Listen to this book review:
For those who attended the Jewish Literary Festival 2025 in Cape Town, David Baddiel, as keynote speaker, was a breath of fresh air with his irreverent, unapologetic humour. Comedian, author, screenwriter, and popular UK television presenter, he made his mark.
My Family is his memoir, and the blurb largely sums it up: A searingly honest, funny and moving family memoir in which David Baddiel exposes his mother’s idiosyncratic sex life and his father’s dementia to the same affectionate scrutiny.
It is exactly that. Having heard some in his comedy routine, there was a familiarity about the content, but this is the deep dive with some surprising revelations.
His mother Sara had a longstanding affair with a golfer named David White and became a purveyor (successfully) of golfing memorabilia. Common knowledge in the Baddiel household, except it seems, to her husband, bad tempered scientist turned Dinky Toy collector and salesman, Colin Baddiel. He appeared to be blissfully ignorant. Sara was very open about sex – and her exploits – not your normal 1960s Mum. Pornographic magazines were easily accessible – revelatory for David and his two brothers. Their home in Dollis Hill was chaotic with Colin’s rants, cursing and furious behaviour, which ramped up with his dementia. Sara’s absolute self-absorption did not abate as she grew older.
No surprise then that David opted for a theatrical career, which he admits was probably to seek approval – after all, his parents barely acknowledged his acceptance to Cambridge University, his successes on the comedy circuit, his writing career, rise to fame. No Jewish kvell for him. I wonder perhaps if it wasn’t that generation (he’s now in his 60s) but admittedly the outrageous material gathered from them has given him an edge.
Of the many Sara anecdotes this one rather took the cake: she insisted David’s first-born was called Question Mark until he accepted one of the names she and Colin suggested. The given name of Dolly was ‘not a name’ to the parents. (Side bar from my own memories – my Dad, who hailed from Hendon, always called me ‘Dolly’ as a term of endearment. What’s not to love?)
David is driven, which perhaps is as a result of this unconventional upbringing – an achiever of note – a seeker of truth, a nemesis landing him in bizarre situations. So much so that his wife Morwenna (also a comedian) has been known to say: “Have you ever thought about saying the second thing that come into your head?” Perhaps he is ‘on the spectrum’ but why label him – he’s different and that’s OK. It’s endearing. I detected no malice in his recounting but bemusement, amusement, astonishment.
My Family is a conversation, meandering, peppered with expletives, sidebars, photographs and footnotes (which normally I might gloss over but, in this instance, definitely not). We are privy to musings, embarrassing moments, warts and all. Which add to the richness of the story. Because it is rich, it is poignant, evocative, hilarious in parts, sad in others. A memorial to both his parents – a no-holds-barred reeling out of the good, the bad and the downright ugly. His way of laying to rest a past that has given him his present. A riveting read. ●
David Baddiel is an author, comedian, screenwriter and television presenter.
He has written four novels and two non-fiction books, including the best-selling ’Jews Don’t’ Count’, the Sunday Times’s politics and current affairs book of the year 2021. He is also the author of ten children’s books that together have sold more than two million copies. His books are available at good bookstores and for borrowing from the Gitlin Library.
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