Kate Bassett's 'In Two Minds: A Biography of Jonathan Miller by Kate Bassett' Now Available

Theatre Communications Group (TCG) has announced the availability of In Two Minds: A Biography of Jonathan Miller by Kate Bassett, published by Oberon Books (London). This is the first comprehensive biography of Jonathan Miller, the controversial humorist, public intellectual and TV personality who first shot to fame, co-starring with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett, in Beyond the Fringe - the groundbreaking satirical revue which became a Tony Award-winning Broadway hit.

"Scrupulously researched, always fascinating... As Bassett says in her admirably measured book, there's 'bile and bitterness' here. As she demonstrates, there's also genius." - The Times (London)

Descended from immigrants who fled Tsarist anti-Semitism to become shopkeepers in Ireland and London's East End, Miller was born into an intellectual milieu - the son of a Bloomsbury novelist and a leading child psychiatrist. Having trained as a doctor at Cambridge University, Miller excelled at numerous pursuits. His expertise ranges from art history to neuropsychology, from atheism to Mozart to the nature of laughter. He presented the BBC's landmark medical series The Body in Question (broadcast in the U.S. in 1980) and more recently his provocative Brief History of Disbelief (PBS, 2007). He was also a guest on The Dick Cavett Show for an unprecedented five programs in a row.

Also a world-renowned director of drama and opera, his productions have included an Obie-winning production of Robert Lowell's The Old Glory, which inaugurated the American Place Theatre, and Long Day's Journey into Night on Broadway with Jack Lemmon and Kevin Spacey. Then there's his iconic Mafia Rigoletto, set in Manhattan's Little Italy; his Mark Brothers-style Mikado, which starred Dudley Moore in LA; his staging of Bach's St. Matthew Passion at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music; two decades of celebrated collaborations with Glimmerglass Opera and a high-profile feud with Cecilia Bartoli at the New York Met.

Jonathan Miller is one of the most multi-talented Britons of his generation, celebrated for his dazzling intelligence and anti-establishmentarian wit. Including sixteen pages of photos covering Miller's life and career, and drawing on in-depth interviews by respected theatre critic and arts journalist Kate Bassett, In Two Minds is an entertaining and illuminating portrait of a pioneering spirit, a brilliant thinker and a fascinatingly complex man.

"A remarkable portrait of a complex and Coleridgean figure, a man in two minds about himself for most of his life." - Daily Telegraph

Kate Bassett is the drama critic for the Independent on Sunday in the U.K. She has also written features and reviews - on theatre, film, books, dance and comedy - for The Times (London), the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, Time Out, the TLS and the New Statesman. She has served on many awards panels, teaches and gives platform talks.

Oberon Books is one of the U.K.'s leading independent publishers specializing in drama and the performing arts. Oberon has a backlist of over 1,000 books including the latest modern plays and classics from some of the world's leading dramatists, as well as a wide range of handsomely produced publications covering the theatre, opera, dance, biography, performance studies, monologues, practical guides and fiction.

For over 50 years, Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre, has existed to strengthen, nurture and promote the professional not-for-profit American theatre. TCG's constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to nearly 700 member theatres and affiliate organizations and more than 12,000 individuals nationwide. TCG offers its members networking and knowledge-building opportunities through conferences, events, research and communications; awards grants, approximately $2 million per year, to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and serves as the U.S. Center of the InterNational Theatre Institute, connecting its constituents to the global theatre community. TCG is North America's largest independent publisher of dramatic literature, with 11 Pulitzer Prizes for Best Play on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning AMERICAN THEATRE magazine and ARTSEARCH, the essential source for a career in the arts. In all of its endeavors, TCG seeks to increase the organizational efficiency of its member theatres, cultivate and celebrate the artistic talent and achievements of the field and promote a larger public understanding of, and appreciation for, the theatre. For more information visit www.tcg.org.