see and hear him deliver some his most outstanding performances. As well as having chameleon-like abilities as an actor, Gambon was a legendary self mythologiser and this book celebrates the many outlandish stories he told about himself, as well as from those of his friends and fellow actors. Milly Ellis has woven the best of these – from the likes of Tom Hollander, Daniel Craig, Robert de Niro, Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins – into an affectionate tribute to this extraordinary man.