Shakespeare: The Man who Pays the Rent is a treasure. I have savored every chapter. Each chapter includes Judi Dench’s reflections on a different Shakespeare play. The amount of detail she recalls is remarkable. Her insights are quite interesting and even scholarly. I learned a great deal while being thoroughly entertained.

The book is the result of actual conversations between Judy Dench and Brendan O’Hea, so it lends itself very well to audio format, and I am glad I chose to consume it this way. Narrator Beverly Flynn sound so much like Judi Dench and mimics her cadence so well that I, a long time fan, frequently forgot I was not listening to the Dame herself.

Thank you to #NetGalley for an ARC of the Audio book in exchange for an honest review.

When I saw the title I was interested as a lover of Shakespeare. As you begin listening to the novel, you realize it is really a conversation between friends Brendan O'Hea and Judi Dench. This novel takes you on a discussion between friends about all of the Shakespearean roles Dame Dench has brought to life on the stage as well as on film. I learn so a vast amount of information about Dame Dench's approach to each of the roles she portrayed. As an outsider, you get an in depth analysis and reflection of each role from the performers perspective. In addition you learn about the approaches various directors employed to each of the plays that informed how actors approached a role. If you are looking for a listen to learn more about Dame Dench or Shakespeare I highly recommend this work.

I LOVE Judi Dench. This was such a treat to get to listen to. She breaks down her Shakespearean roles over the years. I didn't even realize all that went into it for these actors. A wonderful, behind-the-scenes look into this world from the star herself. Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for a copy of this book for an honest review.

What a delightful book this turned out to be! I was initially attracted to it because I love Judi Dench as a movie actress. And since I graduated with a degree in English, I've read a good deal of the Bard and enjoy his writing as well. So I thought, what a wonderful combination!

But that isn't the half of it. If I were to purchase this book, hands-down, I'd buy the audiobook. The entire thing is a edited version of candid conversations between Dame Judi and her friend and fellow actor Brendan.

I have to admit, I hadn't realized how risque and occasionally foul-mouthed she could be! Lots of f-bombs throughout the manuscript, but from the bonus content at the end, apparently even that has been significantly reduced. They started with over 120 hours of audio to sift through to reduce it down to a tenth of what they started with.

Brendan leads the interview, by asking Judi about the various Shakespearean plays she has acted in and the plethora of roles she's had. But to hear her explanations and then her actual demonstration of the points she's made was wonderful! I honestly don't see how it would translate to the written page as well. So definitely, buy the audio!

Thank you to Judi Dench, Brendan O'Hea, Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for an advance review copy. It was excellent!

I loved listening to this book. Judy Dench is so descriptive, and fun, and entertaining. Anyone who loves her acting, and loves Shakespeare's play should enjoy it very much.

This was an interesting book, and I loved learning more about Judi and how she ties all of her roles together. Great audiobook too!!

I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy this as I’m neither here nor there on Shakespeare. However, as I should have suspected, Dench won me over immediately! These are her personal thoughts and memories of working on countless different productions, and it is far more entertaining than anything else I’ve read on Shakespeare! I knew that she has had a prolific career in the theatre but I had no idea just how many of his plays she has acted in.

This was funnier than I expected it to be; I always think of Shakespearian actors as fully on board with all of Shakespeare’s characters but Dench challenges so many of them. Not only are there some hilarious anecdotes (with some big name actors), I felt much more comfortable in my own understanding of Shakespeare after. I also appreciated that she recognised that she truly disliked several of his plays; we don’t get that form many Shakespearean actors, and it highlights her true honesty. And listening to Dench speak in the audiobook only further gives proof!

This is a must-read for anyone who loves Shakespeare or the theatre.

This was the most enjoyable, relaxing, educational audio I've ever listened to. I can't recommend it strongly enough! I was so sad when it was over!

Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench
The trifecta…William Shakespeare, Judi Dench, and Kenneth Branagh, mostly the Bard and Judi, but Kenneth gave a whopping endorsement, as he should as this piece is fabulous. The book is a reflection of Dench’s many years of performing in Shakespeare’s plays; she discusses the roles she has played over the years, as well as which theatre companies, directors, and actors she has held in her heart. It is a must read for any Shakespearean and/or Judi Dench fan and admirer. What is even better is the audio version as Dench is interviewed by colleague Brendan O’Hea. If you are looking for a scholarly piece, this is NOT it; it is a very personable, and fun, memoir. 5 Stars!!!!

Shakespeare super fans — this one is for you. Absolutely worth listening to in audiobook format, this memoir/masterclass in Shakespeare's leading ladies was put together from interviews with Dame Judi Dench. As the title tells us, she has spent much of her acting career bringing life to the centuries-old plays. She has stories to tell about every production she was in, and a nuanced insight for every character and monologue. And she still remembers almost every line she every uttered, as she peppers them into her conversations. As someone who appreciates the impact of Shakespeare, but isn't one for sitting down and absorbing his works, it dragged on a bit for me. However, Dench's passion and humor shines through and should be mesmerizing for anyone with just a fraction of the appreciation for the Bard of Avon as she has. (Final recommendation will be sent to subscribers of WordSmarts.com)

The new book by the great actor Judi Dench, called Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent, is absolutely delightful. If you’re looking for rigorous scholarship about the life or the plays of the Bard, this is not the book for you. But it is a tremendous romp through Dench’s lifetime of experience playing an incredibly wide variety of roles in stage performances as well as film adaptations of Shakespeare’s work.

The book is not so much a written text as an account of a series of conversations she had with the director Brendan O’Hea. Together, they work through the plays, giving brief synopses and pointing to major themes, but also sharing many of the key lines from the plays and discussing what Shakespeare might have meant as well as how actors over time might have twisted those lines slightly.

Sometimes these conversations between Dench and O’Hea focus on the particular choices individual directors made, and how they affected viewers’ interpretations of Shakespeare’s text as well as how they might have affected the actors and other crew working on a particular performance. All of this is done in very light and often very funny style. Dench and O’Hea have a wonderful teasing rapport. At the same time, there are some deeply insightful moments in every chapter—about Shakespeare, about performances of his work, and about acting in general.

If you’re a Shakespeare fan, or if you’re a Judi Dench fan, or if you are just just interested in the link between ANY text and performance, I encourage you to pick this book up.

And, rather than reading the text, you might decide to listen to the audio. I had the opportunity to look at both. The audio is, not surprisingly, recorded with Dench herself, whose personality is completely compelling. There are moments where the “conversation” part starts to feel too canned, perhaps just too edited—but her answers never do. This is the kind of book that will lighten our spirits. It will also remind us that not just humor but the deep embrace of memories, including sweet memories of people who are no longer in our lives, is one of the ways we can heal.

“Because you can’t be creative if you’re frightened and anxious. You have to be allowed to laugh and play and fail.”

Over the course of my college years, I managed to read Shakespeare’s entire (vast) body of work. But I would be lying if I said that I had a firm grasp and deep understanding of every single play. It was a matter of checking things off of a list, not because I had a significant appreciation for Shakespeare. When I was teaching, that appreciation began to grow. And in the past six or so years, I’ve become more and more interested in his plays, rereading and rewatching them here and there. Which brings me to Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent.

I picked this up for two reasons: it features a celebrity I greatly admire, and it looked like accessible literary criticism. I expected to enjoy it, but not for it to be anything special. How wrong I was. This book is a treasure on multiple levels. If you’re up on your Shakespeare, it’s fascinating. The minutia of his work is discussed, down to split iambic pentameter and what that means to a specific scene in Macbeth, or what subtext is conveyed by the change from rhyming lines to blank verse to prose. I feel like I learned so much while being simultaneously entertained.

And then there’s everything I learned about Judi herself. I love memoirs woven around the work and passion of a person’s life. This is one of my favorite examples of this type of memoir, because it was honestly more of a retrospective. While it was about Judi’s experiences on the Shakespearean stage, she removed herself from it as much as she could. She uses her personal interactions with the plays to expound upon the plays themselves, and to draw attention to the brilliance of Shakespeare’s work. That’s not to say we don’t learn plenty about her life. Dench’s childhood sounds delightful, like something from a story. We also learn about her marriage and career, as viewed through the lens of her Shakespearean roles.

And I had no idea how incredibly playful and mischievous she is! O’Hea said that he almost entitled this book “Herding Eels,” because Dench is so slippery in conversation. She dislikes talking about herself, which made this series of interviews interesting, I’m sure. And evidently it was quite the task to edit out the majority of Dame Judi’s swearing, which seems to have been hilariously frequent. These interviews were conducted over the course of four years, and were never intended to become a book. O’Hea expected to offer them to the archive department at Shakespeare’s Globe. But seeing outside interest, O’Hea decided instead to offer Dench’s seven decades of experience with Shakespeare — or “the man who pays the rent,” as Dench and her husband called him — to the world at large.

Both the audiobook and the physical book were fantastic in their respective mediums. Barbara Flynn did a wonderful job portraying Dench in the audiobook. She sounded remarkably like her! Dench also broke in periodically and delivered portions of soliloquies from certain plays. And there was a bonus chapter at the end of the audiobook that was just a conversation between Dench and O’Hea. Something that made the physical book special is that it included various sketches and doodles from Dame Judi herself. She struggles very much now with her vision deteriorating, and only included these to encourage other visually impaired people to pick up a brush or a pencil.

This is the kind of book that deserves to speak for itself. Because of that, I’m including a variety of brief selections from the book below. If you want to just know my opinion, Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent is brilliant, and should be a treasured addition to any literary nerd’s book collection. If you want a taste test, here are some quotes!

Here are just a few of the profound statements Judi made that helped to deepen my understanding of and appreciation for Shakespeare’s work:

“You can’t play all the complexities.”

“No one ever lies in soliloquy.”

“Songs in Shakespeare are never just there for the sake of it; the have to change something.”

“That’s why I don’t think we should update the language. It always loses something in translation — the poetry and the fizz. Or it loses the rhythm… It’s meant to make it easier, but it traduces the language, reduces our imaginations. Why can’t we be made to work a bit?”

“Our job is to make the classics sound contemporary without losing the poetry. It’s a balancing act.”

Dench discussed why she doesn’t like watching herself on film:

“You just see the mistakes. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Whereas, on stage, you can always go the next night and make it better. That’s why I much prefer working in the theatre.”

And a few more general quotes that I loved:

“Good art continues to have a life of its own — in the same way that a good play will continue after the applause has stopped.”

“And it doesn’t matter what nationality you are, you may not be able to communicate with the person sitting next to you, but music allows you to meet on another plane; it transcends difference.”

Finally, I thought this portions of one of the last conversations in the book, in the chapter “Future of Shakespeare,” was a beautiful way to wrap up the book:

Does Shakespeare have a future?
“Well, he’ll always be relevant because, as I said earlier, he reflects the times we’re living in…

Shakespeare’s words will continue to exist because he’s part of our everyday language…

Shakespeare is an international language, a beacon of humanity, of everyday life…

He’s able to express what it is to be human in the most concise way…

There’s something for everybody in Shakespeare. Everything you have felt or are yet to feel is all in there in his plays: oppression, ambition, remorse, everything…

Shakespeare has examined every single emotion. His writing has the capacity to make us feel less alone.”

I really didn't expect to enjoy this as much as I did! I'm not a huge Shakespeare fan but I loved learning more about his plays through the stories of one who played parts in so many of them. I highly recommend listening to this one because Judi Dench's wit and humor is just so much fun to listen to as she reminisces.

I"d already read this book, but finding it on audiobook was amazing. The narrators were perfect, and including Judi Dench doing dialogue or reading sonnets was a great addition. Hearing this amazing actress reading Shakespeare is an unparalleled experience. Another fabulous addition is the dialogue between both authors at the end, which was recorded for a podcast. Hearing them made me laugh out loud! Loved this audio!!!!

Judi Dench & Brendan O'Hea banter back and forth in the account of Dame Dench's career through Shakespeare. I consider myself well-read, but I have no read that much Shakespeare, so this was interesting for me as a somewhat novice. The narration was excellent and I enjoyed hearing about the different roles and the perspective on how to "play Shakespeare." This made me want to read more Shakespeare, which is not a feeling I've had since college.

Thank you!

Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for the audiobook.

This is my favorite kind of book, the kind where an actor you love explains both the stage and whats going on behind the scenes. I opted to listen to the book because I could listen to Judi Dench all day. I have to admit, I am a literature nerd. I was an English major and my classes about Shakespeare were always my favorite. Combining Judi Dench and the bard together made this book a no brainer for me.

The casual way they refer to the plays (Henry 5 instead of Henry the fifth) made me chuckle, the descriptions of the way Dench approached the characters and the audience reactions were often hysterical. If you're even slightly intrigued by this book, I suggest picking it up. It's well worth it!

This was a lovely listen and a unique point of view to experience! It was truly enjoyable to hear the humor and wit from Judi Dench, along with the personal aspect of what each Shakespeare play meant to her and her career. I think the theme of the book was well put together and I enjoyed the narrators bringing these interviews to life.

Do you love Dame Judi Dench? Who doesn’t? The actress for all times was interviewed by Brendan O’Hea with Dench talking about all the Shakespearean parts she has played, for the archive department at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre which then turned into this book. I listened to the audio version of the book which is delightful since you get to actually hear Dench’s voice and O’Hea interviewing her. Not only did I find her personal feelings about all the roles she played in Shakespeare plays fascinating but her discussions about other actors and their characters were hilarious. Here’s just one mention of a play to get you running out for the book: On page 185, talking about the play, King Lear: “Oh, it’s a cracking way to start a play. King Lear is getting old and has decided to relinquish power to his three daughters. To work out how to divide up the kingdom, he asks: ‘Which of you shall we say doth love us most?’ It’s such a ridiculous question, so excessive, so unjust. It seems like one big game to him.” And so on…Such wit and humor, there’s comedy and tragedy in just reading this book. And here’s a phrase she stated regarding the times when things went wrong: “There’s magic to be mined in mistakes.” Ahhhh…we should all look at things that way. Fun read.

I found this book to be engaging on a scholarly level. It was a little dense for a casual listen but Judi Dench's voice was fantastic.

This one felt like listening to a marvelous podcast - Judi Dench being interviewed about all the Shakespeare plays and roles she has had, the productions she's been in and the different interpretations by different directors, all the theatre greats she's been on stage with or been directed by, this was quite simply fantastic ! And if you are thinking this is only for high brow cultured theatre buffs, think again, my 17yo son was listening with me for a while (it is very possible to break this into pieces since they give each play a chapter) and he loved it, loved the podcast feel and thought this was very entertaining ! He'll be listening to the Midsummer Night's Dream chapter again soon, since he'll be reading that play for AP English.
It was bittersweet to listen on this drive since my father-in-law's life (born in 1933) and Judi Dench's life (born in
1934) have overlapped for a long time and many of the bigger political events, changing views and technological advances she referenced were of course present in his life as well, lots to think about, but suffice to say we loved our listening and highly recommend the audio, since Judi Dench does part of the audio as well!
The audio books felt so personal and fun. It's like I was sitting in the audience. It was narrated by Barbara Flynn, Brendan O'Hea and Judi Dench. I can't say enough good things about this. It's a must read listen and hope you love it as much as I did. It was fantastic to relate to Judi Dench's mind and experience focused on Shakespeare in a way I hadn't seen before. I'm truly in awe of her talent.