Brendan O'Hea interviews Dame Judi Dench who reflects on her connection to the Bard through her time on stage and film, undertaking roles from Shakespeare's plays. A fun read that is not an analysis of the plays, but a noted actor's reflections, documented in a series of interviews conducted over a period of four years.

For lovers of the Bard and fans of Judi!

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read "Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays The Rent" in exchange for my honest opinion.

I was ever so excited to read this book because of the great respect I have for Judi Dench. She explains and makes Shakespeare interesting and fun with her insight into characters and stories from her wonderful career in the theatre. She starts off by sharing from "Macbeth" her role as Lady Macbeth and how this role was the reason she went into the theatre, a role she first played in 1963 in Nottingham. She talks about her love for Stratford-Upon-Avon where she first went at the age of 18 in 1953 to see "King Lear" and dreamed of being a set designer. It's where she met her husband Michael Williams. Her mother, and Michael's parents all lived with them.

The other plays and characters that she talks about in the book are:
"A Midsummer Night's Dream" where she played Titania, Hermina and the First Fairy.
"Twelfth Night" she was Viola and Maria.
"Merchant of Venice" she was Portia.
"Hamlet" she was Ophelia and Gertrude.
"Coriolanus" she was Volumnia.
"As You Like It" she was Phebe.
"Measure For Measure" she was Isabella.
"Much Ado About Nothing" she was Beatrice.
"King Lear" she played Regan, Cordelia and Goneril.
"Comedy of Errors" she was Adriana.
"Richard II" she was Queen Isabel.
"Anthony and Cleopatra" she was Cleopatra.
"Cymbeline" she was Imogen and her brother Jeff played the title role.
"All's Well That Ends Well" is was the Countess of Roussillon.
"Henry V" is was Katherine on stage and Hostess in Kenneth Branagh's film version.
"The Merry Wives of Windsor" she was Mistress Quickly and Anne Page.
"Richard III" she was the Duchess of York.
"The Winter's Tale" she was Hermione, Perdita and Paulina.
"Romeo and Juliet" she was Juliet.

She tells fabulous laugh out loud, totally brilliant stories. She shares the absolutely hilarious things that she has done - on stage and off. She remembers minute details from costumes, to everyone that worked on each production. She can recite quotes from the plays, remembering her lines from 1960. She can explain the lines and the words with such clarity - better than any teacher in school has. Reading her book is like sitting with her as she tells these stories over a cup of tea. She shares that her grandson thinks she's the most childish person he knows. She relates how she enjoys playing games, tricks and dares, jokes and hiding from people. She talks about a good theatre company and how they become your second family. She shares how she doesn't like to be alone. Is known to have lunch with her driver who picks her up before and after theatre performances. On the subject of bad reviews she says that you learn from them and become a better actress. There is magic to be mined from mistakes.

The book has many of Ms. Dench's pencil sketches - the characters from the plays or renderings of some of the costumes. They add to the book immensely to see such a personal touch.

She has worked with some of the greats: Richard Burton, John Neville, Michael Redgrave, John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, Benedict Cumberbatch, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Kenneth Branagh. Frank Sinatra bought her husband a drink in New York once and she tells a great story surrounding that meeting.

She was involved in the campaign to save the Rose Theatre, the spot where Shakespeare stood. She's very committed to the people who buy tickets to see plays in the theatre. She doesn't like to see cancelled shows because that would be disappointing those people and she never wants to let the audience down.

In 1987 she directed a play for the first time at the request of her good friend Kenneth Branagh. Directing is not her favourite bit to do. Too many decisions and responsibility rest on the director. When the actors gang up on you, they don't tell you which pub they'll be hanging out at.

On the future of Shakespeare she says that his words will continue to exist because he's become so part of our everyday language. It's a bridge across cultures and young people are the custodians of these glorious plays. You can find everything in a Shakespearean play: oppression, ambition, loneliness, remorse, jealousy, love... Her advice to future Shakespearean actors: be kind, be curious, be playful and keep a sense of humour. If only there were more than 5 stars to give her!!

This was an intriguing collection of questions and answers - more of an interview in print than a memoir or biography. I would imagine it to be a fantastic audiobook. Although I could not help but hear Dame Judi's answers in her inimitable voice as I read, I think I would have actually preferred to listen as I'm not a big fan of the Q&A format in print. Still, there's so much of interest here that it is well worth the time for any fan of her work or of Shakespeare in general. Her insights into the characters she's portrayed and her various performances were fascinating. For me it was not so much a sit-and-read-through book as a visit-from-time-to-time one, and it was a delightful way to expand my knowledge of Shakespeare and the plays.

Review: Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench with Brendan O’Hea

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to sit down with Judi Dench and chat about acting and Shakespeare? Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent is your opportunity.

Written as transcribed conversations with Brendan O’Hea, Dame Dench dishes on her experience acting in Shakespearean plays. It is a fascinating introspection into the process of and community created in stage acting. I especially loved the reflective chapters on the profession of acting and the impact of Shakespeare.

If you love Shakespeare, Judi Dench, or reading memoirs about actors, grab a cuppa and get cozy with this book.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read this ARC. This review is my honest opinion.

"Her insights on Shakespeare are incisive and refreshing in their simplicity...an actor at the top of their game for nearly seven decades [led] me by the hand and introduced me to these extraordinary Shakespearean women...the only thing she's certain about is that there is no right way of performing Shakespeare."
-co-writer Brendan O'Hea

Through a series of interviews, writer/director/actor Brendan O'Hea chats with Dame Judi Dench. This conversation between good friends is presented to the reading audience. What a delight!

Possessing a remarkable memory, Judi Dench shares her thought processes through the years of preparing for roles such as Lady Macbeth, Titania and Cleopatra among others. "Macbeth was the reason I went into the theatre." It started when she visited Stratford-Upon-Avon at age 18 with her parents. "In all the memories I have [Stratford] is where my heart is. It's where I feel centred. So much of what Shakespeare talks about in his plays can be referenced to the countryside around Stratford."

"The word 'play' is at the heart of what we do as actors-players putting on plays by playwrights in playhouses for playgoers. Play is everything...My parents...encouraged [my brothers and I] to fail and risk and make and imagine...We spent our childhood surrounded by books and being taken to the theatre a lot."

"I love being part of a company...It was thrilling being able to have a walk-on part in one production, play a character in another, understudy in something else...it's how we grew as performers: scores of actors, playing multiple parts across several productions, watching and learning from others...".

Presenting a master class of sorts for the reader, Judi explains, "Acting is a three way conversation between you, the other actors and the audience. "It is not an actors job to make a character likeable, but to make them understandable." She is known for listening to the vibes of an audience before making a stage entrance and for listening intently to each actor on stage. Occasional tweaking might be needed.

Dame Judi has a raunchy sense of humor. One evening, she spotted a shock of white hair, thinking it belonged to a director she had worked with many times. When she made an entrance near where he was sitting, she dropped a note in his lap. "I suppose a f..."s out of the question". It was read by "a much older gentleman who looked very alarmed."

Judi Dench has amassed a wealth of knowledge about Shakespeare. Her love of his works is displayed by her thorough analysis of each role, starting from her time working with the RSC and the Old Vic. Her playful manner tends to make Shakespeare very accessible. "There's something for everybody in Shakespeare. Everything you have felt or are yet to feel is all there in his plays: oppression, ambition, loneliness, remorse...Shakespeare has examined every single emotion...[He] belongs to everybody. And we must allow who we are as individuals to colour our interpretation of his words: You've got to find out what his words mean for you" Highly recommended!

Thank you St. Martin's Press and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received a copy of the book "Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent" by Judi Dench and Brendan O'Hea. from NetGalley. Judi Dench knows a lot about the plays by William Shakespeare. She had been in a lot of the author's plays over her career. She writes this book with friend Brendan O'Hea. the whole book is like a conversation she is having with her friend. She goes into detail describing each play, the characters she played, the plot of each play. I admit I am aware of Shakespeare but do not know a lot of the plays and their plots. Judi Dench goes into detail of each play describing the character she plays and the other characters and the plots. I found this quite interesting to learn more about the Shakespeare plays. She has been performing in Shakespeare plays from a young adult up through her older years. I would think this would be a good book for Shakespeare fans or fans of actors who have been in Shakespeare plays.

I was unsurprisingly delighted by this - Dench has so many wonderful stories, and has been a performer of Shakespeare for the majority of her career. I don't think I woul assign this full text to acting or drama students, but certainly some excrepts. This was a great read and would be appropriate for any Shakespeare or acting fans 13 or above.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy eARC.

Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent is a fabulous walk through the Shakespearian career of Dame Judi Dench. Her delightful wit and sharp tongue come through in every paragraph. It has been fun to see Shakespear through a true thespian's eyes, and to have her personality with it has been such a wonderful experience. Thank you #NetGalley for allowing me to give my honest opinion of #ShakespearTheManWhoPaysTheRent.

This is transcribed from a set of discussions with Judi Dench about acting and Shakespeare and the roles she's played and her career and life. Like Dame Judi herself, it's charming and fun and thoughtful and smart. Actors will value her thoughts about roles; theater-goers will love her backstage and on-stage stories; and anyone who has ever liked her in film or TV will enjoy this compendium of thoughts.

I loved Judi Dench already, but this book made her even better to love! This is a delightful read about her life playing in Shakespeare roles. She gives insight to the roles, plus backstage stories about the show itself. I can see rereading this again and again. A hard copy is in my future

love this book and her inisghts in all the different roles that she has played during her acting times. loved that this took place over 4 years and the pictures. love hearing about her husband and kids.

To quote Judi Dench „Shakespeare is an international language, a beacon for humanity and a bridge across cultures.“ Shakespeare helps the readers to articulate feelings and words they might have thought previously and now how words to utter them. Judi Dench and Brendan O‘Hea provide great prove of that in their book. The reader learns a lot about Judi‘s roles and past performances as well as the theatre world „back in the day“. It’s a great read in interview form and enjoyable dynamic between Judi and Brendan. However, it dives right in into the Shakespearian world, with little background info, which takes some time to getting used to for a reader who has not learned a lot about Shakespeare at school or university (yes, these people exist).
Would definitely recommend and share!

When I was invited to read this by the publisher, my first thoughts were reluctant. Yes, I've enjoyed many of Judi Dench's performances on screen, but I'm by no means a lover of Shakespeare. Would it be an inaccessible read for me? Well, it turned out to be a marvelous, marvelous read, and I'm glad I took a chance on it.
The entire book is a series of back-and-forth conversations with Judi Dench. Each of her Shakespearean performances gets an in-depth analysis by her and her interviewer, interspersed with her thoughts and anecdotes about audiences, rehearsals, and other matters of theatre. Her voice and manner are so unmistakable that you can practically hear her speaking every word. Her love for the stage and her deep understanding of her characters completely brought me along for the ride as an enthusiastic reader (even though I thought I wouldn't be!).
The highest praise I can give this book is that it actually stirred in me a faint desire to read a bit more Shakespeare — something I certainly didn't expect at the outset. Judi's love for the language was contagious.

Any fan of William Shakespeare and/or Judi Dench will find this interview form book utterly fascinating. Dench and her co-author Brendan O'Shea (also her good friend), talk about Shakespeare's plays they have been in, the bard's language and the complexity of the plays' plots. Also,hilarious backstage hijinks and mishaps and the importance of the director's notes. This book covers Dench's storied stage career an gives insight in how she became a UK stage icon.

Judi Dench has written a wonderful memoir of her acting the roles she played in Shakespeares plays.She shares her thoughts on the plays on characters.Really a charming informative read.#netgalley #st.Martins

What an enchanting and unique book! A pleasure from start to finish as the wonderful Judi Dench shares with Brendan O'Hea her detailed memories of her career and her long love affair with Shakespeare’s plays and the theatre more generally. Her sharp wit and deep insights about the human condition and her own very full life make this a book to treasure and to pick up and feed on again and again.

I would like to thank St Martin's Press and Net Galley for the opportunity to read this as an ARC. I would also like to thank Sara Beth Haring for bringing this little gem to my attention. This book is a narrative of the Shakespearean Plays that Dame Judi Dench has appeared in throughout her career. It is written as a two handed discussion between her and actor/director/friend Brendan O'Hea. It is a series of intimate, unabridged , delightful conversations, on plays, acting, critics ,life and Shakespeare.I am a fan of Dame Judi Dench, but I confess I was not aware of all her time spent in Shakespeares plays. The title is something she and her late actor husband , Micheal Williams, used to say when they started another Shakespearean play-since they did so many for a time, he became-"the man who pays the rent". Her stories, musings and insights are all in this vein, personal, unvarnished and fairly light hearted, even when discussing plays and roles she disliked. I am familiar with a lot of the plays, but I feel like I need to go back and read a few that I am not as familiar with( A Winters Tale, The Merry Wives of Windsor, for 2), and then comeback and reread those parts.However, all in all, it was a delightful book and I am very glad I read it.

With dialogue written by Brendan O’Hea, Dame Judi Dench tells us about every one of her Shakespear roles. As well as the entertaining, behind the scenes stories.


As Dench herself says, 'Shakespeare is an international language, a beacon for humanity, and a bridge across cultures. Everything you have felt or are yet to feel is all in there in his plays.'


What a wonderful, entertaining book! Who isn’t a bit in awe of Dame Judi and all that she has achieved?


A pleasure, indeed.

I really like the movies and series that Judi Dench is in. I found it very interesting to read about her acting career on stage. She obviously likes Shakespeare and stage work. What is amazing is that she can still remember word for word her lines. I did learn more about some of the plays through her explanations of the plot.

Very enjoyable and highly recommended. I will definitely listen to the audiobook. Full of interesting facts, stories and tidbits of a life well lived. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book