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A review by andrewspink
Making It So by Patrick Stewart
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
The book has an interesting beginning and end, but in-between it is rather boring.
I found the beginning interesting because I also grew up in Yorkshire, albeit 25 years later and not in poverty. His recollection of the dialect brought back memories and I thought that some words he mentioned were just normal English (RP as he calls it), so I learnt something there. The Star Trek anecdotes were fun with all sorts of nuggets of information. I do wonder how much he held back. For instance, Wil Wheaton is on record as saying that he was forced into playing the role of Wesley Crusher by his abusive parents, but Patrick Stewart is either unaware of that or chose not to mention it.
But between that, hundreds of pages of detail about his theatre acting work, full of small incidents, which I think were only of interest to the author. After a while, yet another old play with actors who I've mostly never even heard of, was getting quite tedious. His passion for Shakespeare made up for that in places; I just wish that he had focussed on that and some other highlights. Perhaps celebrities find it harder to take advice from their editors than lesser beings.
In general, I am not so keen on the memoir or autobiography genre. You know that they are biassed in presenting events to the author's advantage, but mostly don't know which bits they are missing out or distorting. This book reminded me why I'm not so keen on that genre.
I found the beginning interesting because I also grew up in Yorkshire, albeit 25 years later and not in poverty. His recollection of the dialect brought back memories and I thought that some words he mentioned were just normal English (RP as he calls it), so I learnt something there. The Star Trek anecdotes were fun with all sorts of nuggets of information. I do wonder how much he held back. For instance, Wil Wheaton is on record as saying that he was forced into playing the role of Wesley Crusher by his abusive parents, but Patrick Stewart is either unaware of that or chose not to mention it.
But between that, hundreds of pages of detail about his theatre acting work, full of small incidents, which I think were only of interest to the author. After a while, yet another old play with actors who I've mostly never even heard of, was getting quite tedious. His passion for Shakespeare made up for that in places; I just wish that he had focussed on that and some other highlights. Perhaps celebrities find it harder to take advice from their editors than lesser beings.
In general, I am not so keen on the memoir or autobiography genre. You know that they are biassed in presenting events to the author's advantage, but mostly don't know which bits they are missing out or distorting. This book reminded me why I'm not so keen on that genre.