Macbeth and the Players

'Can specialists, limiting themselves to a single issue, avoid disaster? Mr Bartholomew, looking into the insights of the players, suggests that it is possible. This is an admirable work ...' Frank Kermode, The New York Review of Books '... a book of enormous interest and value ...' Norman Marshall, Drama 'With an intimacy which is a tribute not only to the quality and abundance of his evidence, but also to Mr Bartholomeusz's skills and imagination in using it, we see how Betterton, Garrick, Mrs Siddons, Kemble, Macready and Olivier created the roles that set the standards for their own day, through their close and meticulous encounters with the text.' The Times Literary Supplement