A Life In Time And Space: The Biography Of David Tennant by Nigel Goodall

by Nigel Goodall

David Tennant is the most powerful actor on British television. With two National Television awards to his credit and numerous other theatrical accolades, David has proven he's here to stay. David was appearing on screen even before he was out of school and appeared in several high-profile dramas for the BBC. But, undeniably, it is his energetic and eccentric portrayal of the Time Lord in cult sci-fi drama Doctor Who for which he is most famous. Fulfilling his childhood dream, David has been voted 'Best Doctor' by readers of Doctor Who Magazine and the 'coolest character' on UK television in a 2007 Radio Times survey.As a budding young actor, David received raved reviews for his work on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Nearly ten years on, he returned to his roots and took up possibly his most challenging and successful part to date - the title role in Shakespeare's Hamlet.In this, the first ever biography of the charismatic Scottish actor, Nigel Goodall traces the events and circumstances that have shaped David's life and career so far and transformed him into a hugely influential artist, and the coolest man on television.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Doctor Who

Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Nigel Goodall is one of the most respected celebrity biographers in the UK with more than 20 books on the movie and pop world to his credit. He has written about some of the biggest names in showbusiness including Elton John, Kylie Minogue, Ray Winstone, David Tennant and Winona Ryder, which combined, have sold over a million copies and won him a literary prize nomination.

Reviews

[lily 🪴]

if i had to read this, you all have to sit through this review and i hope you end up feeling half of the conflicting feelings i'm feeling right now. how am i meant to rate this. on one hand i haven't had such a visceral reaction to a book in months and i think it's only right that this is the last book i read in 2020. however this also felt like my own personal circle of hell. why did i spend time reading pages summarising the plot of every role he's ever done, followed by people just talking about his sex appeal and then just a whole chapter calling him a whore. you can tell this was published in 2008 and there's a reason nobody wants to go back there. is it worth the 'aww haha' reaction when discussing whether his relationship with georgia will work out? i don't know. this was an interesting last minute ebay buy from my parents and honestly i hope i never have to remember this ever again. if anyone ever gets his number, please let me know because i now feel obligated to call him and apologise for reading this, before i share every detail of my life with him now that i apparently have been told all of his. a part of me wishes i was breaking covid guidelines so i wouldn't have read this. nobody contact me after this, i feel nothing but shame, filth and fear. xoxo

[Penni · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was cobbled together using quotes from interviews and articles out of magazines. Nowhere in here is David actively interviewed. A thin, put-together book that doesn't offer you any insider information that you couldn't already find on the internet.

[Tracy Smyth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn’t really enjoy this book. It was as if he never spoke to David Tennant at all, but just pour in bits from different newspaper articles.

[Eloise · Rating 2 out of 5]

yes i was warned about this cursed biography, but i still wasn’t fully prepared. the whole time whilst i was reading it i felt like i was being extremely intrusive and all the things i now know about this man i feel like i shouldn’t?? i have so many questions, i don’t remember the last time i finished a book with more questions than i had before i started yet i found out so much?? idrk quite how to sum this book up tbh

[Molly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Because Nigel could not get the interest/permission/whatever from Tennant or his agent, he appeared to compile his book from magazine,TV, news paper interviews and programs.The only part that he seems to have inserted for himself was the overly personal information concerning the funeral of Tennant's mother.

DON'T BOTHER... NOT EVENT THE PHOTOS WERE EXCITING.

[Hilary · Rating 1 out of 5]

I only made it through the first few chapters. The style of writing annoyed me too much: everything seemed like a recap of a press release, or something I'd already read online, and with no immediacy or sense of character. It felt like a summary, rather than a biography.

[D C GRIMSDELL · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good but not enough Who episode details

I enjoyed this book and read it in double-quick time. But I had hoped there would be more chat or details about each Who episode that DT starred in.....a brief resume of each episode; things that went wrong; things that went right; Guest Star list; etc.

I suppose I am being too pernickety and should have known better. After all it is a Biography of David Tennant, NOT Dr Who. I will have to look for another book that has got what I want.

[Sarah]

I've owned this book since I was a teenager with a crush on David Tennant 🫣😅

Although it was interesting to read about the intricacies of Doctor Who production, it was quite disappointing that there wasn't much about David's life as you would expect from a biography.

The writer has gathered information from elsewhere and it is clear this wasn't written from conversation with David himself. Bizarrely the writing style reminded me of my own university essays making vague connections

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a shame for David Tennant that this was so poorly written. I'm a huge fan and will remain so but I really felt that he was playing second fiddle in his own biography. The author appears to have used his life purely as a name dropping exercise to talk about everyone famous in David's life rather than focus on the man himself. A missed opportunity.

[Helen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not so much a biography as a snapshot of Tennant's time as the Doctor, with some personal details thrown in, haphazardly at that. The author goes off topic quite a lot, with pages on the background to characters David played, and on biographical details of co-stars such as Kylie Minogue. Padded out with a glossary of film-making terms. Ultimately I found this unsatisfying.

[Sue · Rating 2 out of 5]

Actually disappointed by this - it's more a rewrite of information already out there about David Tennant and his various Co stars, loves and even the characters he plays rather than a true biography and seems to have had no input from the actor himself. If it wasn't so well written it would have got 1 star

[Kat · Rating 1 out of 5]

A very non-biography. Uses newspaper articles to fill up the book which amounts to maybe 1/5th of the content, the other 4/5th are endless descriptions of whatever movie/tv show Tennant was in.

Very impressive to write such a terrible biography of someone - a clear money grab.

[George Cochrane · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not meet OR interview David Tennant...

Fanboy account 🤷‍♂️

[RosFras · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book about the life of a brilliant actor!

[Lottie Collett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-written and covered lots of subjects - I learned some interesting things about David Tennant from this and I suppose that's part of why books exist.

[Kathryn Bracewell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good quick read…

but it needs to be updated from 2010 including his married life etc…
It needs to include more about the podcast. His thoughts on fatherhood

[Erica · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an enjoyable read simply to the fact that the author seems to have a high respect for David Tennant, he never says anything that would be considered any kind of insult to him, his character, his choice of work or his personal life. He seemed to get a lot of things accurate considering David Tennant was never specifically interviewed for this book.

But of course this book is missing a lot. Yes, I enjoyed it, but there wasn't much new information gathered from it. Everything was put together from other interviews we as fans have already seen and heard whether watching the performances themselves or catching the public programs or interviews this isn't really much new information. What I did gather as new was a bit in regards to his dating background, which is not necessary information for a fan of an actor. His private life is his private life. But I'm glad that apart from his dating life (parts that were already public it was said) and things like his back injury during scripting for Hamlet, that he didn't go into too much detail about his personal life, whether taking everything we know about it or just assuming too much of what was on his mind, this is part of what gave it the three stars, mainly that he stuck to respecting David Tennant as a person.

The biggest dislike in the book was that he delved too much into detail about the people he worked with, and about the parts he was playing (Doctor Who episode synopsis' and climaxes up the wazoo), these are things we all know or we might not have picked up this book lol.

Anyway, apart from that I'll still be proud to have this in my e-shelf of books as a keepsake to describe a bit about how wonderful David Tennant really is, how hard-working, energetic, humble and kind-hearted of an individual he strives to be. This still makes the book worth at least one read.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think David Tennant is a great actor, but this biography was kind of boring. It went into so much detail about other people (Hello! I am reading this because it is supposed to be a biography of David Tennant, not every other person mentioned in this book!). There is not enough about David and his work in this book to justify it being called a biography of him. The book is only 200 pages and I would say less than half of it talks about him and even those pages don't say all that much. After finishing it, I felt I could have learned the same on wikipedia and in less time! If you really want to read this book, I would recommend borrowing it first, if possible.

[Wicked Aunt · Rating 1 out of 5]

A very disappointing book. It's not until the end of the introduction that a reader discovers the book was written without the help of the subject or his agent.

The researchers have gathered information on David Tennant, and the author has reproduced it along with additional excessive detail - several pages devoted to telling a Harry Potter story, for example. The digressions aren't reflections on the subject, they're just rambling information used to fill out the book.

I was hoping to learn more about David Tennant as an actor (not just because I'm a fan of Dr Who), and this book didn't present anything new.

[Maddie_jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm never a huge fan of a Biography (i very much prefer an autobiography) but as a David Tennant fan i was always going to have to read this one. Sadly my dislike of them was founded.
Whilst some of it was quite interesting i found Nigel Goodalls book very long winded in places. There seemed to be a huge amount written about the Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire for instance that i felt it did not need. A quick paragraph or 2 on Davids part would have sufficed.
So overall very disappointed.

[Jackie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'd say that maybe half of this book is actually about David Tennant. I learned maybe one or two interesting things that i09 and other internets hadn't already told me. Every time the author brings up another famous person connected to David, or a play or show that David starred in, he rambles on for pages and pages. Honestly, I wasn't looking to read the autobiography of Kylie Minogue. There wasn't much about the Doctor Who series either.

[Penny Culliford · Rating 1 out of 5]

The content of this book would have made a good magazine article. Unfortunately it was stretched and padded to make a full length book. You do not learn any more about David Tennant than you could by looking at a website. I was not very impressed by the photographs either. They all make David Tennant look strange.

[Brian Grinter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read although as it wasn't an 'authorised' biography much of it is pieced together from interviews and articles. Looking forward to reading an authorised biography which would give more of an insight into David Tennant.

[Candy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not care for this! It was not a "good read"! The book jumped too much and was hard to keep up with! Boring!! Love David Tennant! Though it seems the author just took articles or interviews about the actor and pieced together a book! Blah!!

[Lois · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very slapdash with nothing of substance, no real order and, despite the nature of biographies because of the writing very distant to its subject. Most information is obvious or googleable, and Goodall offers little to none of his own opinions. A great example of why many are wary of biographies.

[Sheila Lofthouse · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another dreadful biography by Nigel Goodall

[Jemz Thomson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did provide some interesting insight to his early acting career but did mostly feel like a much of online articles being spat back out at me

[Carol · Rating 1 out of 5]

Utter crap. Don't bother

[Quinn Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was over all a good book but was not totally about David Tennet, some chapters would go on about other people he has worked with. I would give this book a 3/5.

[Sarah Long · Rating 2 out of 5]

So much filler and Ten didn't authorise it (didn't know that when I started it). Still love David Tennant