Review of John Barrowman’s “Anything Goes”

Barrowman considers the possibility of further stability in his life when he announces in a chapter toward the end of the book that he has found a surrogate mother for his children: the British Coronation Street actress Suranne Jones, whom he met while appearing in the play A Few Good Men with Rob Lowe in London. Jones, a good friend, has apparently indicated that she’d be willing, and Barrowman reflects: “Perhaps one day I might become a dad; we have a lot of love to give and I adore kids.”

Other gay-related stories in the book include his first kiss, his first serious boyfriend before he met Gill, and a few interesting anecdotes about the out producer Cameron Mackintosh (including a rather racy tale of a tipsy Barrowman and Gill making love in the gardens of Mackintosh’s vineyard in the South of France).

There is also a whole chapter - excellent for anyone who wants to get a taste of what it’s like to live the high life - on Barrowman being briefly courted as a young man by the fashion designer Valentino, who invited him onto his fabulous yacht and proceeded to shower him with gifts.

How much the rest of the book is of interest may partly depend on the source of the reader’s interest in Barrowman. For Torchwood and Doctor Who fans - who surely comprise a fairly big part of his fan base at this point - I thought the book might be rather disappointing, since he only truly discusses those two shows in the last few chapters of the book, and the most interesting revelation there is that he prefers David Tennant as the Doctor to Chris Eccleston (“I think David is a happier person, whereas I found Chris a bit angsty”).

For those who are interested in musical theater, on the other hand, and particularly those who are interested in breaking into it, the book is interesting in that it provides a blow-by-blow account of how Barrowman came to win his first leading role. There are also plenty of tales about backstage and onstage exploits.

Some of these are genuinely hilarious, as when he recalls a cast member in the oceanliner-set musical Anything Goes accidentally tripping onstage and going flying into the audience. (An enterprising “sailor” on deck threw her a fake life preserver and she came back onstage shaking herself, as if she had just fallen in the sea. )

For my personal taste, though, far too many of the musical theater stories involved toilet humor or reflections on the hilarity of farting. Quoting the TV show Scrubs, Barrowman states breezily at one point that “everything comes down to poo,” and the book seems to bear this out. He recounts not one, but two enthusiastically-told stories of him defecating (accidentally) on stage, as well as repeatedly dropping his trousers, playing the piano with his penis, holding a farting competition with a cast mate while onstage, and trying not to laugh as a co-star sings him a love song while sitting on the toilet.

These stories of the “hilarious” jokes theater people play on each other left me frankly feeling a bit sorry for the audience. There is a sense of strain to them, as if Barrowman is determined to show how wild and madcap life in the theater really is, with never a moment’s let-down.

Perhaps some of this enthusiasm for dubious gags comes from his upbringing. Early in the book, Barrowman describes his father’s fondness for elaborate practical jokes, a fondness that has apparently been inherited, since Barrowman himself describes paying his young nephew Turner to eat dog food, and throw himself into a cold swimming pool.

John, Scott and extended family at John and Scott's Civil Partnership ceremony

There is plenty about Barrowman’s extended family in the book, both demonstrating his love for them, and leaving you feeling by the end as if you’ve been given quite a complete picture of his life - although the detailed reconstruction in the early chapters of his childhood in Scotland and America may feel overly thorough to those who just want to get to his professional life.