Rowan Atkinson first came to prominence in Not The Nine O'Clock News and his natural acting ability set him up to achieve huge success as Blackadder. In the 1980s he created Mr Bean with Richard Curtis and the autumn of 1997 saw Mr Bean released as a film. This is his biography.

With the release of Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie, and its largely American setting, Atkinson's zany brand of humor has now become accessible to an even wider audience. This well-illustrated book includes all the best routines, lines, and characters in an affectionate celebration of Rowan Atkinson's career. 80 color photos.

'A masterly portrayal of an innocent.' Harold Pinter, from 'Directing Simon Gray's Plays', Simon Gray Plays 1 'Superficially, it is a light comedy about a group of educated, often eccentric English characters in an academic backwater in the early sixties. But though the jokes are excellent, the piece cuts deep. There are Strindberg-like glimpses of wretchedly unhappy marriages and, as in Ibsen, a sense of chickens coming home to roost. But the primary impression here is of an English Chekhov. As in the plays of the Russian master, the characters talk a lot, but they rarely listen, still less understand, so they are often at cross-purposes. And like The Seagull, the long time scheme in Quartermaine's Terms - it spans several years - creates a poignant sense of transience and mortality.' Daily Telegraph 'Gray's selection of details and exchanges is immaculate: he achieves drama and mystery in mundane lives; the comedy is beautifully stated and even personal tragedies are underlined with running gags that ring with truthfulness. No false hothouse effect is necessary to make bare the bewilderment of spirit of his central figure, the grinning, forgetful and deeply kind staff lecturer, St John Quartermaine, an inarticulate character of awesome loneliness who rivals the tragic force of Willy Loman.' The Times 'A play that is at once full of doom and gloom and bristling with wry, even uproarious comedy. The mixture is so artfully balanced that we really don't know where the laughter ends and the tears begin: the playwright is in full possession of the Chekhovian territory where the tragedies and absurdities of life become one and the same.' New York Times

Mr Bean goes to a restaurant for his birthday dinner. But, of course, things don't go smoothly. He doesn't like the food. But what can he do? He tries to hide it in the strangest places Chaotic adventures follow Mr Bean wherever he goes Star of TV and cinema, Mr Bean is famous all over the world.

England is wet, and Mr. Bean is fed up. He dashes off a note to the queen to let her know he won't be available to chat for a few days, indulges in a few fantasy drawings of himself as a tanned man in swimwear, and sets off for the south of France. Mr. Bean has a new video camera (although he had intended to buy a kettle) and records every detail of his journey, culminating in his trip to the Cannes Film Festival, where the results of his home video will be screened. This is the story recounted in the hilarious Mr. Bean's Holiday, which releases September 28. But all the while Mr. Bean kept a diary of his creative peregrinations, and this book is the definitive and marvelous result. Here he turns his hand to travel writings and extreme scrapbooking, and has even developed his own rating system (a range of Post-it notes saying everything from "excellent" and "as good as fish and chips" to "a pile of poo"). Also included are souvenirs, menus, sugar wrappers, postcards, and photographs that he collected en route. The first Bean movie, Bean, grossed $255 million worldwide and was an instant surprise hit in America. Much more than a straight tie-in, Mr. Bean's Definitive and Extremely Marvelous Guide to France is a hilarious stand-alone book that will appeal to anyone who loves Mr. Bean, no matter how young or old.