An intensely practical account of the way Hamlet actually works on stage.Writing with the benefit of inside experience of many productions, actor and director Michael Pennington takes us through Hamlet scene by scene, and character by character. He also gives a personal account of his own encounters with the play, and of its staging through the ages.'A wonderful book' Ronald Harwood'Racy, vivid, well informed, and continuou...

We follow in the footsteps of the intrepid British traveller and explore the world both At Home and Abroad, told entirely in the words of those who were there.The TRAVELLER at HOME GazetteA fascinating ramble through the towns and villages of the British Isles during the last 400 years in the company of Jane Austen, William Cobbett, Daniel Defoe, James Lees Milne, Sir Walter Scott, Virginia Woolf and many more.The TRAVELLER ABROAD Gazette

Jessica and Michael's odyssey unfolds among the stars, ancient sanctuaries, and eldritch realms. As spectral adversaries challenge them, they strive to awaken celestial dragons, battling darkness with the help of mystics. Their quest, laden with forbidden knowledge and personal stakes, is a tale of cosmic awakening where destiny's call is perilous yet compelling. In a twilight world at the edge of doom, an unlikely fellowship seeks mythical guardians to fight an encroaching darkness. Haunt...

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 Michael Pennington's 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 an...

Brought to you by Penguin.This Penguin Classic is performed by Michael Pennington, one of the founders of the English Shakespeare Company, known for his stage work with the RSC, and who played Carl Jung in the BBC drama, Freud. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by Mark Cousins.One of Freud's central achievements was to demonstrate how unacceptable thoughts and feelings are repressed into the unconscious, from where...

This anthology explores how ISIS used media and propaganda, shedding light on the characteristics, mission, and tactics of its messaging.From efficient instructions on how to kill civilians to horrifying videos of beheadings, no terrorist organization has more comprehensively weaponized social media than ISIS. Its strategic, multiplatformed campaign is so effective that it has ensured global news coverage and inspired hundreds of young people around the world to aba...

Penguin Classics presents Joseph Conrad's Nostromo, adapted for audio and available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by Michael Pennington.'There is something in a treasure that fastens upon a man's mind. He will pray and blaspheme and still persevere, and will curse the day he ever heard of it, and will let his last hour come upon him unawares, still believing that he missed it only by a foot. He will see it ev...

Michael Pennington's solo show about Shakespeare, Sweet William, was acclaimed throughout Europe and in the US as a unique blend of showmanship and scholarship. In this book, he deepens his exploration of Shakespeare's life and work – and the connection between the two – that lies at its heart.It is illuminated throughout by the unrivalled insights into the plays that Pennington gained from the twenty thousand hours he spent working on them as a leading actor, an artistic ...

What is King Lear really thinking of? What does his mysterious Fool dream about? What are the secret reasons for his daughters’ revenge on their father? What really lies behind the most famous lines in Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy?Michael Pennington’s performance as Lear in New York in 2014 was considered to be the equal of those of Paul Scofield and John Gielgud. This book - part memoir, part analysis, part adventure story - lights up the familiar text and the unique production ...

First published in hardback in 2003, Are You There Crocodile? is now available in paperback. Michael Pennington’s work on his solo show about Anton Chekhov has taken London’s ‘Russian Actor’ from the Trans-Siberian Railway to Soviet and post-Soviet Moscow, into the repertoires of the National Theatre and the Old Vic and across Europe.Are You There, Crocodile? also includes accounts of his work on Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Tolstoy’s Strider and other Russian projects, as we...

' As good a guide to Twelfth Night as you can get' Richard EyreThis serious yet lively book offers an intensely practical account of the way Twelfth Night actually works on stage.Drawing both on his inside knowledge as a director of the play and on his lifelong experience as a Shakespearian actor, Pennington takes the reader through Twelfth Night scene by detailed scene.'He is sharply intelligent, scrupu...

A rousing gallop through the British sporting calendar of the last nine hundred years, as we eavesdrop on some of the most memorable events in the colourful history of British sport, told entirely in the words of those who were there. In two volumes.The SPORTS GazetteFrom sword fights to boxing, jousting to motor racing, football to cricket, we journey in the company of such diverse characters as A.A. Milne, Dick Francis, Queen Victoria, Kenneth Wolstenholme, Tony Jacklin, S...