Book review: ‘The Last Cigarette’ by Simon Gray

The Last Cigarette is the third in playwright Simon Gray’s wonderfully funny series of diaries and reminiscences, which began with The Smoking Diaries and was followed by The Year of the Jouncer.

As with the previous two volumes, it’s an entertaining mix of genuinely funny observations and idle musing, with a few serious bits thrown in for good measure. Gray tends to go on about the theatre rather a lot, which, being a playwright, and being the person who wrote the book, he is perfectly entitled to do. But don’t let that put you off: he is one of those writers with a knack for making you laugh out loud. Well, making me laugh out loud, at any rate.

I wonder why it’s playwright and not playwrite. I could probably Google it, but it’s nice to have a few mysteries left in life.