Review of 'Keep Laughing'

Keep Laughing by Chris McCausland

“Keep Laughing” is the autobiography by UK comedian Chris McCausland which tells the story of how he became a successful comic with a large media presence including winning the TV celebrity dancing contest show “Strictly Come Dancing”. This is all told in light of the fact that he is blind.

Throughout the book McCausland continually reminds us that he has always tried to not allow his disability to define his career as a comic but in this book we find that it has effected his life deeply, as you might expect. He was born with sight but slowly lost his sight due to an inherited genetic condition that made him basically completely blind by the age of 22. Growing up in Liverpool, he was just a normal kid, eventually going on to a career in IT but his ever deteriorating sight caused him to rethink this choice so he pushed himself to get up onto the stage and try to be funny. Thankfully, he was successful at this and the rest is history with numerous television appearances, films, radio shows and, of course, Strictly. There are four chapters towards the end of the book talking about his successful Strictly appearance with the book obviously coming out to take advantage of the public's interest in him following his win. I am NOT a Strictly fan and my interest was simply in learning more about him.

The book is easy to read with quite a few funny bits though I only laughed out loud a few times (please trim your hedges that overhang the pavement!), most of the time just a small smile crossed my face. I do find McCausland returns to the same points over and over again which really gets annoying after a while. For example, talking about NOT talking about blindness in his show he returns to time and time again - Yeah, we got it the first 10 times. Having said that, I found it nostalgic his story of growing up in Liverpool and it was interesting to hear just how he managed to get to where he is now – the struggles and prejudice he faced.

An interesting and mildly entertaining read, if a bit wordy and repetitive.

Rating: “Really good but I have some issues”

Review Date: 2026-01-20

Genre: Autobiography

Publisher: Penguin Random House

Publication Date: 2025

ISBN: 9780241777367