Phoenix scoops comedian Watson’s ‘hilarious and moving’ autobiography

Phoenix has acquired Mortification: Eight Deaths and Life After Them, the first autobiography from comedian Mark Watson.

Publisher Francesca Main acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Cathryn Summerhayes at Curtis Brown. A version of the book was released as an Audible Original in 2021. Phoenix will publish in hardback and e-book in August 2023.

The publisher description reads: “Mark Watson is generally accepted to be alive. And yet he’s died many times. Not just on stage –though he’ll tell you about that – but in other ways, too. There’s been the death of a childhood dream. The death of his panel-show career. And then there was the time he died inside and nearly lost it all…”

It goes on: “Eye-opening, revealing and painfully funny, this is a book about mortification, failure and all the times life doesn’t work out as planned. But it also wisely questions whether the things we strive for –recognition, success, the approval of others – are really the things that matter. It’s a book about death that reminds us how to live.”

Mark Watson has appeared on “Taskmaster”, “Live At The Apollo” and “Mock the Week”, and has performed at comedy festivals all over the world. He is also the author of eight novels and has a long-running Radio 4 series, “Mark Watson Talks A Bit About Life”.

Main said: “In his honest, hilarious and occasionally heartbreaking memoir, Mark Watson shares eight mortifying moments with characteristic wit and generosity, and explores how the worst times in our lives can bring out the best in us. It’s also an extraordinarily candid and revealing book about some of the more brutal aspects of life on stage and in the public eye – a professional confessional for the world of stand-up comedy.”

Watson said: “The main question people always ask about being a comedian is what it’s like when you die on stage. Across 20 years in this business I’ve had any number of deaths: some of them in shows, some of them a lot more serious.

“This book is an attempt to reckon with the many setbacks, disappointments and embarrassments I’ve been through and the way my brain has often tortured me over them, and to put some of the lessons learned into writing, for myself as much as for other people. That said, I really hope some other people read it, otherwise I could just have sat in a room muttering to myself rather than going to the effort of writing it all down.”