{"id":3916,"date":"2022-07-18T11:30:33","date_gmt":"2022-07-18T11:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patsytrench.com\/?p=3916"},"modified":"2022-11-05T11:56:02","modified_gmt":"2022-11-05T11:56:02","slug":"my-five-best-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patsytrench.com\/2022\/07\/18\/my-five-best-books\/","title":{"rendered":"My five best books"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
I was recently contacted by an organisation called Shepherd.com<\/strong><\/a> to nominate my Five Best Books on a topic connected to my writing. My final list, about early 20th century actors, whittled down from bookshelves-full of stuff on what was a fascinating time in theatre history, is here:<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n It includes serious books about the status of the actor (Michael Baker’s The Rise of the Victorian Actor<\/em>) and shifting Edwardian morality (The Edwardian Turn of Mind<\/em> by Samuel Hynes), a wonderfully-researched book about women in theatre (Innocent Flowers<\/em> by Julie Holledge), and a couple of light-hearted accounts from a failed actor (On Stage and Off<\/em>, by Jerome K Jerome) and of Bernard Shaw’s experiences working with major divas – Mrs Patrick Campbell and Herbert Tree – on the first ever production of Pygmalion (The Truth About Pygmalion<\/em> by Richard Huggett). I could also have included books by Violet and Irene Vanbrugh and their brother Kenneth Barnes, who was the first administrator of RADA, all manner of biogs on Mrs Pat and Herbert Tree, memoirs from the likes of Harley Granville Barker, George Arliss, Gertrude Kingston and George Grossmith – who apart from co-writing The Diary of a<\/em> Nobody<\/em> with his brother Weedon was an actor, singer, writer and composer of several comic operas and originated many of the iconic characters in Gilbert & Sullivan shows.<\/p>\n\n\n