SIMON CALLOW

An alternative autobiography of the well-loved actor and man of the theatre, winner of the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography.In My Life in Pieces Simon Callow retraces his life through the multifarious performers, writers, productions and events which have left their indelible mark on him.The story begins with Peter Pan his first ever visit to the theatre before transporting us to southern Africa and South London, where Callow spent much of his childhood. Later, he charms his way into a job at the National Theatre box office courtesy of his hero, Laurence Olivier and thus consummated a lifetimes love affair with theatre.Alongside Olivier, we encounter Paul Scofield, Michael Gambon, Alan Bennett and Richard Eyre, all of whom Callow has worked with, as well as John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and Alec Guinness, David Hare, Simon Gray and many more.He writes too about figures he did not meet but who greatly influenced his life and work, figures such as Stanislavsky, Nureyev and Cocteau, as well as Charles Laughton and Orson Welles. And he even makes room for not-quite- legit performers like Tony Hancock, Tommy Cooper, Frankie Howard and Mrs Shufflewick.The result is a passionate, instructive and beguiling book which, in tracing Simon Callows own sentimental education, leaves us enriched by his generosity and wisdom.first rate... the best writer-actor we haveDavid HareSimon Callow combines zest, originality and passion and has elegantly turned his views and life in the theatre into an astonishing memoirRichard Eyre

In One Man Band the third volume in his epic survey of Orson Welles life and work Simon Callow again probes in comprehensive and penetrating detail into one of the most complex artists of the twentieth century looking closely at the triumphs and failures of an ambitious one man assault on one medium after another theatre radio film television even at one point ballet in each of which his radical and original approach opened up new directions and hitherto unglimpsed possibilities The book begins with Welles self exile from America and his realisation that he could only function happily as an independent film maker a one man band by 1964 he had filmed Othello which took three years to complete Mr Arkadin the biggest conundrum in his output and his masterpiece Chimes at Midnight as well as Touch of Evil his sole return to Hollywood and like all too many of his films wrested from his grasp and re edited Along the way he made inroads into the fledgling medium of television and a number of stage plays including Moby Dick considered by theatre historians to be one of the seminal productions of the century Meanwhile his private life was as dramatic as his professional life The book shows what it was like to be around Welles and with a precis

An entertaining short biography of Dickens by one of our finest actors In Dickens, acclaimed actor and writer Simon Callow offers a fresh perspective on one of the greatest novelists in the English language, bringing to life Dickens the man in this highly entertaining biography...

Simon Callows candid and moving memoir of his passionate friendship with legendary literary agent Peggy Ramsay.Exquisite... Perhaps the best theatrical memoir of our day David Hare

This is an examination of The Night of the Hunter Charles Laughton s only outing as a film director It looks at the symbolism of the piece at Willa her throat cut sitting in the Model T Ford

Due to the unrepentant playing of his banjolele, Bertie parts company with Jeeves, who finds employment with Bertie's old mate Chuffy. Chuffy and Pauline Stoker (previously engaged to the Wooster chap) have fallen in love, but Chuffy is reluctant to pop the question. So when Bertie and Jeeves cook up a plot to smooth out the course of true love, old entanglements look set to rear their heads

Michael Chekhov, Simon CallowTo the Actor is the perfect handbook for professional and amateur actors and directors. Michael Chekhov's simple and practical method, used by actors all over the world, will train your imagination and body to quickly and effectively call up emotion, develop characters, and strengthen awareness. These exercises are an absolute must for any theatre practitioner.This revised and expanded edition of Michael Chekhov's classic text includes new material on the most popular aspect of Chekhov's techniques, Psychological Gesture. Celebrated director, Andrei Malaev-Babel, has translated this new chapter into English for the very first time and provides an invaluable commentary to provide you with new ways to apply Psychological Gesture. There is also a foreword by Simon Callow and a new biography of Chekhov by Mala Powers.

A brilliant biography of the young Orson Welles from his prodigious childhood and youth his triumphs with the Mercury Theatre to the making of Citizen Kane Vivid vastly entertaining this is the

A brilliant biography of the young Orson Welles, from his prodigious childhood and youth, his triumphs with the Mercury Theatre, to the making of Citizen Kane. Vivid, vastly entertaining, this is the

The perfect introduction to the Master. Over a century after his death, Richard Wagners music dramas stand at the centre of the culture of classical music. He was a walking contradiction: aggressive, flirtatious, disciplined, capricious, heroic, visionary and poisonously anti-Semitic. His ten great mature masterpieces constitute an unmatched body of work, created against a backdrop of poverty, revolution, violent controversy, critical contempt and hysterical hero-worship. In this book, Simon Callow plunges the reader headlong into Wagners world, examining the intellectual and artistic climate of this composer like no other who ever lived, creator of perhaps the most sublime and most troubling body of work in the history of music.

A companion volume to Being an Actor, Callows classic text about the experience of acting in the theatre, Shooting the Actor reveals the truth about film acting. The book describes his film work, from Amadeus to Four Weddings and a Funeral, from Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls to Shakespeare in Love. Its centrepiece is a hilarious and sometimes agonising account of the making of Manifesto, shot in the former Yugoslavia. When Callow first met the films director Duan Makavejev to discuss the movie, they both got on famously. Months later the two were barely speaking. Insightful and always entertaining, Shooting the Actor reveals more than any formal guide could about the process of film-making and the highly complex nature of being both actor and director.

The reason for the decline of Orson Welless career is a hotly debated issue, but decline it certainly did. When Citizen Kane, his first film, opened in 1941, Welles was universally acclaimed as the most audacious filmmaker alive. But instead of marking the beginning of a triumphant career in Hollywood, the film still regularly voted the greatest ever made proved to be an exception in Welless life and work. In 1947 Welles left America for Europe and lived for the best part of twenty years in self-imposed exile. Welles himself famously quipped I started at the top and worked my way down - the second volume of Simon Callows compelling biography tells the story of that complex and protracted descent from grace.

In One-Man Band, the third volume in his epic survey of Orson Welles life and work, Simon Callow again probes in comprehensive and penetrating detail into one of the most complex artists of the twentieth century, looking closely at the triumphs and failures of an ambitious one-man assault on one medium after another theatre, radio, film, television, even, at one point, ballet in each of which his radical and original approach opened up new directions and hitherto unglimpsed possibilities.The book begins with Welles self-exile from America, and his realisation that he could only function happily as an independent film-maker, a one-man band; by 1964, he had filmed Othello, which took three years to complete, Mr Arkadin, the biggest conundrum in his output, and his masterpiece Chimes at Midnight, as well as Touch of Evil, his sole return to Hollywood and, like all too many of his films, wrested from his grasp and re-edited. Along the way he made inroads into the fledgling medium of television and a number of stage plays, including Moby-Dick, considered by theatre historians to be one of the seminal productions of the century. Meanwhile, his private life was as dramatic as his professional life. The book shows what it was like to be around Welles, and, with a precision rarely attempted before, what it was like to be him, in which lies the answer to the old riddle: whatever happened to Orson Welles?