Harry Potter’s Severus Snape is one of the most nuanced characters (if not the most nuanced character) created by J. a reminder that, as Simone de Beauvoir wrote, 'What an odd thing a diary is: The things you omit are more important than those you put in. Through his never-before-seen diaries – a twenty-five-year passion project – Rickman invites readers backstage and into his life. The diaries show someone not as funny or as self-deprecating as fans might expect, but that’s hardly his fault.

For anyone interested in how a show comes together, Rickman is good at explaining the process – that word again!As you'll find, Rickman's diaries detail the extraordinary and the ordinary, flitting between worldly and witty and gossipy, while remaining utterly candid throughout. As much as I still adore and respect this remarkable man, this was a book I simply couldnt read and finish.

I love Rickman’s work but this is read by a person who mispronounces so many words, and whose tone does not capture Rickman’s brilliance at all. Indeed, Rickman says he finds the obligations of friendship a ‘chore’ and is ‘exhausted’ by listening to people’s problems. Someone needs to mention to the narrator that the way to pronounce the letter L as in LA is ‘el’ and not ‘al’.There were a lot of people I have heard of mentioned throughout this diary and also a lot of people I didn't know (directors etc. g., Rickman’s relationship with his partner, Rima Horton, whom he met as a teenager and didn’t marry until 2012. This is partly because Rickman didn’t regard them as his finest work – on collecting a Bafta for Robin Hood, he said: “This will be a healthy reminder to me that subtlety isn’t everything” – but also because of the interviewers who insisted on quizzing him about them, years later.