Ayoade on Ayoade

Richard Ayoade is best known as an actor and director, and Ayoade on Ayoade is his weirdest book project. The premise is that the book is a series of interviews with himself, conducted by himself, about his own work as a filmmaker. The whole thing is built as an elaborate joke about the seriousness of director monographs.

The humor is layered. There’s a real interest in cinema underneath the parody, with sincere observations about Truffaut, Polanski, and others tucked into the absurd framing.

Readers looking for genuine craft insight from Ayoade will find some, though they’ll have to dig past the bit. Readers looking for a comedy book in the IT Crowd voice will find that more reliably.

For fans of his films Submarine and The Double, the book pairs interestingly with both. For people new to him, his earlier book Ayoade on Top is probably a more accessible entry point.