Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench and Brendan O’Hea

Thank you to #NetGalley for a free copy of this audio book in exchange for an honest review.

My Interest

Judi Dench! As Time Goes By is one of my all-time favorite t.v. shows. I love it. I used to just have the dvds on every night at dinner. So fun and nice. No more dvd player. No more laptop with a cd drive. No more ATGB.

The Story and My Thoughts

To call this a “book” is wrong. This is a conversation. An interview. A multi-part podcast. If you buy it in print then it is a transcript of those. Either the audio or the written version has an introduction that explains it. I highly recommend the audio. I think it would get tedious reading it whereas it is delightful, insightful, and entertaining to listen to even thought Judi Dench doesn’t do the recording. You very quickly forget that.

This is not about Shakespeare the man, but about Judi playing all her different roles in just about every one of his plays (or so it seems). Most of the great British actors and actresses [I know I’m archaic in using that term but I don’t want anyone to think women such as Maggie Smith are left out!] are included in the discussion. Judi does not analyze Shakespeare like an academic–thank goodness! Instead she talks about how the characters developed when she was in the role. For one (and likely only this once) saying X “informed” how y was one made perfect sense.

While we do hear about her husband, daughter, brother and friends, we hear about them for the most part in and around roles in various plays (though I don’t think her daughter was in a play–she was the young “Jean” in the picture in the opening of ATGB on tv though).

This book–transcript, would be an amazing addition to any high school class reading a Shakespeare play. It’s certainly much better than the long ponderous “introductions” affixed to academic editions of the plays like I had to trudge through in high school and college, though of course English majors would need to still do that. Free high schoolers from them with this!

Rather than take my word for it, watch the clip below that gives a sample. Below that is an episode of a British tv show in which Judi talks more of her love of Shakespeare.

My Verdict

4.0

Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench and Brendan O’Hea