Brian Cox: Putting the Rabbit in the Hat (Post 2)

The book starts with a foreword from Frank Rich an Executive Producer of Succession. Frank tells the reader about how he first met Brian and describes him to the reader as a dedicated artist with a great work ethic. One fantastic quote from this section to encapsulate Brian's character is "Plus he is witty and devilish company; he takes his work seriously but never himself." This quote really spoke to me because if someone were to describe me to someone else this is almost exactly how I would want to be described. Even though this whole foreword is only about three pages, Frank lays out what we can expect to hear about in the Memoir and gives us a nice roadmap to ease us into the book.

As far as prologues go I usually skip them however this prologue I found this quite amusing. Brian tells the story about the time he met Steven Seagal, he talks about Seagal's antics, and by the end, he concludes that he didn't care if he wasn't the main character. Furthermore, it improved his work because he was free of his ego.

"In movies, there are no big parts or small parts. There are only long parts and short parts." - Brian Cox


In the first chapter, I had a hard time understanding all the Scottish euphemisms being used. I often had to reread passages to understand what was going on. However, the Scottish slang does add authenticity and humor. The chapter on the whole deals with Brian's birth, introducing his family, and his childhood home. My two favorite excerpts from this chapter are about how he got his name and the description of his family kitchen. The passage about how Brian got his name is very amusing, his Dad is telling the registrar the name they had chosen but the registrar finds the chosen name Colin to be terrible and convinces him to name the child Brian. Not only does the registrar bully him into choosing the name Brian but also insists on a middle name that starts with the letter D. By the end Brian's Dad is so defeated he feels like he had been "cross-examined by the Gestapo." The whole sequence just struck me as very Monty Python-esque. Finally, my second favorite part of the first chapter is the scene Brian portrays when describing his kitchen you can really see and feel how intimate the setting is.