Shark Infested Waters

Book excerpt: "Theatrical agent Michael Whitehall has been involved with the careers of actors ranging from Kenneth More, Tom Courtenay, Colin Firth, Dorothy Tutin, Edward Fox, Jack Davenport, Judi Dench, Ian Charleson, Peter Bowles, Elaine Stritch and Donald Sinden to Nigel Havers, James Fox, Angela Thorne, Richard E Grant, Stewart Granger, Anton Rodgers, Patrick Macnee, John Le Mesurier, Daniel Day Lewis, David Hemmings and Richard Griffiths.In Shark-Infested Waters, Whitehall deftly sketches the social comedy of his eccentric background: growing up in suburban London in the 1950s, his schooldays at Ampleforth, where he was taught by Basil Hume, and his subsequent adventures as a prep school master ? before becoming an actors? agent.From his eccentric grandfather ? who set the curtains twitching with his penchant for cross-dressing ? to his mother Nora?s aspirations to genteel living, complete with Pekinese Foxgrove Candy Floss ? Michael Whitehall sketches the foibles of his own family with the same deliciously dry wit he reveals when talking about his clients."