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The Final Act of Mr Shakespeare
'London, 1613
The Elizabethan golden age is over, replaced by James I's reign of terror, and William Shakespeare has been ordered out of his retirement to write one last play. He gathers together his devoted troupe and starts to compose but it will be such a searing attack on the monarchy that it can never be performed.'
The Elizabethan golden age is over, replaced by James I's reign of terror, and William Shakespeare has been ordered out of his retirement to write one last play. He gathers together his devoted troupe and starts to compose but it will be such a searing attack on the monarchy that it can never be performed.'
436 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
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123 people want to read
About the author
Robert Winder
20 books9 followersRobert Winder, formerly literary editor of The Independent for five years and Deputy Editor of Granta magazine during the late 1990s, is the author of Hell for Leather, a book about modern cricket, a book about British immigration, and also two novels, as well as many articles and book reviews in British periodicals. Winder is a team member of the Gaieties Cricket Club, whose chairman was Harold Pinter.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
May 4, 2010
Quite an interesting treatment, speculating on the idea that Shakespeare, disillusioned with the reign of James I and the way in which he re-wrote history to flatter the Tudors by casting Richard III as a hunchbacked monster, decides to continue his history plays by writing 'Henry VII'.
With King's minister believing he is writing a flattering account of the life of Henry VIII, he and his trusted company of actors, the King's Men, begin to thrash out the scenes for what will undoubtedly be a controversial, if not one considered treasonable, play.
Winder is quite bold in including scenes and dialogues from the fictitious play throughout the novel, and finally the five acts of entire play, even though it is the raw material rather than the polished version that Shakespeare planned to work up from this.
OK Winder is no Shakespeare but I admired his attempt to fill in the gap with the history plays with actual dialogue and scenes. He begins the book with a disclaimer in terms of the changes he's made as well as his attitude towards the authorship of the plays.
I felt he captured extremely well the setting of early 17th century London and I found it quite an engaging novel. As a long-time supporter of Richard III, I liked the idea of Shakespeare desiring to write the wrong. :)
So overall an intelligent and entertaining read.
May 7, 2019
3 out of 5 stars
I really wanted to like this book as it was set in just after the Tudor era so I was intrigued. William Shakespeare is bought back from retirement my James I Men to write a play about Henry VIII but it doesn’t go that way. He decides to write about Henry’s father Henry VII which is a dangerous job. When he gathers his fellow men they write a very different story and as they write it William knows there is danger around the corner. I found the writing very different and difficult to read. There is an underlying story behind William that lurks but is never told fully which really annoyed me. The interesting bits were on the tales of the royalty but there wasn’t enough to make it good.
I really wanted to like this book as it was set in just after the Tudor era so I was intrigued. William Shakespeare is bought back from retirement my James I Men to write a play about Henry VIII but it doesn’t go that way. He decides to write about Henry’s father Henry VII which is a dangerous job. When he gathers his fellow men they write a very different story and as they write it William knows there is danger around the corner. I found the writing very different and difficult to read. There is an underlying story behind William that lurks but is never told fully which really annoyed me. The interesting bits were on the tales of the royalty but there wasn’t enough to make it good.
February 10, 2021
It is 1613 and William Shakespeare returns to London from his home in Stratford to attend performances of his plays put on in connection with the festivities surrounding the marriage of King James’s daughter. This night he is uneasy as he watches a performance of his Richard III. He has in his possession a pamphlet which criticizes him for taking a well-intentioned and legitimate monarch and depicting him as a murderous hell-hound. The charge upsets him because it is true. He had leaned on Sir Thomas More’s life of Richard in writing the play and knows that this was an unreliable and hostile portrait calculated to please the monarch’s successor. Shakepeare is aware “he had written a disgraceful apologia for treason that falsely presented the greedy, usurping Tudors as a troop of white knights rescuing England from tyranny.”
But how to set things right? He could not undo the writing of the play. The answer comes after he visits Sir Walter Raleigh who has been a prisoner in the Tower for 10 years for no crime other than displeasing the King. Leaving the Tower, he is assaulted by soldiers and given a royal command to write a play about Henry VIII. Shakespeare gets the idea to write a play about Henry VII instead—relegating the writing of Henry VIII to Fletcher. He gathers some of his old cohorts: Richard Burbage, Edward Alleyn (actor and impresario), Robert Armin (famous for comic roles such as Dogberry) as well as some new ones and holds brainstorming sessions in which everyone throws out ideas and improvisations to work out scenes. That the creation of a new play was a collaborative effort seems quite plausible, but it is made clear that it is Shakespeare’s genius that will make the raw material into a masterpiece. In an (unnecessary) effort to prove that Shakespeare really was a genius, he off the cuffcomes up with the opening passage of the Gospel of John in the King James Bible : “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
While all the members of this improvisational group realize that it is risky to put on a play that will displease the king, Shakespeare is less than forthcoming in revealing the full extent of the danger—that he was abducted and that the king to write the Henry VIII. The group includes two teenagers, Constance Donne (daughter of the poet John Donne) and John Harvard. Constance was included to provide the woman’s perspective and Harvard to act as a scribe, but their inclusion smacks more like name-dropping. Also, it seemed improbable that two youngsters would be included in such a risky venture, Both do, however, have a place in the story: the nubile Constance does serve as reminder to Shakespeare of his advancing years and an object of jealousy between Alleyn and him; and, the young Harvard rekindles his grief over the death of his son Hamnet. (Ten years later, Constance did in fact marry Allen who was 40 years older.)
The play posits that Richard III did order the murder of the princes in the tower, but James Tyrell refused to carry out the orders, instead hiding the lads in a place near the London wharves. H7 gives Tyrell a bag of gold to tell him where the princes are, and then slits his throat when he does—and takes back the gold. Then H7 (who is portrayed as a seasoned warrior) goes off to Stoke and wins the battle without resorting to arms by virtue of his magnanimity. He returns to London and visits the princes. They think that Uncle Richard sent him to bring them back to court as he promised. Instead he leaves them some poisoned treats. Meanwhile, Elizabeth of York, who started out hating him for killing her uncle, becomes besotted with Henry and he with her. Everything turns sour for Henry when his son Arthur dies and then Elizabeth dies as a result of her grief. After these tragedies, Henry focuses all his efforts and accumulating wealth. H7 is portrayed sympathetically, the real villain being H8. They have a falling out when H8 says he intends to marry Catherine of Aragon, despite his father’s prophecy that this will cause a schism in England. Son winds up smothering father.
Shakespeare is wary of the king’s spies and even (wrongly?) suspects that Alleyn may be informing on him. By whatever means the king’s agents do become aware of the seditious nature of the play, and detain and torture Shakespeare until he burns the finished copy of his play and promises never to have it performed or spoken of again—or else. However, his friends perform for him in secret the play as they had rehearsed it, and this is set out in the final 100 pages or so of the book. It doesn’t rival Shakespeare’s actual plays (and the author has a perfect excuse; it is just the rough draft), but it is interesting. It even includes a little romance between Anne of York and John Cabot and some scenes with commoners discussing events.
This is certainly not the vindication of Richard that I expected from reading the first few pages. Would I have enjoyed a hit piece on H7? Yes, but this is a thoughtful, measured piece in which Shakespeare supposedly reflects on the nature of kingship and its effect on the monarch who wears the crown. (But what’s with giving H7 credit for bringing Caxton and the printing press to England.) I believe from what Elizabeth of York and the princes say about Richard that the author may be suggesting that this is the kind of balanced portrait Shakespeare would have produced if he had not had to please the political powers. The pacing of the book drags a bit, with too many brainstorming sessions, and the plotting gets to be a little heavy handed and overcomplicated. In the end, however, it presents an intriguing idea that kept me reading.
But how to set things right? He could not undo the writing of the play. The answer comes after he visits Sir Walter Raleigh who has been a prisoner in the Tower for 10 years for no crime other than displeasing the King. Leaving the Tower, he is assaulted by soldiers and given a royal command to write a play about Henry VIII. Shakespeare gets the idea to write a play about Henry VII instead—relegating the writing of Henry VIII to Fletcher. He gathers some of his old cohorts: Richard Burbage, Edward Alleyn (actor and impresario), Robert Armin (famous for comic roles such as Dogberry) as well as some new ones and holds brainstorming sessions in which everyone throws out ideas and improvisations to work out scenes. That the creation of a new play was a collaborative effort seems quite plausible, but it is made clear that it is Shakespeare’s genius that will make the raw material into a masterpiece. In an (unnecessary) effort to prove that Shakespeare really was a genius, he off the cuffcomes up with the opening passage of the Gospel of John in the King James Bible : “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
While all the members of this improvisational group realize that it is risky to put on a play that will displease the king, Shakespeare is less than forthcoming in revealing the full extent of the danger—that he was abducted and that the king to write the Henry VIII. The group includes two teenagers, Constance Donne (daughter of the poet John Donne) and John Harvard. Constance was included to provide the woman’s perspective and Harvard to act as a scribe, but their inclusion smacks more like name-dropping. Also, it seemed improbable that two youngsters would be included in such a risky venture, Both do, however, have a place in the story: the nubile Constance does serve as reminder to Shakespeare of his advancing years and an object of jealousy between Alleyn and him; and, the young Harvard rekindles his grief over the death of his son Hamnet. (Ten years later, Constance did in fact marry Allen who was 40 years older.)
The play posits that Richard III did order the murder of the princes in the tower, but James Tyrell refused to carry out the orders, instead hiding the lads in a place near the London wharves. H7 gives Tyrell a bag of gold to tell him where the princes are, and then slits his throat when he does—and takes back the gold. Then H7 (who is portrayed as a seasoned warrior) goes off to Stoke and wins the battle without resorting to arms by virtue of his magnanimity. He returns to London and visits the princes. They think that Uncle Richard sent him to bring them back to court as he promised. Instead he leaves them some poisoned treats. Meanwhile, Elizabeth of York, who started out hating him for killing her uncle, becomes besotted with Henry and he with her. Everything turns sour for Henry when his son Arthur dies and then Elizabeth dies as a result of her grief. After these tragedies, Henry focuses all his efforts and accumulating wealth. H7 is portrayed sympathetically, the real villain being H8. They have a falling out when H8 says he intends to marry Catherine of Aragon, despite his father’s prophecy that this will cause a schism in England. Son winds up smothering father.
Shakespeare is wary of the king’s spies and even (wrongly?) suspects that Alleyn may be informing on him. By whatever means the king’s agents do become aware of the seditious nature of the play, and detain and torture Shakespeare until he burns the finished copy of his play and promises never to have it performed or spoken of again—or else. However, his friends perform for him in secret the play as they had rehearsed it, and this is set out in the final 100 pages or so of the book. It doesn’t rival Shakespeare’s actual plays (and the author has a perfect excuse; it is just the rough draft), but it is interesting. It even includes a little romance between Anne of York and John Cabot and some scenes with commoners discussing events.
This is certainly not the vindication of Richard that I expected from reading the first few pages. Would I have enjoyed a hit piece on H7? Yes, but this is a thoughtful, measured piece in which Shakespeare supposedly reflects on the nature of kingship and its effect on the monarch who wears the crown. (But what’s with giving H7 credit for bringing Caxton and the printing press to England.) I believe from what Elizabeth of York and the princes say about Richard that the author may be suggesting that this is the kind of balanced portrait Shakespeare would have produced if he had not had to please the political powers. The pacing of the book drags a bit, with too many brainstorming sessions, and the plotting gets to be a little heavy handed and overcomplicated. In the end, however, it presents an intriguing idea that kept me reading.
Read
May 15, 2017I was so irritated by this writing style that I would've thrown the book across the room if it hadn't been a library book. The author tries to sound like Shakespeare and fails miserably. Off the cuff editing the King James Bible? Really? Tried to finish it but just couldn't manage.
January 9, 2020
This book is a brilliantly written tale about Shakespeare's last trip to London. King James demands that he write a play about Henry VIII, but instead he wants to write a play about Henry's father, Henry Vii.. Shakespeare feels he was unfair to Richard III and thinks that Richmond (who became Henry VII) was no hero. So Shakespeare gathers together his colleagues and they work on the play secretly.
The play is a tour de force, but I didn't believe that so much of Shakespeare's work would have been composed by the actors. I also didn't believe the book's ending. But it recounts the times with what seems to be great accuracy. I think any Shakespeare fan would want to read it. I really enjoyed it.
The play is a tour de force, but I didn't believe that so much of Shakespeare's work would have been composed by the actors. I also didn't believe the book's ending. But it recounts the times with what seems to be great accuracy. I think any Shakespeare fan would want to read it. I really enjoyed it.
January 3, 2011
Spend some time reviewing your knowledge of the 16-17th century English political history. You can read this work without doing so, but you'll enjoy it more if you have some basic knowledge of the monarchy at the time and the power struggles that shaped the outcome.
Although the "Final Act" is not a recently unearthed literary discovery, it is a great attempt at writing a Shakespearean piece. How many authors would even attempt such a task? Winder did it and that's reason enough alone to take this book to bed.
Although the "Final Act" is not a recently unearthed literary discovery, it is a great attempt at writing a Shakespearean piece. How many authors would even attempt such a task? Winder did it and that's reason enough alone to take this book to bed.
January 10, 2015
Smashing read for dark winter's nights.
This is exactly the sort of book I rarely read as it features real people, real people I like, to boot. But it was well written, moved at a fair old pace and kept me enthralled to the end.
This is exactly the sort of book I rarely read as it features real people, real people I like, to boot. But it was well written, moved at a fair old pace and kept me enthralled to the end.
February 6, 2011
Abandoned
March 11, 2023
This book had a promising premise, but it never quite delivered the vision in a way that I wanted it to. This book uses a story-with-a-story model with a full Shakespearean play nestled towards the end, but it feels like this is both the most interesting element of the story, but also the part that makes the story not quite work (Spoilers in paragraph #3 and past that).
This story was clearly very well researched and the plot does require a lot of historical exposition in order to make the average reader understand the complexities of the Tudor family. I acknowledge that this is important, but the way that the author relayed this information does make certain sections of this feel like a report. I have a degree in English and I had to take both a Shakespeare class and a history of English literature class. It feels like this book crammed all of the information from those classes into a book which doesn't leave a lot of room for the actual plot itself.
In fact it often feels like the plot takes a back seat to both the exposition and the play within the book. Ideas and plot points are teased, but never fully realized and explored. Shakespeare spends a considerable amount of time working on a play that could ultimately his life and those of his companions with the intent of publicly performing it. Shakespeare is terrified of getting caught while writing the play, but doesn't seem to ever have a gameplay for what he's going to do on stage. The threat of the current king and Coke loom ominously in the distance, but ultimately don't play that huge of a role in the overall story. The climax of the story even happens off-stage (no pun intended) and the plot is resolved very quickly. Shakespeare appears to have a variety of demons about losing a son, his career, his feelings about Constance (very confusing), his relationships with other historical figures, but none of them ever earn more than a passing glance.
The plot also gives away most of the major plot points of the play within the play. Whenever an author writes a historical fiction book about a famous writer, they are left with the tough task of trying to write something that the reader can believe that the historical figure would write. Shakespeare, arguably the greatest writer of all time, is an impossibly high bar to reach so any effort seems destined to fall short. It's clear that Winder has a good knowledge of Shakespeare's writing style (especially through iambic pentameter and wordplay), but his play just feels like a passable mimic at best. I really had a hard time believing not only that this is something Shakespeare wrote, but also his magnum opus.
Because so much of the plot up until this point focused on the King's Men writing the play, by the time it came down to reading the play itself it just seemed very repetitive. Which brings us to the "big twist" ending (last chance, spoilers ahead! Abandon hope all who keep reading!)
So like I said, I had to take a lot of classes about Shakespeare and the Tudors in school and I've heard the musical Six album. Because of that, I had some idea of who Catherine of Aragon was. The idea that King Henry did consider marrying Catherine is based in historical fact. She was supposedly a babe and there was a lot of political reasons why King Henry VII would want to marry her. Because of that, I guessed what the twist would be. But if you didn't know those details, Catherine is barely mentioned anywhere prior in the novel so the twist kinda comes across as "Catherine who now?". The idea of Henry potentially killing his father was also something that seemed predictable just because by now you knew the play had to end with his death, a big reveal was being teased and really there wasn't too many options that would fit within the plot. I felt like this big moment was supposed to be way more impactful and tie the story together, but really it left me feeling underwhelmed.
After the play finishes, the story wraps itself in such a rushed and strange way. It doesn't really leave you with any themes or ideas, it just kinda rambles itself to a stop. In a very odd way, this whole thing felt a bit like an excuse to write a Shakespeare fanfiction. The plot apart from the play within the story feels so underdeveloped that it does feel like a framing advise for a Shakespeare-inspired play that just isn't strong enough to carry a full story.
This story was clearly very well researched and the plot does require a lot of historical exposition in order to make the average reader understand the complexities of the Tudor family. I acknowledge that this is important, but the way that the author relayed this information does make certain sections of this feel like a report. I have a degree in English and I had to take both a Shakespeare class and a history of English literature class. It feels like this book crammed all of the information from those classes into a book which doesn't leave a lot of room for the actual plot itself.
In fact it often feels like the plot takes a back seat to both the exposition and the play within the book. Ideas and plot points are teased, but never fully realized and explored. Shakespeare spends a considerable amount of time working on a play that could ultimately his life and those of his companions with the intent of publicly performing it. Shakespeare is terrified of getting caught while writing the play, but doesn't seem to ever have a gameplay for what he's going to do on stage. The threat of the current king and Coke loom ominously in the distance, but ultimately don't play that huge of a role in the overall story. The climax of the story even happens off-stage (no pun intended) and the plot is resolved very quickly. Shakespeare appears to have a variety of demons about losing a son, his career, his feelings about Constance (very confusing), his relationships with other historical figures, but none of them ever earn more than a passing glance.
The plot also gives away most of the major plot points of the play within the play. Whenever an author writes a historical fiction book about a famous writer, they are left with the tough task of trying to write something that the reader can believe that the historical figure would write. Shakespeare, arguably the greatest writer of all time, is an impossibly high bar to reach so any effort seems destined to fall short. It's clear that Winder has a good knowledge of Shakespeare's writing style (especially through iambic pentameter and wordplay), but his play just feels like a passable mimic at best. I really had a hard time believing not only that this is something Shakespeare wrote, but also his magnum opus.
Because so much of the plot up until this point focused on the King's Men writing the play, by the time it came down to reading the play itself it just seemed very repetitive. Which brings us to the "big twist" ending (last chance, spoilers ahead! Abandon hope all who keep reading!)
So like I said, I had to take a lot of classes about Shakespeare and the Tudors in school and I've heard the musical Six album. Because of that, I had some idea of who Catherine of Aragon was. The idea that King Henry did consider marrying Catherine is based in historical fact. She was supposedly a babe and there was a lot of political reasons why King Henry VII would want to marry her. Because of that, I guessed what the twist would be. But if you didn't know those details, Catherine is barely mentioned anywhere prior in the novel so the twist kinda comes across as "Catherine who now?". The idea of Henry potentially killing his father was also something that seemed predictable just because by now you knew the play had to end with his death, a big reveal was being teased and really there wasn't too many options that would fit within the plot. I felt like this big moment was supposed to be way more impactful and tie the story together, but really it left me feeling underwhelmed.
After the play finishes, the story wraps itself in such a rushed and strange way. It doesn't really leave you with any themes or ideas, it just kinda rambles itself to a stop. In a very odd way, this whole thing felt a bit like an excuse to write a Shakespeare fanfiction. The plot apart from the play within the story feels so underdeveloped that it does feel like a framing advise for a Shakespeare-inspired play that just isn't strong enough to carry a full story.
February 26, 2018
I'm going to need my own copy of this book - I really enjoyed it! It takes a brave author to take on such a well-known wordsmith as Shakespeare, but Winder really brings him and his era to life, as well as playing with the various rumours that have gone around over the centuries about what the playwright may have done or worked on or who with. This novel captures both the wit and energy of a creative team with a new project - but also Shakespeare's nervousness about how he would be remembered - and the dangers of being close to those in power in a turbulent period of history.
It's a fun and thought-provoking read and I thoroughly recommend it.
It's a fun and thought-provoking read and I thoroughly recommend it.
February 20, 2014
This book by Robert Winder managed the neat trick of swallowing me immediately into its Jacobean depths right from the start, so that I resented interruptions to reading, whilst having me whimpering faintly once I realised the end was looming ever closer, and I would have to peel myself away from 1613 and re-enter time 300 years later.
Winder has supposed Shakespeare comes out of retirement (we know he retired back to Stratford some good few years before he actually shuffled off this mortal), comes to London to see a revival of Richard III and gets an official offer – one of those scary ones which cannot be refused, due to the power of the one who offers – to write a glorifying spin play on Henry VIII. An offer which ultimately comes from the King, James 1 (keep up!) whose line depends on that earlier Tudor marriage of Henry VII’s daughter Margaret, to Scotland’s James IV, so despite the bad relationship between Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth, (putting it mildly) James VI of Scotland/James I of the Union was also in favour of a pro-Tudor PR exercise.
Now Winder is NOT one of those who thinks Shakespeare was not Shakespeare but was Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, or Bacon, or Marlowe, or some other. In fact there are several dismissive witty nudges and thumbed noses delivered to the Shakespeare is not Shakespeare brigade.
Winder is firmly of the camp of Shakespeare, but it is an enhanced Shakespeare (a perfectly plausible concept) – in that it takes account of the fact that Shakespeare was not JUST our beloved playwright but was also an actor, and, moreover, a member of an acting company. So…..in a neat move, which makes a lot of sense, looking at Shakespeare the actor playwright, he proposes a company collaboration, in a way that seems absolutely plausible and natural. The playwright actor in rehearsal, the company of actors in typical fashion, throwing ideas, interpretations, improvisations, starry demands into the ring. An I-cant-say-that-but-I-think-I-should-say this ferment of trial and error collaborative creativity, with Shakespeare the writer-actor picking up the splurge of creative fire, finding its shape, honing it, giving it form and brilliance. THIS to my mind may have been precisely IT.
Anyway – into the delicious actors, compatriots at work we have the darkness of Jacobean England, post-gunpowder plot, with the unpopular King suspecting subterfuge, and treason behind every shadow. We have a state militant, searching out dissent, beheadings, imprisonings – and a Shakespeare, in Winder’s book, cognisant that his history plays were spin for the party that won, deeply uncomfortable with the Richard III propaganda play. In Winder’s book, Shakespeare the private, complicated, subtle human being (which we know he was because of the depth of psychology in his plays) is secretly of the what-if-Richard-wasn’t–the-one-who-killed-the-Princes-in-the-Tower persuasion. In other words – he subscribes, despite the propaganda he wrote, using sources which were of the Tudor spinning (Holinshed, More) to the theories which were later to come to the fore. Those theories were famously popularised by Josephine Tey in her magnificent novel Daughter Of Time.
So we have – historical mystery, theatrical and creative gloriousness, and a pretty cast of characters assembled. AND we have an unpublished new ‘Shakespeare’ play by Robert Winder – Henry VII – not the play he has been commissioned to write at all, but something subversive and dangerous. The bulk of this stunningly enjoyable romp is the making of the play, and then we have the play itself, privately performed. Of COURSE its not fully glorious Shakespeare, there are snippets and ideas from existing plays, Shakespeare stealing from himself – but the reason it isn’t perfect high Shakespeare is also part of the plot.
There are a couple of ‘young pretenders’ who are hauled in to join the King’s Men player company – a young scribe, and, perhaps more surprisingly, John Donne’s daughter, which seemed a bit implausible as of course at this point women were not yet allowed on the stage – however, reading his afterword with information about ‘the real’ characters, there is historical information which shows there were, at least, the possibility of collision of worlds and lives.
My only black mark against Winder, is that he does besmirch a particular real character, Sir Edward Coke, one of the founding fathers of the English legal system, making him responsible for actions which it is highly unlikely he ever took, as he was a champion of opposition to the Crown’s haughtiness, and a proponent of the assertion of the liberties of commoners, rather than a sinister agent of the Crown itself. Winder himself explains this, in both foreword and afterword. I could not quite understand why he didn’t invent a character to carry out the unpleasantness he made Coke responsible for.
This is witty, informative, fun, and wears its undoubted excellent research lightly and well. It will of course be particularly enjoyed by those who love the Bard, know the plays, and can deliciously savour the fun Shakespeare, and the actors, have with the previous works – and the stealing from previous plays to recycle into the new one.
Its one of those books which makes me love Shakespeare even more – enhances, doesn’t diminish that amazing genius
Winder has supposed Shakespeare comes out of retirement (we know he retired back to Stratford some good few years before he actually shuffled off this mortal), comes to London to see a revival of Richard III and gets an official offer – one of those scary ones which cannot be refused, due to the power of the one who offers – to write a glorifying spin play on Henry VIII. An offer which ultimately comes from the King, James 1 (keep up!) whose line depends on that earlier Tudor marriage of Henry VII’s daughter Margaret, to Scotland’s James IV, so despite the bad relationship between Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth, (putting it mildly) James VI of Scotland/James I of the Union was also in favour of a pro-Tudor PR exercise.
Now Winder is NOT one of those who thinks Shakespeare was not Shakespeare but was Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, or Bacon, or Marlowe, or some other. In fact there are several dismissive witty nudges and thumbed noses delivered to the Shakespeare is not Shakespeare brigade.
Winder is firmly of the camp of Shakespeare, but it is an enhanced Shakespeare (a perfectly plausible concept) – in that it takes account of the fact that Shakespeare was not JUST our beloved playwright but was also an actor, and, moreover, a member of an acting company. So…..in a neat move, which makes a lot of sense, looking at Shakespeare the actor playwright, he proposes a company collaboration, in a way that seems absolutely plausible and natural. The playwright actor in rehearsal, the company of actors in typical fashion, throwing ideas, interpretations, improvisations, starry demands into the ring. An I-cant-say-that-but-I-think-I-should-say this ferment of trial and error collaborative creativity, with Shakespeare the writer-actor picking up the splurge of creative fire, finding its shape, honing it, giving it form and brilliance. THIS to my mind may have been precisely IT.
Anyway – into the delicious actors, compatriots at work we have the darkness of Jacobean England, post-gunpowder plot, with the unpopular King suspecting subterfuge, and treason behind every shadow. We have a state militant, searching out dissent, beheadings, imprisonings – and a Shakespeare, in Winder’s book, cognisant that his history plays were spin for the party that won, deeply uncomfortable with the Richard III propaganda play. In Winder’s book, Shakespeare the private, complicated, subtle human being (which we know he was because of the depth of psychology in his plays) is secretly of the what-if-Richard-wasn’t–the-one-who-killed-the-Princes-in-the-Tower persuasion. In other words – he subscribes, despite the propaganda he wrote, using sources which were of the Tudor spinning (Holinshed, More) to the theories which were later to come to the fore. Those theories were famously popularised by Josephine Tey in her magnificent novel Daughter Of Time.
So we have – historical mystery, theatrical and creative gloriousness, and a pretty cast of characters assembled. AND we have an unpublished new ‘Shakespeare’ play by Robert Winder – Henry VII – not the play he has been commissioned to write at all, but something subversive and dangerous. The bulk of this stunningly enjoyable romp is the making of the play, and then we have the play itself, privately performed. Of COURSE its not fully glorious Shakespeare, there are snippets and ideas from existing plays, Shakespeare stealing from himself – but the reason it isn’t perfect high Shakespeare is also part of the plot.
There are a couple of ‘young pretenders’ who are hauled in to join the King’s Men player company – a young scribe, and, perhaps more surprisingly, John Donne’s daughter, which seemed a bit implausible as of course at this point women were not yet allowed on the stage – however, reading his afterword with information about ‘the real’ characters, there is historical information which shows there were, at least, the possibility of collision of worlds and lives.
My only black mark against Winder, is that he does besmirch a particular real character, Sir Edward Coke, one of the founding fathers of the English legal system, making him responsible for actions which it is highly unlikely he ever took, as he was a champion of opposition to the Crown’s haughtiness, and a proponent of the assertion of the liberties of commoners, rather than a sinister agent of the Crown itself. Winder himself explains this, in both foreword and afterword. I could not quite understand why he didn’t invent a character to carry out the unpleasantness he made Coke responsible for.
This is witty, informative, fun, and wears its undoubted excellent research lightly and well. It will of course be particularly enjoyed by those who love the Bard, know the plays, and can deliciously savour the fun Shakespeare, and the actors, have with the previous works – and the stealing from previous plays to recycle into the new one.
Its one of those books which makes me love Shakespeare even more – enhances, doesn’t diminish that amazing genius
March 19, 2023
There's definitely a reason it took me 2 months to read this. I wanted to like this book but it was just disappointing and dragged so much. The idea of the book is cool, but the execution was pretty average and none of the actual story really stuck with me. You can pretty much just read the last bit of the book and understand the whole plot without having to sit through the tedious first 300 pages (the last bit was by far the best).
May 3, 2022
Left me in such a reading slump I had no idea that I would finish it. The play at the end was the big highlight of it all. I wanted to know what happened to Shakespeare when he was imprisoned as I think some of the chapter of writing the play where too long and repetitive
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 23, 2019
DNF
You can tell the author did lots of research and very heavy handedly puts it into the plot
Reads like nonfiction at times.
No character or plot.
You can tell the author did lots of research and very heavy handedly puts it into the plot
Reads like nonfiction at times.
No character or plot.
Read
October 20, 2020Not worth it....
March 3, 2021
An attempt to write about Shakespeare and his crew coming together to write the last, missing, historical play, but the writing isn’t strong enough, and it’s all a bit overdone, and longwinded.
March 2, 2021
This was a fun read as an homage to Shakespeare. It reads well aloud, also. The author was very inventive, coming up with an entire Shakespeare play in 5 acts.
August 3, 2010
Shakespeare is ordered by Sir Edward Coke to right a play about Henry VIII but as he is feeling guilty about the hatchet job that he done on Richard III under Elizabeth he decides that in secret he is going to write one about Henry VII and redress the balance.
Knowing that this play will never be performed and that if he is caught it will be off to the tower, he starts to suspect everyone of his friends of being in league with the crown and plotting against him. The problem for me is that I didn't care if any of his friends were plotting against him or if they got caught, Shakespeare seemed to believe that because he was Shakespeare he could do whatever he wanted to.
I don't know if the anti-scottish feeling towards James VI was Shakespeare's own feelings or if that is how the writer feels, Shakespeare in this book seems to believe that James is out to destroy England in revenge for the murder of his mother. While I won't argue that James was a weak, spoilt and ineffectual king the idea that he was plotting anything credits him with more brains than he actually had.
Knowing that this play will never be performed and that if he is caught it will be off to the tower, he starts to suspect everyone of his friends of being in league with the crown and plotting against him. The problem for me is that I didn't care if any of his friends were plotting against him or if they got caught, Shakespeare seemed to believe that because he was Shakespeare he could do whatever he wanted to.
I don't know if the anti-scottish feeling towards James VI was Shakespeare's own feelings or if that is how the writer feels, Shakespeare in this book seems to believe that James is out to destroy England in revenge for the murder of his mother. While I won't argue that James was a weak, spoilt and ineffectual king the idea that he was plotting anything credits him with more brains than he actually had.
June 22, 2012
I actually found this rather difficult to rate. The writing was really quite beautiful and the plot itself was a bold one. At points, the narrative dragged slightly, while at other points it became quite exciting, especially when there was treachery suspected in the troupe and people were spotted following them etc. However the ending did not thrill me quite as much as I imagined it would as the excitement began to build in the last few chapters.
All in all, I appreciated the idea and I salute any man who tries to write a kid-on Shakespearean play. I loved the writing style and feel the narrative just needed a little bit more to keep it exciting and it could have been a really great story. Potentially worthy of a five, but alas, just didn't QUITE keep me on the edge of my seat enough. But I really did enjoy it. I would give it a 3.5 if I could.
All in all, I appreciated the idea and I salute any man who tries to write a kid-on Shakespearean play. I loved the writing style and feel the narrative just needed a little bit more to keep it exciting and it could have been a really great story. Potentially worthy of a five, but alas, just didn't QUITE keep me on the edge of my seat enough. But I really did enjoy it. I would give it a 3.5 if I could.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 13, 2012
It's a gutsy effort to write the missing Shakespearean play. I will admit that it seems odd after so many Henrys, to write three parts for Henry the sixth and then skip to the eighth. I have long been fascinated with the 'bad press' for Richard the third after reading Josephine Tey's 'Daughter of time'. Perhaps Shakespeare did feel guilty for his part in that, and it makes sense that he might try to redress that error using his craft; the play. The group writing and brainstorm sessions were interesting, but the book lacked that something to push it from good to great.
April 8, 2012
A fascinating book. He posits the theory that Shakespeare wrote his plays together with his players. They thought up scenarios together and then ad-libbed through them. This was recorded and Shakespeare later rewrote them into the ply. Also about the writing of a Henry VII and Henry VIII, with lots of complicated intrigues. Even a bit of the King James translation into English of the Bible. I really enjoyed it.
August 23, 2013
This is one of my favourite five or so books of the last ten years. Windsor inventively imagines Shakespeare's final years and one last politically unsound but daring play. He suggests how Shakespeare's creative process involved the contributions of the members of the people with whom he worked, a community of writers to create a fantastic play.
This was one book that I found very hard to put down.
This was one book that I found very hard to put down.
Read
May 21, 2013novel explores how the play gets written. group of actors meet and improvise scenes. having done planning and research and drawn up skeleton of progress of play/ plot and characs. so that part of story interesting. also the politics and intrigues of the times -James 1 and his faction as against the legacy of the Tudors. there is danger trying to write a play which ends up suggesting that Henry 8 perhaps murdered his father to get the throne. Good read and cleverly told
June 9, 2011
Great style of proe. Enjoyable re theatrics of Will S and his friends. The author brings in some lovely lessons on the creations of some of his works.
The pace was a little slow for me, adn I found no character to devote emotional energy to. I put it away at the halfway point.
The pace was a little slow for me, adn I found no character to devote emotional energy to. I put it away at the halfway point.
June 19, 2020
The premise: Shakespeare comes out of retirement to write ONE LAST PLAY. This was extremely silly and very good fun, packed with real anecdotes and a believable plot, even if Shakespeare's political motivations always felt a bit arbitrary.
December 23, 2011
The historical fiction I liked. Someone in the 21st century trying to write a Shakespeare play? Meh. A good novel though.
February 12, 2012
Great book with some incredible theories.
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