Viewing and reviewing Shakespeare: John Barton and Peter Hall

This article discusses the intellectual and theatrical background of Peter Hall and John Barton and describes some of their work for the Royal Shakespeare Company. It proceeds to a discussion of various kinds of theatre reviewing – for radio, for television, for the popular press, for learned journals, and in more extended studies such as those in the author’s book Royal Shakespeare (1986). Noting the increasing availability of sound and video recordings, the author suggests that eye-witness accounts remain invaluable because they give a sense of the impact of productions within the social and cultural context of their time.