My Shakespeare
Greg Doran
(Methuen, £25)
IF there is something a touch proprietorial about the title of this book, it is well justified. Greg Doran first worked as an actor at Stratford in 1987, started directing there in 1996 and, from 2012–22, was artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). What runs through this fascinating book is not only his passionate commitment, but his belief that Shakespeare holds up a mirror to all our lives and to the tumultuous times in which we live.
It is subtitled ‘A director’s journey through the First Folio’ and consists of essays that blend autobiography, analysis, stage-history and scholarship. Others, such as the academic Harold Bloom and the actor David Weston, have taken a similar play-by-play approach, but the difference here is that Mr Doran has directed each of the plays and confronted the problems they present. The results are constantly illuminating.
