Don't Laugh, It'll Only Encourage Her is the endearingly honest and hilarious memoir from the creator and star of award-winning BBC comedy This Country. I'm a big fan of Daisy May Cooper and the wonderful This Country, and picked up Don't Laugh, It'll Only Encourage Her in an Audible deal. This book proves it’s absurd for anybody to think they know more about being funny than Daisy May Cooper. Having no empathy or any sort of kindness, or understanding (even in retrospect) for the boy whom she met through a chat room, who had not told her about his disability, and then whom she did not speak to for the entire weekend he stayed (parents really, he slept in her room?

She won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Female Comedy Performance in 2018 for her role as Kerry Mucklowe in the BBC Three series This Country, a mockumentary-style show about the eccentricities of life in rural England, which she co-created and co-wrote with her brother, Charlie Cooper. Mum, I spent all my student loan accidently on a penthouse suite in a fancy hotel in Marble Arch, now I face getting kicked out of drama school.

This book starts off amazing and until about 3/4 of the way through stays consistently funny (I’m still thinking about that showcase in under the pub) but I can’t help but feel the last few chapters were really rushed! It was heart wrenching hearing Daisy discuss her days of living on the poverty line before the break through of “This Country,” and she is a testimony to all those who pushed through the darkest of times, persevered and carried on fighting for their dreams. Some great heartbreaking moments of how Daisy overcame class adversity and poverty tied with the surreal and ridiculous moments of tragedy that you can only find humour in.

Some of the situations she got herself into when she was younger and the way she recounts it are a pick me up tonic full of laughter you never knew you needed!Her strength, courage and determination to succeed shines through this, under the protection of her signature hysterical, and eye watering humor. Also some of the photocopied pages of old school stories and notes and stuff I couldn't read them the print was very small and the writing was hard to read. Still the funniest book I’ve touched in a long time and I’d be up for reading any number of sequels.

I know it's supposed to make me laugh, but I just felt so very sad for Daisy May and her family - growing up in chaos, dealing with loss and severe financial worries. I’m so delighted I chose to review this in the audio format because what else could be better than Daisy May Cooper reading her own memoir?All the same Daisy May Cooper has fucking been THROUGH IT and she’s a walking example of how never giving up on something you really want will eventually pay off ! There's the battle Daisy May and brother Charlie had to get back the rights to their own work from a production company who'd promised so much but delivered so little, and Daisy's own battles with low self-esteem and fear of having ideas "above her station".

My only criticism is that the book ended a bit abruptly; I was so ready to hear about Daisy finally making it and about how the Coopers lives fiiiinally changed for the better but the book just…ended.She tells every story with equal humor and enthusiasm, in the unique style that we have come to know and love about her. please don't start reading this book expecting it to be a laugh a minute, because you'll be bitterly disappointed. I have lived the most humiliating, ridiculous, screw-up of a life but Mum was right, you've just got to remember, sometimes the worst experiences make the most entertaining stories. Thanks lifting the lid on life as a wannabe actress and sharing your heartbreaking stories of all you had to endure whilst trying to 'make it' in showbiz.