July 16, 2020 Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell Reviewed by Harriet Grief fills the room up of my absent child,Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, Puts on his pretty…
October 11, 2018 Performing Hamlet by Jonathan Croall Reviewed by Harriet Back in 2015 I wrote a review for Shiny of Jonathan Croall’s Performing King Lear, a wonderfully well-researched survey of performances…
May 2, 2017 Hamlet: Globe to Globe by Dominic Dromgoole Reviewed by Harriet Dominic Dromgoole was the Artistic Director of London’s Globe Theatre from 2005 to 2016. During this successful period he initiated many…
April 19, 2016 Shylock is My Name by Howard Jacobson Reviewed by Rob Spence 2016 is clearly going to be the year of Shakespeare, though it seems rather gruesome to ‘celebrate’ the anniversary of…
January 20, 2016 The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson Reviewed by Eleanor Franzén Forgiveness is a word like tiger–there’s footage of it and verifiably it exists but few of us have seen it…
January 12, 2016 Performing King Lear by Jonathan Croall Reviewed by Harriet The role of King Lear is seen today as the ultimate challenge for the classical actor, the one that provides the…
July 7, 2015 William Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction by Stanley Wells Reviewed by Harriet How much can be said about the life and work of Shakespeare in just 135 pages? A surprising amount, in fact….
April 15, 2015 Great Shakespearean Actors: Burbage to Branagh by Stanley Wells Reviewed by Harriet Stanley Wells has been described as ‘our greatest authority on Shakespeare’s life and work’. He’s Honorary President of the Shakespeare Birthplace…
January 26, 2015 Heir to a Prophecy by Mercedes Rochelle Written by Helen Skinner “Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.” In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, these are the words spoken by the three witches to…
October 30, 2014 J by Howard Jacobson Reviewed by Max Dunbar Milan Kundera wrote that ‘The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.’ Winston Smith, of…
July 21, 2014 Shakespeare & Me, edited by Susannah Carson Reviewed by Simon Thomas A few years ago, I very much enjoyed A Truth Universally Acknowledged, an anthology of writers and readers celebrating Jane Austen,…
July 14, 2014 Beatrice and Benedick by Marina Fiorato Reviewed by Annabel Gaskell In tackling on one of Shakespeare’s most popular pairings in her latest novel, Marina Fiorato is taking a…
