Nt Talks

The timeless Shakespearean characters of Lear and Rosalind are given a voice through the different and unorthodox approach of their biographers, in two newly-published books. Michael Pennington, who played King Lear in New York and is currently touring the UK, takes us on a journey through the play from the point of view of Lear himself, commenting on its motives and themes in Lear’s own words, in King Lear in Brooklyn. Angela Thirlwell explores the fictitious life and the many after-lives of Shakespeare’s progressive heroine Rosalind, and her perennial influence on drama, fiction and art, using interviews with actors and directors in Rosalind: A Biography of Shakespeare’s Immortal Heroine.