A funny little mock autobiography by “Steven Toast,” Toast on Toast is Matt Berry extrapolating on his delusional, self-important, and egotistical actor persona, exploring every aspect of a true acting-manual-slash-career-guide. It is pretty funny—although the joke doesn’t really stretch much past the same character he portrays in his TV show, Toast of London.
He covers his childhood and eccentric family members alongside his disastrous failure of an acting career (though he is blissfully unaware of how bad his choices actually are). Every humiliation is spun as further evidence of his monumental success, and every location is just steps away from (and eventually becomes) a PRET A MANGERRRRR!
Berry’s writing and gags are just as great as everything else he produces. I am a huge fan of his work—from The Mighty Boosh and Snuff Box to What We Do in the Shadows, Look Around You, and Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. He is simply a fantastic comedic character actor who is memorable in absolutely every role he plays.
I think my favorite part of the book is the recurring jokes, especially his absurd non sequiturs of acting advice. It is a fun book that works great as a meandering distraction—very similar to Zach Galifianakis’s character Tairy Greene in Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, but the British comedy version.
Headshot by Ben Meadows, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Garrett Zecker 