A. S. Neill, founder of Summerhill, the most admired and most feared of all progressive schools, was famous as a schoolteacher, educational reformer, and author of illuminating and stylish books about education and the mind of the child. But few people know he was also a dedicated, prolific, uninhibited, witty and often mischievous letter writer. This selection of gems, first published in 1983, has been chosen from hundreds of his letters by his biographer. It includes letters about education, children, politics, writing, fatherhood, the Bomb, old age and death. All the best, Neill was the familiar ending of his letters to the famous H. G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, Henry Miller, Paul Goodman, Wilhelm Reich, Homer Lane; to important educators W. B. Curry of Dartington, John Aitkenhead of Kilquhanity, Bob Mackenzie of Braehead, Dora Russell of Beacon Hill; to unknown friends, parents, and even casual correspondents. To read these letters is to share the company of a great and always delightful man, who wrote each one with the same commitment and gaiety."

A. S. Neill was arguably the most famous child educator of the twentieth century. He was certainly the most controversial. All over the world, countless parents and teachers have been shocked, delighted or inspired by his subversive ideas about education, or by a visit to 'that dreadful school' which continues to this day - Summerhill. First published in 1983, this sympathetic but critical exploration of his iconoclastic ideas and personality is the result of interviews with two hundred ex-pupils, parents and teachers about life at Summerhill, and of the practicality of Neill's philosophy about child freedom. Jonathan Croall has also drawn on many unpublished letters and documents, which help to illuminate Neill's personal struggles, and his analysis and friendship with Homer Lane, Wilhelm Stekel and Wilhelm Reich. The result is a fascinating and revealing portrait of a remarkable man who, in his absolute determination to be 'on the side of the child', remained in permanent opposition to the adult world.

Was the country really united in the face of the common enemy? Did people actually put the community's needs before their own? Or were such ideas simply a series of myths created at the time and nurtured ever since. The recollections of this book, first published in 1989, attempt to answer such questions by evoking the reality of life on the home front during the war years. Here is a uniquely personal portrait of a nation at war, extensively illustrated with photographs, diaries, letters, poems, and other memorabilia belonging to the men and women whose wartime lives fill this absorbing book. This title will be of interest to students of history.

A. S. Neill, founder of Summerhill, the most admired and most feared of all progressive schools, was famous as a schoolteacher, educational reformer, and author of illuminating and stylish books about education and the mind of the child. But few people know he was also a dedicated, prolific, uninhibited, witty and often mischievous letter writer. This selection of gems, first published in 1983, has been chosen from hundreds of his letters by his biographer. It includes letters about education, children, politics, writing, fatherhood, the Bomb, old age and death.

Was the country really united in the face of the common enemy? Did people actually put the community's needs before their own? Or were such ideas simply a series of myths created at the time and nurtured ever since. The recollections of this book, first published in 1989, attempt to answer such questions by evoking the reality of life on the home front during the war years. Here is a uniquely personal portrait of a nation at war, extensively illustrated with photographs, diaries, letters, poems, and other memorabilia belonging to the men and women whose wartime lives fill this absorbing book. This title will be of interest to students of history.

A. S. Neill was arguably the most famous child educator of the twentieth century. He was certainly the most controversial. All over the world, countless parents and teachers have been shocked, delighted or inspired by his subversive ideas about education, or by a visit to 'that dreadful school' which continues to this day - Summerhill. First published in 1983, this sympathetic but critical exploration of his iconoclastic ideas and personality is the result of interviews with two hundred ex-pupils, parents and teachers about life at Summerhill, and of the practicality of Neill's philosophy about child freedom. Jonathan Croall has also drawn on many unpublished letters and documents, which help to illuminate Neill's personal struggles, and his analysis and friendship with Homer Lane, Wilhelm Stekel and Wilhelm Reich. The result is a fascinating and revealing portrait of a remarkable man who, in his absolute determination to be 'on the side of the child', remained in permanent opposition to the adult world.

Hamlet is arguably the most famous play on the planet, and the greatest of all Shakespeare's works. Its rich story and complex leading role have provoked intense debate and myriad interpretations. To play such a uniquely multi-faceted character as Hamlet represents the supreme challenge for a young actor. Performing Hamlet contains Jonathan Croall's revealing in-depth interviews with five distinguished actors who have played the Prince this century: Jude Law: 'You get to speak possibly the most beautiful lines about humankind ever given to an actor.' Simon Russell Beale: 'Hamlet is a very hospitable role: it will take anything you throw at it.' David Tennant: 'No other part has been so satisfying. It was tough, but utterly compelling.' Maxine Peake: 'Hamlet was a way of accessing bits of me as an actress I've not been able to access before.' Adrian Lester: 'Working with Peter Brook on Hamlet changed me as an actor, and for the better.' The book benefits from the author's interviews with six leading directors of the play during these years: Greg Doran, Nicholas Hytner, Michael Grandage, John Caird, Sarah Frankcom and Simon Godwin. Many other productions are described, from those starring Michael Redgrave, Alec Guinness and Paul Scofield in the 1950s, to the performances of Benedict Cumberbatch, Andrew Scott and Paapa Essiedu in recent times. The volume also includes an updated text of the author's earlier book Hamlet Observed, and an account of actors' experiences of performing at Elsinore.

King Lear is arguably the most complex and demanding play in the whole of Shakespeare. Once thought impossible to stage, today it is performed with increasing frequency, both in Britain and America. It has been staged more often in the last fifty years than in the previous 350 years of its performance history, its bleak message clearly chiming in with the growing harshness, cruelty and violence of the modern world. Performing King Lear offers a very different and practical perspective from most studies of the play, being centred firmly on the reality of creation and performance. The book is based on Jonathan Croall's unique interviews with twenty of the most distinguished actors to have undertaken this daunting role during the last forty years, including Donald Sinden, Tim Pigott-Smith, Timothy West, Julian Glover, Oliver Ford Davies, Derek Jacobi, Christopher Plummer, Michael Pennington, Brian Cox and Simon Russell Beale. He has also talked to two dozen leading directors who have staged the play in London, Stratford and elsewhere. Among them are Nicholas Hytner, David Hare, Kenneth Branagh, Adrian Noble, Deborah Warner, Jonathan Miller and Dominic Dromgoole. Each reveals in precise and absorbing detail how they have dealt with the formidable challenge of interpreting and staging Shakespeare's great tragedy.

New in paperback, John Gielgud: Matinee Idol to Movie Star is the most authoritative and comprehensive account of the finest classical actor of the twentieth century. This entertaining but critical biography charts the ups and downs of Gielgud's long and glittering career, from his young ground-breaking Hamlet to his later success in plays by Pinter, Storey, Bond and Bennett, and his recognition as a major movie star following his role in Arthur. It also reassesses his complex relationship with his great rival Laurence Olivier and throws fresh light on his personal relationships and the turbulent episodes of his private life that threatened to shatter his career. For this biography Jonathan Croall's exhaustive research has included over a hundred new interviews with key people from his life and career, including Peter Brook, Kenneth Branagh, Alec Guinness, Joan Plowright and Eileen Atkins, and it draws on several hundred letters to and from Gielgud that have never been published, including correspondences with Noel Coward, Somerset Maugham, Siegfried Sassoon, Edith Evans and Edward Gordon Craig. What emerges is an intimate, complex and often startling portrait of this great actor and much-loved man. Gielgud's interpretations of Shakespeare's great roles made Shakespeare's plays a commercial success on London's West End for the first time. He was also hugely influential as a director and an actor-manager and worked extensively in film and television later in life. Since Jonathan Croall's first biography of Gielgud was published in 2000 a considerable amount of new material has come to light and the result is a much more rounded, candid and richly textured portrait of this celebrated stage and screen actor.

'A glorious compendium of John's scintillating irreverences and fabulous faux pas... He was one of the greatest of all theatrical personalities, and these utterly characteristic throwaway squibs bring him vividly back to life.' Simon Callow This delicious feast of "Gielgoodies", compiled by Gielgud's biographer, reveals a less well-known side to this celebrated man of the theatre: his lightning wit, his love of scandal and gossip, his wicked delight in putting down his fellow-artists, his relish of bawdy humour. Full of startling new material, drawn from many unpublished letters and Jonathan Croall's extensive interviews, the book also celebrates the man who dropped a thousand bricks. Gielgud's excruciating gaffes were legendary, and here are both the famous and the unknown, collected in all their glory. Whether committed backstage, in the wings or in rehearsals, on film sets or in television studios, they bring this merry and much-loved man vividly to life.

Containing over a hundred interviews conducted over the last fifteen
years with leading directors, actors and writers at the National
Theatre, "Buzz Buzz " is a fantastic compendium that offers unrivalled insight into the work and practice of the best theatre talent.

In these illuminating interviews playwrights such as Michael Frayn,
Kwame Kwei-Armah, Rebecca Lenkiewicz, David Hare, Pam Gems and Tony
Kushner and many others talk about the roots of their work, their
methods of research, and how they collaborate with their directors,
while actors from Fiona Shaw to Kenneth Branagh, and directors from
Peter Hall to Marianne Elliott, contribute fascinating insights into
their ideas and ways of working. The book covers plays by the Greeks
and Shakespeare, English and European classics, and the best of modern
English, Irish and American drama.""

Theatre writer and commentator Jonathan Croall draws on the vast
wealth of interviews he's conducted at the National Theatre in this
fascinating and wide-ranging book.

"Bacchai is one of the top dozen plays ever written. Whenever it's performed, it seems extraordinarily timely. It's haunted me all my life.' Peter Hall After huge successes with Aeschylus' The Oresteia and Sophocles' The Oedipus Plays, Peter Hall turned to Bacchai, Euripides' powerful tragedy about the cult of Dionysus. On the National's Olivier stage he presented a stunningly imaginative production played in masks, using a new translation by Colin Teevan, with original music by Harrison Birtwhistle, and designs by Alison Chitty. Jonathan Croall observed the rehearsal process in minute detail, regularly interviewing the actors and creative team as the production moved from readthrough to preview. His book offers an intimate and absorbing picture of how a team of world-class theatrical talents brought one of the masterpieces of Greek theatre to the stage. This new edition includes an extra chapter on the production's visit to the ancient theatre of Epidaurus in Greece, and a new foreward by Peter Hall."

This text gives an account of how tourism has ruined precious landscapes, polluted coast and countryside, and destroyed the distinctive cultures of many communities. But it also looks as a variety of pioneering inititives in which local people play a key role in tourism development.

As a handsome and popular romantic actor with a fan club rivalling that of Ivor Novello, John Stuart was frequently mobbed by his adoring fans. He starred in films by Alfred Hitchcock and G.W. Pabst, played opposite British stars such as Madeleine Carroll, Fay Compton, Gracie Fields, and German actor Conrad Veidt, and was also the first actor to ever speak on screen in Britain. Yet despite a film career lasting six decades and comprising 172 films, his name and achievement are little known today. With access to Stuart's private archive, his surviving films, press cuttings, film reviews, interviews, profiles, features, and gossip columns, his son Jonathan Croall presents a detailed account of an actor who made a significant contribution to the British film industry of the 20th century.