Erotic Vagrancy cover art

Erotic Vagrancy

Everything About Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor

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Erotic Vagrancy

By: Roger Lewis
Narrated by: Justin Avoth
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About this listen

The comic genius of English writing takes on Hollywood, delusion, celebrity and last century's ultimate glamour couple: Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were a Sixties supercharged couple in an era of supercharged couples. As a pairing they were fantasy figures, impossibly desirable. Liz supple and soft, in perfumes and furs - yet with something demonic and lethal about her. Dick, in turn, with his ravaged, handsome face, looked as though lit by silver moonlight - poised to turn into a wolf.

Roger Lewis uses this glamorous and damaged pair as the starting point to tell the story of an age of excess: the freaks and groupies, the private jets and jewels and the yachts sailing in an azure sea; the magnificent bad taste and greed. It is about the clash of worlds: the filth and decay of South Wales and the grandeur and elegance of Old Hollywood; the fantasies we have about film stars and the fantasies the Burtons had about each other.

©2023 Roger Lewis (P)2023 Quercus Editions Limited Entertainment & Celebrities Entertainment & Performing Arts Film & TV Celebrity Funny Wales Witty

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Critic reviews

"Brilliantly funny...the book of the year." (Sunday Times)

"By turns, funny, tragic, tender and vicious...a word-of-mouth sensation." (Guardian)
All stars
Most relevant  
nothing to dislike. an excellent book and performance from all concerned. well done to all concerned in this production.

superb reading and voice characterisations togethercwith a wpnderful story by Roger Lewis.

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Absorbing, brilliant, clever, transgressive writing reflects a couple whose lives were surely indescribable. Brilliantly written..this author has a genius for writing and uses examples and metaphor and other references with flair ..sometimes I laughed out loud..other times I gasped. The reader here brought the whole thing to life..remarkable ear for voices and made the whole listen so engrossing I’m tempted to begin all over again. Whether you like Elizabeth and Richard or not (I do, I think..A lot..have just looked at the film the VIP’s ..they were ravishing…)this is superb writing and excellent listening.

Superb from start to finish

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This ten-year-in-the-making comprehensive, compulsive, funny dual biography is mind-boggling - an incredible achievement.

I was unaware of so many of the facts: The cost of creating Cleopatra, Elizabeth's 'wear each dress once only' regime, her diamond collection, drug addiction, animal obsession, filthy habitats, excesses and outrages. Neither had I any idea about Burton's rags-to-riches background from his success kicked off by an extremely creepy schoolmaster's staggering intervention, to promiscuity, betrayal, alcoholism, hints at murder, a hidden-away child. I was fascinated by Taylor & Burton's need for one another, hatred of one another, jet-setting lifestyle, bigger-than-royalty celebrity status, the Pope's intervention...

If you love beauty, glamour, Hollywood, sex, A-lister film stars, Italian film sets, true stories of absolute decadence and movies from a bygone age, you'll relish this.

What makes this book a wholly enjoyable Audible experience though, is Justin Avoth's fantastic narration. His impressions of all the stars mentioned in this book (of which there are many) are both camp and spot on. Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison, Dirk Bogarde, James Mason, Kenneth Williams, John Gielgud... etc etc. I've got the voice of Richard Burton floating around inside my head still. Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon could not have done better.

Maybe this book could have been edited down to... what, a third of it's length? No. The weightiness of it is what makes it the masterpiece it is. Thank you Roger Lewis, for 22 hours and 58 minutes of incredible anecdotes fantastically told. I might just start listening to it all over again.

Superb. A masterpiece. Brilliantly narrated.

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No wonder it took 13 years for Roger Lewis to write this epic; incredible research and detail. Not just the lives of Taylor & Burton are revealed but pretty much all the people they came into contact with. The story telling is provoking and at times wildly entertaining. The reading by Justin Avoth is extraordinary as he gives voice to the characters and the author. Just Brilliant!

Astonishing Detail

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I have never read or heard so much in depthh & well researched book about the 'Burton's as this is.As a lifelong fan of them both it was a fascinating listen too on my Audible tablet wandering around with it listening to all the salacious details of their lives as well as other alumina that peppered through their careers .
It was a 'can't put didn't listen too & took 2days of non-stop battery charging time to hear it all.
A definitive expose of 2 of the most shining star I the firminte which you managed to bring down to earth to the 'little people's & don't underestimate our intelligence.Well done !

Not a story but a Saga!

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So far this has been entertaining but the production on this is lousy. The audio sounds muffled.

Entertaining but terrible audio quality

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Great from start to finish - the author's enthusiasm for the subject is palpable. I particularly enjoyed examination of their various film performances. The narration is brilliant, the best I've listened to so far on audible - quotes in different voices are conveyed convincingly. Not the standard dry biography, more a fascinating study on stardom, persona and their relationship. So good I will buy a physical copy as well.

Fantastic

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Incredibly researched, wonderfully written - authoritative but never above a good bitch - and a fine reading.

Hilarious, dark and sordid in equal measure.

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A kind of fever dream that Lewis recounts as a result of an illness that prompted rewatching the Taylor Burton ouvre. Often verging on a kind of magic realism in which the main conceit is that T&B's obsession was reflected in the roles they played. And Lewis recounts the films in order making insights and plain speech psychoanalysis as he goes. This is most convincing in the case of who's afraid of Virginia Woolf. Elsewhere it smacks of over-mythologisation that the pair seems to encourage in many. Evocative of an era when post modern baroque excess meant some stars 1950s-1980s where truly interesting, Unlike today's celebrities perhaps.

Mythos of bygone celebrity excess

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Simply brilliant from start to finish. Beautifully written, witty and insightful, I was genuinely sad once it ended. A triumph.

Book of the year

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