Search results for ""Author Oliver Ford Davies""

An authoritative, hands-on guide through the practical challenges involved in performing Shakespeare. Drawing on a lifetime's experience of playing Shakespearean roles, Oliver Ford Davies offers practical advice to actors, directors and drama students on a wide variety of scenes, characters, speeches and individual lines from almost every one of the plays. The three core sections of Performing Shakespeare take us through the whole process of Preparation, Rehearsal and Performance, preceded by discussions of the Elizabethan actor and Shakespeare's language. Also included are revealing interviews with other notable Shakespearean actors including Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Harriet Walter, Simon Russell Beale and Juliet Stevenson. 'An invaluable guide to those who act and to all those who wish to gain deeper insights into the performance of Shakespeare's plays' Stanley Wells from his Foreword

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A theme that obsessed Shakespeare in over 20 plays from Titus Andronicus to The Tempest was the relationship between a daughter and her father. This study traces chronologically the development of this theme, relating it to the little we know of his own two daughters, and sheds new light on his exploration of the family that so dominated his approach to drama. Drawing on a lifetime’s experience of playing Shakespearean roles, Oliver Ford Davies, a former university lecturer and now an Honorary Associate Artist of the RSC and Olivier Award winner, has written an engaging and deeply researched study of a topic that has intrigued him from playing Capulet in 1967, King Lear in 2002, to Polonius in 2008.

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Winner of the Society for Theatre Research Theatre Book Prize 2023 The director Peter Dews prophesied: “You’ll be alright when you’re forty, and even better when you’re fifty.” It turns out that Peter Dews was right, almost to the month. In a study of British theatre through a varied acting career spanning over sixty years, Oliver Ford Davies explores the many changes within the performing arts scene through his experiences on various stages, in a variety of productions, across the country. Davies charts the ups and downs of British theatre in the last sixty years, while offering a unique perspective on life behind the curtain and the daring journey from leaving behind an academic career and into acting. From Shakespeare to Shaw, Chekhov to Pirandello, this is the story of an actor initially struggling to make a mark before making his breakthrough at fifty, winning the Olivier Best Actor award and being propelled into thirty years of leading roles.

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