J. C. Trewin, drama critic and theatre historian, has assembled some of the strange, exciting , and often comic occasions that have passed into stage record and become collectors' pieces . He begins with the so-called "Garrick Jubilee" in the mud at Stratford in 1769. This was the first Shakespeare festival, yet not a word by the poet was spoken. Then to the extraordinary performance of Ireland's bogus Shakespeare play, Vortigern, at Drury Lane; the attack upon Henry James on the first night of Guy Domville; and some post-war occasions including the triumph of Titus Andronicus, when the night, in various ways, has been unruly.

Author Biography

J.C.Trewin was a British journalist, drama critic and theatrical historian. His parents were Cornish, but he was born in Plymouth in 1908, although brought up in Cornwall. Educated at Plymouth College, his first job was as a cub reporter on the city's Sunday newspaper, the Western Independent, in 1926. After six years he left for London and joined the Morning Post as a reporter and drama critic. On the paper's closure in 1937 he moved to The Observer, doubling as a drama critic and later as literary editor. From the early 1950s he concentrated on the theatre, working for a number of publications including Punch, the Listener, the Birmingham Post, the Illustrated London News and The Lady. He wrote some 40 books of theatre history and was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1981. He died in 1990. He is memorialised by the British Critics' Circle in an award that bears his name (and that of his wife Wendy) for the best Shakespearean performance of the year.