Absolute Pandemonium

Book excerpt: Brian Blessed is a national treasure - an actor whose stellar career spans over fifty years with over 200 TV and film appearances and dozens of iconic roles including Porthos in The Three Musketeers , Long John Silver in Return To Treasure Island , Richard IV in Blackadder , Vultan in Flash Gordon and Boss Nass in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace . He was also in Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare adaptations of Henry V , As You Like It and Hamlet .He's also an explorer and mountaineer - the oldest man to have trekked to the magnetic North Pole and to have climbed to 28,000 feet with oxygen - and a boxer who has sparred with Joe Louis and Mohammad Ali. Now this gifted raconteur is sharing his extraordinary story of a life lived to the full. Funny, outspoken, at times touching, Absolute Pandemonium is the entertaining story of one of Britain's best-loved actors.