Character Breakdown

By: Zawe Ashton

Narrated by: Zawe Ashton

Brought to you by Penguin.

Cult heroine Zawe Ashton brings us a unique look at life, work and the absurdities of contemporary life

Zawe Ashton has been acting since she was six. She has played many different roles, from ‘cute little girl’ to ‘assassin with attitude', Oscar Wilde’s Salome to St Trinian’s schoolgirl to Fresh Meat’s Vod.

To stay sane, an actor must tread a high-wire between life and art, keep sight of where a character ends and the real person begins. So she doesn’t lose herself completely.

In Character Breakdown, Zawe scrolls through a version of her life. Or is it a version of her art? Or something in between. In it, she encounters glamour, horror, absurdity and questions like: is a life spent more on performance than reality any life at all?

©2019 Zawe Ashton (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Loved This!

At first I was taken aback with the introduction and wasn’t sure this was for me but I’m so glad I stuck with it. At different times I almost wept then at others I laughed out loud. So grateful to the author for her forthright honesty in this well written and performed work.