Book Reviews: First ACT Shakespeare

Before I consider this book, I should nail my colours to the mast. I love Shakespeare. I am one of those people who was lucky enough to be introduced to Shakespeare by an inspirational teacher (Mr King – thank you, wherever you are!) who taught me to love the plays as performance texts.

So, I can't argue with Mr Pennant Jones' thesis that Shakespeare should first be acted, then seen, then read, but never ignored. It's not dissimilar to the Royal Shakespeare Company's campaign to promote the active teaching of Shakespeare in schools and it's a valid point.

The bulk of the book that follows is in two halves – the first half being the 37 Shakespeare plays listed in order of performance popularity. For each play the author gives a rundown of the plot, pointers on how to deal with the challenges of the play and sometimes a reference to previous performances. These indicate a huge depth of knowledge and understanding of the plays.

Each section ends with what is called a Play Page. This is a single page containing all essential information about the play with a breakdown of characters to age and gender, number of potential sets and comments about costumes and so on. This is presented in an easily accessible graphic form; the idea being that if you don't know a play this would be a place to start considering staging it.

The second half of the book are extracts from Shakespeare's plays gathered in themed sections as an invitation for them to learned by heart, preferably by young people coming to know the texts.

Which leads me to my fundamental problem with this book: I can't figure out who it is aimed at. It's not really for schools. Extracts from Shakespeare plays are widely available, and we all have our favourites or are limited by exam syllabi. I showed it to friends in amateur companies and while they loved the Play Pages, if they were planning to do a production, they'd probably start by reading the play.

There is no doubt that Pennant Jones is a passionate and knowledgeable advocate for the acting of Shakespeare's plays but I'm uncertain as to what this adds to the extensive collection of books on Shakespeare.