Book description
'Dazzlingly funny.' Observer Why not programme computers to take
over the really dull jobs that human beings have to do - such as
praying and behaving morally? At the William Morris Institute of
Automaton Research they are doing just that to free mankind for the
really stimulating and demanding tasks of living today - first and
foremost the impending visit of Her Majesty the Queen to open its new
wing . . . 'One knew, sourly, that this book was going to be funny;
one did not see how it could be continuously funny ... the fun of The
Tin Men is outrageous because it is so serious.' Anthony Burgess 'As
brilliant as all Michael Frayn's work.' P. G. Wodehouse
Michael Frayn was born in London in 1933 and began his career as a
journalist on the Guardian and the Observer. His plays include
Alphabetical Order, Clouds, Donkeys Years, Make or Break and
Benefactors. Noises Off won the Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy
of the Year and the Laurence Olivier Best Comedy of the Year. His more
recent plays include Copenhagen, which won the 1998 Evening Standard
Award for Best Play of the Year and the 2000 Tony Award for Best Play
(USA), and Democracy, which opened to great critical acclaim in 2003.
His latest play, Afterlife, opened in 2008. He has also translated a
number of works from Russian, including plays by Chekhov and Tolstoy.
His films for television include First and Last (1989), for which he won
an Emmy, and an adaptation of his 1991 novel A Landing on the Sun. His
novels include Headlong (1999), which was shortlisted for the Booker
Prize, and Spies (2002), which won the Whitbread Novel Award. He is
married to the biographer and critic Claire Tomalin.
