Sir Lenny Henry rang up the Office for National Statistics to confirm something he had been thinking about for a long time. They confirmed to him that only 29.5% of the United Kingdom's population is made up of white, heterosexual, able-bodied men. So, he wonders, why do they still make up the vast majority of people we see in our media? Joining forces with the former Chair of the Royal Television Society's Diversity Committee, Marcus Ryder, he draws on decades of experience to reveal why recent efforts to diversify media have been thus far ineffective, and why they are simply not enough. With wit, humour and unflinching gravitas they analyse the flaws of current diversity initiatives, point out the structural and financial imbalances working against the cause, and provide clear solutions to get the media industry back on track. They include important and inspiring stories and delicious details like biscuits in meetings with senior UK politicians and when Nicola Sturgeon eats Tunnock's teacakes! From a pun at the BAFTAs to giving evidence at the Houses of Parliament and beyond, Lenny Henry goes on a journey to find out why so many of us feel excluded in society, and what we can do about it. 181pp, Faber paperback.

Familiar from blockbusting performances such as the mad scientist Boris in the Bond film Goldeneye, Alan Cummings is a versatile and acclaimed performer on both stage and screen. His most celebrated stage role was as the MC in the musical Cabaret, a role he has taken three times, first in Sam Mendes's production with Jane Horrocks as Sally Bowles, then reviving the role a few years later opposite Natasha Richardson, and finally reprising the show on Broadway almost 20 years later. This memoir starts with the breakdown of Cummings's marriage, which happened at about the same time as he confronted a childhood of continuous abuse perpetrated by a violent father. By the end of the book he has accepted his own bisexuality and is about to settle down with his male partner. When his wife suggested his memories of abuse were a way of sidestepping their relationship problems, Cumming could not forgive, and the divorce was painful, but it set him on the path of learning who he truly was. Goldeneye catapulted him to stardom and Cummings's character's catchphrase "I am invincible" is still shouted at him in the street. When Cummings found himself next to Dame Judi Dench in the line-up at the Goldeneye premiere they discussed in whispers whether they were going to bow to Prince Charles. Dench said she had to, as she was already a Dame. Later Cummings noticed Dench chatting to his mother together with Tina Turner and reflected that they were all women of the same age so it made sense. The second Cabaret in 1998 was a career-changing experience as Cummings was feted by Lauren Bacall, Whoopi Goldberg and Jessye Norman, with Liza Minelli herself coming on stage one night. 270pp, softback, photos.

The literature of Greece and Rome is a lifelong passion for the author, and the last of these brilliant essays tells the story of his correspondence with the novelist Mary Renault, whose series about the homosexual Alexander the Great introduced the teenage Mendelsohn to the classical world and liberated him to live with the fact that he was gay. Mendelsohn never met Renault, learning of her death by seeing it in the newspaper, but he later got a chance to visit her partner and their friends and hear about the affectionate way Renault used to talk about her young correspondent "The American Boy". The "Bad Boy of Athens", which gives the collection its title, is the Greek playwright Euripides with his penchant for portraying deranged women. The comic playwright Aristophanes nailed Euripides's style in the satire Thesmophoriazousae, where the women of Athens use a fertility festival as an excuse to debate whether to kill the playwright who is badmouthing them. The section on Euripides concludes with thoughts about Deborah Warner's acclaimed production of Medea starring Fiona Shaw and Jonathan Cake. Mendelsohn's view is that Warner sidestepped the deranged nature of Medea's murderous lust, reducing the play's impact by making her into a frustrated housewife. In "Alexander, the Movie!" he administers the same critical treatment to Oliver Stone's biopic of Alexander the Great. Howard Davies's Broadway production of Noel Coward's Private Lives starred Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman, so you would expect near-perfection, but according to the author it failed because Davies was trying to make the characters real, whereas the whole point of the play is that their witty dialogue is totally artificial. Mendelsohn is kinder to Coward himself, who with wistful self-deprecation referred to his art as a "talent to amuse". Other nuanced criticism covers the film The Hours, with Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf, a chapter on Susan Sontag, and a detailed appreciation of Stoppard's play about the classical scholar and poet A. E. Housman, The Invention of Love, a "one-sided play about a two-sided character." 368pp.

You may remember Ron as a young child actor on Happy Days as Richie Cunningham opposite Henry Winkler's the Fonz? You may remember Clint who co-stared with a trained black bear in the US TV series Gentle Ben or playing the bizarre alien Balok in Star Trek? For the first time brothers Ron and Clint Howard tell the story of their childhoods as two of the busiest child actors of the 1960s and 70s. Their mother and father were not typical stage parents - Rance and Jean Howard, farm-belt Oklahomans who bucked family tradition, moved to California to make a go at showbusiness. While pursuing their dreams could prove frustrating at times, they happily adjusted their lives to also become mentors and managers to their sons in a tremendous act of love and sacrifice. The boys grew up frugally in a family that lived determinedly beneath its means, even if 12 year old Ron earned more than pitching legend Sandy Koufax at the time. They were barred from sleeping over at friends' houses to avoid kidnapping. They learned about the birds and the bees from graffiti in TV studio men's cloakrooms. Ron suffered from bullying at school and bridled at his parents' protectiveness. Clint rebelled and spiralled into substance abuse when the jobs stopped coming, but the strength of the Howard family held fast. The boys blossomed anew as they approached adulthood, the former an Academy Award-winning filmmaker and one of his generation's most popular directors. From critically acclaimed dramas A Beautiful Mind, Frost/Nixon, Rush and Apollo 13 to the hit comedies Parenthood and Splash, Ron has created some of Hollywood's most memorable films. He made his directorial debut in 1977 with Grand Theft Auto and also starred in The Music Man. Clint is now a much loved character actor in Seinfeld, Rock & Roll Highschool, Arrested Development, The Water Boy and many horror films. Their lives have brought them into contact with a who's who of Hollywood - George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss, Henry Fonda, John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Shirley Jones and many others, but Dad and Mom have remained their guiding stars. 24 pages of photos, 393pp.

Notorious for his booming voice and unprintable language, Brian Blessed is a classical actor with major Shakespearean roles to his credit as well as being a superb entertainer and famous all-round good bloke. The son of a coal-heaver, Brian worked his way up from the bottom, attending Bristol Old Vic theatre school where he commenced his lifelong love-hate friendship with Peter O'Toole. Apart from Lawrence of Arabia, O'Toole's most famous role was his disastrous Macbeth at London's Old Vic. On the first night Blessed, who was playing Banquo, had to get the plastered O'Toole into something like a costume and propel him onstage. Blessed had become a household name with his first big role as the young PC Fancy Smith in Z-Cars. In those days he was still aiming to be a Shakespearean actor and was devastated to receive a call from Orson Welles asking him to play Hotspur in Henry IV just after he had started Z-Cars. A major film role was playing Talthybius opposite Katharine Hepburn's Hecuba in Cacoyannis's Trojan Women. As an aficionado of Hepburn's films he managed to give as good as he got, surprising her with his analysis of where her leading man and partner Spencer Tracy had been ad-libbing, and he finally told her he was bored sick of hearing about Spencer all the time. Hepburn took it well. Although she stridently claimed to be an atheist, saying her farewells Hepburn showed Brian her religious side. Kenneth Branagh's Henry V took Blessed to Tokyo, where he was asked to escort Princess Anne on a state visit to meet the emperor and other dignitaries. Neither of them knew which was the emperor and Blessed's tale of their collusion in trial and error is a great royal story. Brian's dad was spotted taking illegal photos but was forgiven because of his vintage Japanese camera. 376pp, photos.

Among zillions of Dr Who books, this one stands out as being one of the most original, showcasing artwork created by 100 fans illustrating Dr Who stories from the First to the Twelfth Doctor. The Time Lord has been travelling across the galaxies in the Tardis for thousands of years, but we start in 1963 when two teachers follow their mysterious pupil Susan home and instead find themselves inside the Tardis. A superb facial close-up dominates the accompanying illustration by Kevin Parrish, with the Tardis itself and the school in the background. Still in the same series, the Daleks are encountered for the first time on the planet Skaro, living in protective metal survival machines after a nuclear incident, and realised in an impressive design by Wayne Whited. A number of illustrations focus on the war machines, particularly Wotan, the universal problem solver and self aware thinking device masterminded by Professor Brett. There are depictions of the continuing Antarctica Adventure, and a selection of brilliant illustrations of the Thals and Kaleds at war in an irreversible cycle of mutation, closely followed by the terror of the Zygons. With the Fourth Doctor the Skarasen known as the Loch Ness Monster, a huge armoured cyborg, is revealed, and the Fifth Doctor lands the Tardis on earth in the 26th century, only to be pitted against the cybermen, effectively illustrated in their metallic blankness. Later that year the Doctor manages to land the ship in the Dalek territory of London's docklands, and there is an accomplished drawing of the genetically engineered human Stien who accompanies the Doctor into the time corridor. The Sixth Doctor, with Peri, visits Britain's industrial revolution, and the Tenth Doctor accompanied by Rose discovers a parallel version of earth while millions of Daleks are released from the Genesis Ark. Clara and the Twelfth Doctor meet Robin Hood and the story brings us to 2017 with Bill as his new companion. 208pp, full-page illustrations, most in colour, on every double spread, list of contributors.
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Python Terry Jones is a longstanding friend of Bibliophile's. His near neighbour, the illustrator and brilliant animator Terry Gilliam, has the deadpan Minnesota farm boy take on Monty Python's Flying Circus and way beyond. Compared to Max Ernst by our other friend, the late great George Melly, Terry Gilliam writes candidly about his life as a director, screenwriter, animator, actor and member of Monty Python. His films Brazil (1985), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), The Fisher King (1991), 12 Monkeys (1995) and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) has ranked him among the top film directors. We can turn with him on the windmills of his mind as we see preparatory sketches for a cinematic adaptation of Don Quixote, end of shoot drawings from his films, the day when his hand was chopped down through the tendons whilst gardening at home, happy memories of Time Bandits and even happier days on filming The Life of Brian on location in Tunisia, within easy reach of Franco Zeffirelli's old sets for Jesus of Nazareth ("of which we made liberal use"). He had been out promoting The Holy Grail in LA with Eric Idle when they first met George Harrison and together they formed Handmade Films. Read about the real Fawlty Towers and Devon's rudest host, his escape-from-success trips camping in Greece and sketches of John Cleese as a vulture, David Frost as an Angel, his relationships with other filmmakers and actors but most of all his visions. Studded with film stills, sketches, colour artworks, nonsense collages, behind-the-scenes Python photos and even his own US Army dog tags, this is an album full of memories, the most visual autobiography you will ever see. 297pp, 8" x 10", colour.

With their dead parrots, holy grails and spam, Monty Python revolutionised comedy for the rest of the world and ushered in a new brand of surrealist comedy - a stream-of-consciousness sketch show that pushed the boundaries of format, style and content. David Morgan exclusively interviewed the entire world of Python from the founding members to the producers and collaborators like Douglas Adams of Hitchhikers Guide fame and Hank Azaria to create the ultimate record of Britain's most rebellious and successful comedy act. Packed with rare and never-before-seen photographs and told with the group's customary wit and irreverence, this is sub-titled 'The Complete Oral History'. Michael Palin said 'Some people think it's very clever and intelligent, some people say it's extremely silly and inconsequential, but not many people ignore it.' Chapters include Fear and Loathing at the BBC, Life of Brian, The Meaning of Life, Le Morte D'Arthur and The 'If you could only save one thing you produced' Chapter, Spamalot and Exiting the Stage. We get deep inside into the personalities behind these creations like Terry Jones?s commitment and sheer mental energy, the most positive of the group who cared about how the show looked and was a real perfectionist. In their own words, you get almost a conversation as they reflect on their body of work and insert sage little quotes such as 'History is written by the winners.' A phenomenal last word. 409pp, paperback, illus.

Forever defined by Baldrick's catchphrase in Blackadder, "I have a cunning plan", Tony Robinson is a man of diverse talents. Quite early during his childhood in Wanstead he realised he wanted to act, and after a round of auditions eventually found himself in the chorus of Oliver, which achieved 23 curtain calls on the first night. His big break came when the Dodger failed to turn up for a matinee and Tony found himself in front of the footlights singing "Consider yourself la-la, consider yourself la-la-la-laaa-la-la". The audience knew the words so it didn't matter. At the Central School of Speech and Drama he met Bardy, his first wife, though the relationship soon subsided into friendship. After jobs in Leicester and Stoke, a spell at Bristol Old Vic introduced him to his second wife Mary, who was later followed by Louise. Tony's politics meant he was always going on marches with stalwart leftwing activists like Vanessa and Corin Redgrave. His theatre jobs brought him into brief contact with later-famous names like Miriam Margolyes and Robert Powell, and he even got to admire Helen Mirren's tattoo. There are hilarious but sad encounters with faces from the past such as Simon Dee and John Wayne. In Peter Hall's Oresteia he sustained a knock on the head and was brought round by the combined efforts of Felicity Kendal and Jim Carter. Howard Davies at Bristol Old Vic wanted to break a run of dreary shows and embarked on a season by progressive writers such as Howard Brenton, with Tony playing the serial murderer Christie among other triumphs. Meanwhile Tony and Mary bought a house in Frederick Place, Clifton, where they ran a reasonably happy commune with their friends. When Tony got into archaeology during a season at Chichester Theatre an interest was born that would culminate in the long-running series Time Team, and soon afterwards he found immortality as Baldrick in Blackadder. 422pp, colour photos.

David Thomson is the film critics' critic, regularly hailed as one of the greats, and this stunning book expands the reach of his classic Dictionary of Film. Being a visual medium, film creates meaning through countless wordless moments, illustrated here in a series of stills from 74 different films, from 1887 with Edward Muybridge's groundbreaking sequence featuring two nude women to Robert Redford's All Is Lost of 2013. Some film moments are made by the dialogue, but "I'll have what she's having" (When Harry Met Sally, 1989) and "Round up the usual suspects" (Casablanca, 1942) would make no sense without the visual context. When Dietrich starred in Morocco (1930), wearing top hat and tails for her cabaret act and kissing a female audience member, she established a rich tradition of sexual ambiguity that extended far beyond her own transgressive roles, although according to Thomson, "Dietrich was never really a great actress". One shocking key moment in film history happened off-set, when Hattie McDaniel, the first black woman to win an Oscar, was relegated to a table in a corner at the awards ceremony for Gone With the Wind in 1939. Among great film endings, The Third Man (1949) stands out as Anna does the long walk down the tree-lined avenue and finally strides straight past Holly without a glance. At the end of John Wayne's The Searchers (1956), Ethan returns Debbie to her family and then turns back to the desert, perhaps having gone through too much to be domesticated again. Some performances are simply mesmerising, and although Moira Shearer was cast in the central role in The Red Shoes because she was an accomplished ballerina, it was her acting that raised the film to greatness. The shower scene in Psycho (1960) took a week to film and is full of visual traps for the viewer, while Blow-up, 1966, is about a photographer who looks at his stills and thinks he may have seen a murder. The illusory uncertainty of the image is in question, and Klute (1971) is yet another film about voyeurism and surveillance. The Shining, Blue Velvet, Burn After Reading all capture moments of shifting perceptions. 320pp, softback, colour and black and white photos on every double spread.
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