Theatre The Director's Cue

The theatre from the Director’s perspective: this is a scintillating series of theatrical insights, autobiographical anecdotes and a response to critics. It touches on Peter Brook’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the history cycle, The Wars of the Roses and The Romans in Britain with its ensuing private prosecution on indecency brought by Mary Whitehouse. Comparisons are drawn between the British, German and Japanese approach to theatre and also the daily problems facing a director. 

“The Director’s Cue is a blistering book, ablaze with anecdotes and fired by a profound passion for drama as the most publicly engaging of art-forms. As hard-hitting as he is hilarious, Michael Bogdanov charts a life in the theatre with boundless wit and zeal. Bogdanov is a one-man double-act, by turns erudite practitioner immersed in the minutiae of the stage and memoirist detailing the demands of life on the road with The Dubliners and the extraordinary story of the controversy surrounding Howard Brenton’s The Romans in Britain. Bogdanov offers a rollocking ride through over fifty years of stagecraft, replete with colourful anecdotes and brilliant character sketches of a host of famous names. Funny, irreverent and endlessly informative, The Director’s Cue is one of the best books written in defence of the theatre, in all its forms, that I have had the pleasure of reading. I laughed out loud and learned a lot.” 

Willy Maley, Professor of Renaissance Studies, University of Glasgow