From the Renaissance to today, this fascinating theatre history investigates how and why Shakespeare's plays have been performed by amateurs.

Michael Dobson is Director of the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham. He comments regularly on Shakespeare for the BBC, The London Review of Books and for other publications, and he has written programme notes for the RSC, Shakespeare's Globe, the Old Vic, the Sheffield Crucible and Peter Stein. His books include The Making of the National Poet (1992), The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare (with Stanley Wells, 2001, winner of the Bainton Prize in 2002), England's Elizabeth: An Afterlife in Fame and Fantasy (with Nicola Watson, 2002) and Performing Shakespeare's Tragedies Today (2006). Between 1999 and 2007 he reviewed every major production of a Shakespeare play for Shakespeare Survey.

Introduction; 1. Shakespeare in private; 2. Shakespeare in public; 3. Shakespeare in exile; 4. Shakespeare in the open; Conclusion.