Front Row: Evenings at the Theatre

by Beryl Bainbridge (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2006

  $3.25

  Best known as an acclaimed novelist, Beryl Bainbridge is also a former actor. Expelled from school in Liverpool at the age of fourteen, she determined to tread the boards, joining the Liverpool Playhouse Theatre Company as an assistant stage manager. Here she received a unique form of education, reading Shakespeare and Ibsen, and eventually graduating from the role of a dog to the part of a boy mathematical genius for which she had to have her hair cut. Later she appeared in two early episodes of Coronation Street as Ken Barlow's girlfriend. Her love of the theatre endured after she became among the best-loved writers of her generation. One of her most successful novels, An Awfully Big Adventure , drew on her theatrical experiences, and she has often written about the theatre, in her former column in The Standard , and more recently, in the monthly theatre reviews she writes for The Oldie . Front Row is a collection of Beryl Bainbridge's best writing about the theatre. It contains fascinating insights into the work of such contemporaries as Alan Bennett, Alan Rickman and Ronald Harwood, alongside amusing sketches of the actors Bainbridge worked with in her early years, including Judith Chalmers and Billie Whitelaw. And in her autobiographical introduction, Beryl Bainbridge evokes all the magic that the footlights possess for her.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2005

  $3.25

  With an outstanding introductory essay, one of the greatest living English novelists has assembled her writings, essays and reviews about the theatre to provide a highly individual view of contemporary theatre and actors. The incredible range of Beryl Bainbridge's talents is known to her most fervent admirers. As well as being one of Britain's most acclaimed and biggest selling novelists, she is also an artist, a former actor and, in recent years, an accomplished theatre critic. As well as starting her life in the arts as an actor, appearing in rep and early episodes of Coronation Street, she wrote for years a column for the Standard, often touching on theatrical matters, and most recently writes for The Oldie as their theatre critic. The book contains fascinating insight into the work of people like Alan Bennett, Alan Rickman and Ronald Harwood. There are delightful little sketches of the actors and actresses Bainbridge worked with in the early years-including Judith Chalmers. Here is a book to enchant Beryl Bainbridge's countless fans and, through the lengthy autobiographical introduction, to give new insight into the imagination of a creative genius.