Slim chances and unscheduled appearances

STOPPARD's original Guildenstern, a heartbreaking Newman Noggs and a definitive Lord Peter Wimsey, Edward Petherbridge is one of Britain's finest and most highly respected actors.

In a distinguished career spanning more than half a century he has proved equally at home in Greek tragedy and French farce, in Shakespeare and Chekhov, Moliere and O'Neill, Beckett and Bennett, Coward and Kurt Weill. In this fascinating collection of essays, he tells the story of his life in the theatre (low ebbs included), from his first acting lesson, watching Norman Evans in Humpty Dumpty at the Bradford Alhambra, and his early years in 'tatty' rep, through his frustrations and triumphs at the Old Vic under the leadership of Laurence Olivier, to his role in the formation of the democratic Actors' Company and his membership of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Along the way he recounts several 'unscheduled' appearances, in Peter Brook's Oedipus, for instance, and in Wormwood Scrubs as a young conscientious objector. Part memoir and part master class, this unique anthology of prose and poetry, lavishly illustrated throughout by Petherbridge's own artwork and many rare photographs, is a wonderfully entertaining, incisive and often moving exposition of the very heart of the mystery of acting.