Book review: Bill Bryson, Shakespeare: the World as a Stage

AS A BRYSON keeno (and an avid Shakespeare fan), I’ll admit to having high expectations of our lovely Chancellor’s latest: Shakespeare: The World as a Stage. >>>In a recent interview with the Independent, our own Vice Chancellor Chris Higgins listed it as his bedtime reading (whether through sycophancy or genuine enthusiasm is open for personal hypothesis), so is it worth its hype?

Bryson attempts what so many before him have failed to do; to excavate, polish and graft a life story onto a man about whom so little is known.

Previous Shakespeare biographies have focused on “the lost years” (the time between his leaving Stratford-upon-Avon and resurfacing seven years later with an established name in theatre), a boring predilection with the significance of the haphazard spelling of Shakespeare and a seeming blindness to the scarcity of cold hard fact in their ideas of his life.

Having established from the off that his is a somewhat diminutive investigation (compare it to the chunky weight of  A Short History of Nearly Everything to see where you get your money’s worth), Bryson sets about discarding the distracting myths from fact.

Carefully avoiding the role of a spoil-sport by keeping most of his conclusions “open to conjecture”, Bryson cheerfully leads us through the slightly stickier areas- such as the possibility of Shakespeare’s homosexuality- with touches of wonderful dry wit that readers of his travel books will remember with fondness.

As a layman’s introduction to Shakespeare and his works, as well as a first class description of the context of his and his contemporaries’ writings, I cannot fault it. However, as Bill plunges through his merry Bard adventures, he recounts his conversations with researchers and enthusiasts which remind you just how talented he is as a travel writer.

Shakespeare and A Short History…are something good in themselves, but they pale in comparison to the brilliance and hilarity of Bryson on the road. We love having you around Durham, Bill, but I think it’s time for another holiday…