Let Me Play the Lion Too

Michael Pennington

A profound, charming and practical guide to a life in the theatre, from the great Michael Pennington – one of Britain’s most acclaimed classical actors and the co-founder of the English Shakespeare Company.

Out of stock

Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780571231065
Date Published
15.01.2015

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Summary

Infectiously enthusiastic, both conversational and profound, Let Me Play the Lion Too draws on Michael Pennington’s decades of experience to celebrate the deadly serious, sometimes hilarious, often misunderstood but infinitely enriching life of a professional actor.

How do you prepare for your first day on the set? Why might a bad audition lead to a good job offer? How should you research? What’s the effect of a long tour on your love-life? Can you have a glass of wine before a matinee? What’s the difference between transitive and intransitive corpsing? What is stage fright?

In a warm and insightful, highly personal guide and memoir there are sections on rehearsals, on television then and now, on who does what on a film set, on the disciplines and rewards of musical theatre, and five directors discuss why the scenery is better on radio.

Critic Reviews

'As honest as it is hilarious. A must read.'

Felicity Kendal

Critic Reviews

Perhaps an implicit theme underlying Let Me Play The Lion Too is the difference between conscientious, hard-working professionals and an acclaimed genius...He writes evocatively of the 'nauseated fear' of first nights and the melancholia of last nights when, within hours, the set is dismantled, people disperse and the entire production is 'gone beyond recovery'...Pennington describes the soap studio atmosphere brilliantly. Madness seems to loom.

Roger Lewis, Daily Mail

Critic Reviews

'If viewed as a mini-memoir, Pennington is amusing and often thoughtful, and some theoretical remarks on his craft are illuminating. His belief that a good actor should "imply the opposites in your characters without inconsistency - the tenderness in a fighter, the courage in a coward" strikes me as dead on.'

William Moore, The Independent

MichaelPennington

Michael Pennington was a leading classical actor and, with Michael Bogdanov, co-founder of the English Shakespeare Company. For the English Shakespeare Company and the RSC, he played Hamlet, Timon of Athens, Berowne, Edgar, Mercutio, Angelo, Richard II, Coriolanus, Macbeth, Henry V, Leontes and Jack Cade. He directed Twelfth Night in the UK, Tokyo and Chicago and The Hamlet Project for…

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MichaelPennington