Clara’s Verdict
Timothy West reading his memoir about his sixty-year marriage to Prunella Scales is one of the most quietly affecting audiobook experiences I’ve had in recent years. I say « quietly » deliberately — this is not a book that reaches for emotion. It is a book by a man in his mid-eighties, looking back on a life in the theatre and a marriage that became the great project of his existence, and it is suffused with the kind of undemonstrative love that is considerably harder to write than its louder counterpart.
The additional presence of Scales herself — reading letters she has written to Tim over the course of their marriage — gives the audiobook a dimension that the text alone cannot achieve. Her voice, gentled now by age and dementia, is a kind of living counterpoint to the story her husband is telling about her. It is not easy listening. It is very, very good.
About the Audiobook
West charts the course of their lives from before they met — the post-war theatrical world of the 1950s, touring productions, small repertory companies — through their courtship, marriage, and the establishment of parallel careers at the heart of British theatre and television. They worked together and apart, sharing an industry that tends to be either the making or the breaking of relationships; it was, manifestly, the making of theirs.
The memoir covers the roles that made them household names — West in Brass and Bleak House, Scales in Fawlty Towers and As Time Goes By — and the later chapter of Great Canal Journeys, where the nation fell in love with Tim and Pru all over again while also watching, gently and without pity, the early stages of Pru’s dementia. West writes about this period with extraordinary tact: he doesn’t dramatise or sentimentalise. He simply describes, and the honesty is devastating in its way.
The Narration
West narrates his own memoir, and Scales contributes her letters — a production decision that transforms the audiobook into something genuinely special. West’s voice has the warmth and precision of a career actor: he reads his own prose with the authority of someone who understands exactly what it should sound like. Scales’s sections are more fragile, and all the more powerful for it. Together, they create something that no single narrator could replicate. The Penguin Audio production handles this dual-voice format with care.
What Readers Say
Pru & Me holds an impressive 4.6 rating from 674 listeners — a meaningful number that reflects genuine breadth of audience rather than a devoted niche following. « Diamond » called it « brilliant » and praised « the great lives they lived. » « Steamrecordist » described it as « authentic and poignant — at times very sad. » Christine Russell called it « an easy read with some funny bits » that deepened her appreciation of both performers. JPB praised it as « both funny and emotional — a true story of two people’s lives who really loved each other. » Sue M, a cancer survivor reading it after treatment, found it « uplifting » in the deepest sense.
Who Should Listen?
Essential for anyone who has followed Tim and Pru’s careers — whether through the theatre, the television work, or Great Canal Journeys. More broadly, this is a book for anyone who loves stories about lasting marriages, about what it means to build a life with another person across seven decades, and about the particular grace of growing old together when one of you is losing the thread. It is not a sad book, though it has sadness in it. It is ultimately a love story, told by one of its participants with complete honesty and considerable art.
Listen on Audible UK: Get Pru & Me by Timothy West on Audible UK. Also available on Kobo, Scribd, and Storytel.
