By Nicholas de Jongh for The Independent, 16 April 2015

. . . Wells, an indefatigable Shakespeare scholar and theatre-goer, now in his mid eighties, here takes a brisk, fascinating theatrical voyage through more than four centuries, to capture the lives and glorious playing times of almost 40 famous, mainly British actors, from first Elizabethan Richard Burbage to second Elizabethan Kenneth Branagh, with important stopping off points to take on the dazzling likes of Macready, Kean, Ellen Terry, Edith Evans and his ideal great Shakespearian, Laurence Olivier. Wells’s short chapters on his present-day or recent great Shakespeare actors read more like dutiful obituaries than inspired assessments. It is the distant heroic players that bring out the best in him and them.

Read Full Story

0000