Amazon.co.uk Review
It's the obvious question. How does one celebrate the elusive art of an actor whose traditional legacy lies in the memory and especially one who trod the boards pre- celluloid? It would seem a pointless exercise. David Garrick, however, was much more than a vainglorious luvvie (though he was that as well) and Ian McIntyre chooses the circumstantial route to reconstitute his hero, something he achieves gloriously. Assembling a first-class cast, which includes Samuel Johnson (Garrick's contemporary from Lichfield), Sheridan, Handel, Goldsmith and Gainsborough, he could hardly fail and the huge cornucopia of artistic riches yields a canvas of Hogarthian proportions (who incidentally painted him): Exhaustive and occasionally exhausting. Garrick's first major stage appearance, in 1741 as Richard III, won him tumultuous acclaim and he was rarely to look back. He was, in a sense, the first method actor; eager for naturalism and equally adept at comedy and tragedy, he almost single-handedly did away with contrived thespian conventions. His busy, intimate style ("all bustle")re-ignited an art form that previously had been only a remove from crime and prostitution. In addition, he wrote prologues, verse and a clutch of very competent plays, and as manager of the Drury Lane Theatre for 20 years, he oversaw vast improvements in lighting, set design and general conditions at a time when the theatrical arena was inclined to resemble a modern-day football ground. Macintyre crowns Garrick "Shakespeare's vicaron earth" and certainly he was responsible for establishing the cult of "Bardolatry"--a dubious accolade, but manna to McIntyre, for his chapter describing Garrick's involvement in the 1769 Shakespeare Jubilee at Stratford, a disastrous affair which lasted three days and saw not a play of Shakespeare's actually performed, is a delicious highlight. With his many years' experience at BBC television, McIntyre obviously knows a thing or two about luvvies, and he gives them enjoyably indulgent scope to demonstrate their bitchiness and high drama, which is mostly played out, naturally, off- stage.
Somehow this is the first major work on Garrick for more than 40 years, yet McIntyre makes up for the lack impressively, drawing on a wealth of correspondence, literature and theatre records to document a theatrical luminary of serious import, whose life in itself was successfully unspectacular, but which in context ignites like a flare of limelight. --David Vincent
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
