Reviews

Over the course of my college years, I managed to read Shakespeare’s entire (vast) body of work. But I would be lying if I said that I had a firm grasp and deep understanding of every single play. It was a matter of checking things off of a list, not because I had a significant appreciation for Shakespeare. When I was teaching, that appreciation began to grow. And in the past six or so years, I’ve become more and more interested in his plays, rereading and rewatching them here and there. Which brings me to Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent.

I picked this up for two reasons: it features a celebrity I greatly admire, and it looked like accessible literary criticism. I expected to enjoy it, but not for it to be anything special. How wrong I was. This book is a treasure on multiple levels. If you’re up on your Shakespeare, it’s fascinating. The minutia of his work is discussed, down to split iambic pentameter and what that means to a specific scene in Macbeth, or what subtext is conveyed by the change from rhyming lines to blank verse to prose. I feel like I learned so much while being simultaneously entertained.

And then there’s everything I learned about Judi herself. I love memoirs woven around the work and passion of a person’s life. This is one of my favorite examples of this type of memoir, because it was honestly more of a retrospective. While it was about Judi’s experiences on the Shakespearean stage, she removed herself from it as much as she could. She uses her personal interactions with the plays to expound upon the plays themselves, and to draw attention to the brilliance of Shakespeare’s work. That’s not to say we don’t learn plenty about her life. Dench’s childhood sounds delightful, like something from a story. We also learn about her marriage and career, as viewed through the lens of her Shakespearean roles.

And I had no idea how incredibly playful and mischievous she is! O’Hea said that he almost entitled this book “Herding Eels,” because Dench is so slippery in conversation. She dislikes talking about herself, which made this series of interviews interesting, I’m sure. And evidently it was quite the task to edit out the majority of Dame Judi’s swearing, which seems to have been hilariously frequent. These interviews were conducted over the course of four years, and were never intended to become a book. O’Hea expected to offer them to the archive department at Shakespeare’s Globe. But seeing outside interest, O’Hea decided instead to offer Dench’s seven decades of experience with Shakespeare — or “the man who pays the rent,” as Dench and her husband called him — to the world at large.

Both the audiobook and the physical book were fantastic in their respective mediums. Barbara Flynn did a wonderful job portraying Dench in the audiobook. She sounded remarkably like her! Dench also broke in periodically and delivered portions of soliloquies from certain plays. And there was a bonus chapter at the end of the audiobook that was just a conversation between Dench and O’Hea. Something that made the physical book special is that it included various sketches and doodles from Dame Judi herself. She struggles very much now with her vision deteriorating, and only included these to encourage other visually impaired people to pick up a brush or a pencil.

This is the kind of book that deserves to speak for itself. Because of that, I’m including a variety of brief selections from the book below. If you want to just know my opinion, Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent is brilliant, and should be a treasured addition to any literary nerd’s book collection. If you want a taste test, here are some quotes!

Here are just a few of the profound statements Judi made that helped to deepen my understanding of and appreciation for Shakespeare’s work:

“You can’t play all the complexities.”

“No one ever lies in soliloquy.”

“Songs in Shakespeare are never just there for the sake of it; the have to change something.”

“That’s why I don’t think we should update the language. It always loses something in translation — the poetry and the fizz. Or it loses the rhythm… It’s meant to make it easier, but it traduces the language, reduces our imaginations. Why can’t we be made to work a bit?”

“Our job is to make the classics sound contemporary without losing the poetry. It’s a balancing act.”

Dench discussed why she doesn’t like watching herself on film:

“You just see the mistakes. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Whereas, on stage, you can always go the next night and make it better. That’s why I much prefer working in the theatre.”

And a few more general quotes that I loved:

“Good art continues to have a life of its own — in the same way that a good play will continue after the applause has stopped.”

“And it doesn’t matter what nationality you are, you may not be able to communicate with the person sitting next to you, but music allows you to meet on another plane; it transcends difference.”

Finally, I thought this portions of one of the last conversations in the book, in the chapter “Future of Shakespeare,” was a beautiful way to wrap up the book:

Does Shakespeare have a future?
“Well, he’ll always be relevant because, as I said earlier, he reflects the times we’re living in…

Shakespeare’s words will continue to exist because he’s part of our everyday language…

Shakespeare is an international language, a beacon of humanity, of everyday life…

He’s able to express what it is to be human in the most concise way…

There’s something for everybody in Shakespeare. Everything you have felt or are yet to feel is all in there in his plays: oppression, ambition, remorse, everything…

Shakespeare has examined every single emotion. His writing has the capacity to make us feel less alone.”

thenovelbook's review against another edition

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5.0

When I was invited to read this by the publisher, my first thoughts were reluctant. Yes, I've enjoyed many of Judi Dench's performances on screen, but I'm by no means a lover of Shakespeare. Would it be an inaccessible read for me? Well, it turned out to be a marvelous, marvelous read, and I'm glad I took a chance on it.
The entire book is a series of back-and-forth conversations with Judi Dench. Each of her Shakespearean performances gets an in-depth analysis by her and her interviewer, interspersed with her thoughts and anecdotes about audiences, rehearsals, and other matters of theatre. Her voice and manner are so unmistakable that you can practically hear her speaking every word. Her love for the stage and her deep understanding of her characters completely brought me along for the ride as an enthusiastic reader (even though I thought I wouldn't be!).
The highest praise I can give this book is that it actually stirred in me a faint desire to read a bit more Shakespeare — something I certainly didn't expect at the outset. Judi's love for the language was contagious.

Content note: She drops in a few f-words along the way, which are always startling, but they sort of quickly fade away into the background during the reading experience. Still, this read might not be suitable for all.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for this digital review copy.

kit_fox's review

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emotional funny informative lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-paced

4.75

executivespooky's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted medium-paced

4.0

Judi Dench & Brendan O'Hea banter back and forth in the account of Dame Dench's career through Shakespeare. I consider myself well-read, but I have no read that much Shakespeare, so this was interesting for me as a somewhat novice. The narration was excellent and I enjoyed hearing about the different roles and the perspective on how to "play Shakespeare." This made me want to read more Shakespeare, which is not a feeling I've had since college.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

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