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Author: Sleep, Wayne

Ballet

Published on 31 October 2024 by Hodder & Stoughton in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 336 pages
164 x 242 x 33 | 582g

In his intimate memoir, legendary ballet dancer and entertainer Wayne Sleep looks back on the extraordinary times he’s lived through. Wayne Sleep has danced with ballet legends Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, partied with Freddie Mercury and performed with Princess Diana, becoming her close friend.

Behind the glitz and glamour, Wayne has always felt like an outsider. Sleep reveals the difficulties for a working-class, gay man in handling the prejudices of his generation and living through the Aids epidemic. Wayne was also the shortest principal dancer in the Royal Ballet – he had to spin twice as fast and jump twice as high to succeed. In this moving – but also laugh-out-loud and gossip filled – memoir, Wayne Sleep shows how he danced his way to success, fulfilment and love, and how he overcame obstacles and prejudice along the way.