Shakespeare Magazine 07

Great Shakespeare Actors
“The
actors
are
at hand…”
Covering four centuries of thespian excellence from Richard
Burbage to Kenneth Branagh, Great Shakespeare Actors is the
latest book by pre-eminent Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells.
Shakespeare Magazine visited the author in Stratford-upon-Avon
Interview by Pat Reid
The book had its origins in your
writing for The Stage. Is there
much of yourself in there?
“It draws a lot on personal memory – I’ve been
going to see Shakespeare for well over 60 years
and I’ve seen some of the great Shakespeare
actors myself. The earliest one in the book
chronologically that I saw is Edith Evans.
Donald Wolfit I saw. And of course Gielgud,
Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Peggy Ashcroft,
right through to all the moderns – Ken
Branagh and Simon Russell Beale.”
What kind of source material did
you use for the book?
“I’ve drawn heavily on actors’ biographies –
which are very patchy, actually. There are some
very good ones, like Alan Strachan’s of Michael
Redgrave, for example, and Jonathan Croall
has done good ones of Gielgud and Sybil
Thorndike. So I’ve drawn on those especially
for the earlier actors, like Helen Faucit, for
example, or Ira Aldridge or Edmund Kean,
some of the really great figures of the past.
“But also I’ve been able to draw on the
resources here at the Shakespeare Centre
in Stratford-upon-Avon. The Shakespeare
Birthplace Trust has cuttings books of reviews
which go back a long way, so for the actors
who’ve appeared at Stratford I’ve used those.
There’s a lot of Michael Billington in the book,
for example, and the earlier JC Trewin, who
wrote for the Birmingham Evening Post, was a
very good Shakespearean.”
12 SHAKESPEARE magazine