Performance is ephemeral by definition. That's why we need educatespeculation or eye-witness accounts of it. A review in The Spectator for example describes Irving's 1879 Shylock having "cold slow smiles just parting the lips and touching their curves as light touches metal". The 18th-century paintings of Garrick and co playing Richard III or Romeo or the romantic interpretations by Kemble and Kean in the 19th century don't look like anything that either we or Shakespeare would recognise either.

But it's probably the sections in The Oxford Illustrated History of Shakespeare on the Stage dealing with the 19th and 20th centuries which are the most interesting. Consider the role of actor managers or the influence of Ibsen and Brecht. Then, of course, there were two wars and, eventually, that extraordinary 1970 A Midsummer Night's Dream, which Peter Brook directed at Stratford and triggered a whole new urge to go back to the text and let it speak. There's certainly plenty in this entertaining and informative book both for students and theatregoers. Susan Elkin