In Conversation with Joe Tucker, author of The Secret Painter (Canongate, 2025).
In partnership with Waterstones Epsom.
Friday 28th November, 12pm
Join us for a captivating lunchtime event with Joe Tucker in conversation with journalist, Ian Reeves.
There is no need to have read the author’s remarkable biography of his Uncle Eric to enjoy the event.
Signed copies of the book, which is a Sunday Times Bestseller and a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week will be available for sale at the event.
Affectionately known as the ‘Lowry of Warrington‘, Joe Tucker’s Uncle Eric was a beloved yet unconventional figure throughout his life. A shambolically dressed man who lived with his mother for almost eighty years, he appeared to exist only for daily trips to the bookie – and yet had also quietly amassed over five hundred of his own remarkable paintings without anyone ever realising his achievements. After his death, Joe’s family began to ask questions about Eric’s life: what had driven him to create so much yet share it so rarely?
In this touching, funny and thoughtful investigation of the nature of expression, the ownership of art and the secret life of those nearest to us, Joe Tucker brings us into his uncle’s world – and brings Eric Tucker’s life’s work into ours.
Tickets £10
“A moving account of how the creative imagination can flourish in the most inhospitable circumstances.”
– The Telegraph
Joe Tucker originally trained as an animation director before becoming a television scriptwriter.
With his script writing partner, Lloyd Woolf, he has created and written the BBC shows Witless, Click & Collect and Black Ops.
