Book Review: The Show Won't Go On by Jeff Abraham and Burt Kearns

I came across The Show Won't Go On: The Most Shocking, Bizarre, and Historic Deaths of Performers Onstage by Jeff Abraham and Burt Kearns while scrolling through audiobooks on Spotify and, since I was in a reading slump, decided to see what it had to offer. It hooked me early on, offering macabre facts with a tongue-in-cheek delivery that made for easy listening.

The Show Won't Go On explores the sad phenomenon of performers perishing "on stage" (including television, radio, and even social media) and covers everything from opera to the Grand Ole Opry. While many of the stories are heartbreakingly tragic, they're interspersed with illicit knee-jerk chuckles for the sheer FML of it. 

I was already aware of a whopping... two of the performers (Owen Hart and Tommy Cooper,) and, in reading The Show Won't Go On, learned a lot of names that would have otherwise passed me by. That, I think, is what really makes this one interesting. It doesn't just tell you how (sometimes horrifically) a person died, it gave you a glimpse into how they lived.

Of all the stories in this book, my favourite had to be of the oboist, William Bennett who, when he suffered a brain haemorrhage during Strauss's infamously difficult Oboe Concerto, had the foresight to hold out his instrument for a violinist to grab before he fell. As someone who played clarinet and tenor saxophone for several years in several bands, I have to say "Bill" Bennett saving his instrument as he collapsed is the most band nerd thing ever.

I know it sounds like a depressingly morbid topic, but The Show Won't Go On is entertaining, fascinating, and well worth a read.

Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 (5/5)