'The danger was in romanticising my depression'

When William Tomomori Fukuda Sharpe was in his early twenties, and on the verge of signing his first professional contract, an agent told him to change his name. By that point, Sharpe - the London-born son of an English father and Japanese mother, who had always been known to friends and family as Tom - had spent his childhood in Tokyo before returning to England aged eight, to study first at Winchester College and then at Cambridge. Here he read Classics, found his way on to the student comedy scene, and became president of Footlights. An aspiring writer, director and actor, he was painfully aware that the name Tom Sharpe had long since been taken by a world-famous novelist, hence the agent suggesting he choose another. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]