Maggie Smith: A Biography Mel Cooper 09/12/2015In many ways this is not so much a biography of Maggie Smith as it is a catalogue raisonné of...
Imprudent King: A New Life of Philip II Mel Cooper 08/12/2015Anyone interested in Schiller’s play Don Carlos, or in the great Verdi opera based upon it, must be curious about...
The Real Traviata: The Song of Marie Duplessis Mel Cooper 20/11/2015You have to love her, Alfredo! Alphonsine Plessis (aka Marie Duplessis) has to have been one of the most charismatic...
The 101 Greatest Plays: From Antiquity to the Present René Weis FRSA 12/10/2015Michael Billington’s selection of his top 101 plays, from Antiquity to the Present, is a treat worthy of Trimalchio. Surely...
Worlds Elsewhere: Journeys Around Shakespeare’s Globe René Weis FRSA 01/10/2015Shakespeare is the world’s global literary brand, as popular in Africa, America, and Asia as he is in Europe. For...
John Lahr, Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh Mel Cooper 10/03/2015ohn Lahr is a respected critic and biographer and in his latest book, a definitive life of Tennessee Williams, he...
Allen Shawn, Leonard Bernstein: An American Musician (Jewish Lives) Mel Cooper 10/03/2015llen Shawn’s new book about Leonard Bernstein probably doesn’t replace the magisterial Humphrey Burton tome about the polymath’s extraordinary life,...
Alan Cumming, Not My Father’s Son: A Memoir Mel Cooper 10/03/2015ver Christmas, three books about entertainment folk kept me enthralled, engaged and informed. The first of these was the haunting...
Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare, edited by René Weis Tom Aitken 10/02/2015his is a wide-ranging, seriously argued and expertly presented exploration of Shakespeare’s tragedy about youngsters locked in a doomed love...
Holocaust Drama: The Theater of Atrocity by Gene A. Plunka Emily Derbyshire 10/02/2015ene A. Plunka introduces his book with the disclaimer that ‘Holocaust drama’ must take a form suitable to its subject...
