Exit Stage Left | Nick Duerden

The desire for adulation is a light that never goes out. We live in a culture obsessed by the notion of fame - the heedless pursuit of it; the almost obligatory subsequent fallout.

But what's it like to actually achieve it, and what happens when fame abruptly passes, and shifts, as it does, onto someone else?This is the point at which pop stars are at their most heroic, because they don't give up. They keep on striving, keep making music, and refuse simply to ebb away. Some sustain themselves on the nostalgia circuit, others continue to beaver away in the studio, no longer Abbey Road, perhaps, so much as the garden shed.

But all of them, in their own individual ways, still dare to dream. Exit Stage Left features tales of drug addiction, bankruptcy, depression and divorce, but also of optimism, a genuine love of the craft, humility and hope. This is a candid, laugh-out-loud and occasionally shocking look at what happens when the brightest stars fall back down to earth.