She Speaks!
What Shakespeare's Women Might Have Said
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She Speaks!
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Narrated by:
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Harriet Walter
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By:
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Harriet Walter
About this listen
'Bold and original . . . a book that anyone who cares about Shakespeare will want to own, and share' JAMES SHAPIRO
'With her gravitas, empathy, intellect and absolute belly laugh wit, the unheard voices soar. A real celebration of her life and art' PHYLLIDA LLOYD
'Harriet Walter's years of inhabiting and imbibing so many of those great roles gives her a special licence to speak for them. But the wit of these delightful poems also belies frustration, exasperation, and like a true "Lover's Complaint", real affection' GREG DORAN
'This brilliant book is a form of creative pastiche that solves some of the riddles surrounding Shakespeare's characters . . . an exhilarating read that tells you far more than a shelf full of solemn academic works' COUNTRY LIFE
Dame Harriet Walter, renowned for her wonderful portrayals in Succession and Killing Eve, among others, is one of Britain's most esteemed Shakespearean actors. Now, having played most of Shakespeare's female characters, audaciously, she lets them speak their minds.
With new parts for thirty Shakespearean women, written in 'Shakespearean' verse and prose, Harriet Walter goes between the lines of the plays to let us hear what she imagines - sometimes playfully and sometimes searchingly - these women were really thinking.
Here's what Gertrude longed to say; why Lady MacBeth felt she should be King; how Juliet's nurse bemoaned her loss; why Ariel is anxious about freedom and what Cleopatra's handmaidens really thought of her. Ophelia surprises us, Olivia surprises herself and Miranda glimpses the future; these pieces are alongside other brilliant insights, from the servants to the sovereigns.
Harriet Walter says 'Shakespeare's mind and words have been the backbone of our culture and they have seeped into my bloodstream over the decades that I have been privileged to speak them. As Ben Jonson said, he is a man for all times, but he is also a man of his time and there's the rub. Though his empathy for his female creations is miraculous, his plays mirror the hierarchy and patriarchy of his day with the result that women are seldom centre stage, have far fewer lines, and their function in the plot is always and solely in relation to a man. But not in these pages . . .'©2024 Harriet Walter (P)2024 Hachette Audio UK
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What listeners say about She Speaks!
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- liz
- 31-10-24
Wonderful just wonderful book of Shakespeare’s women’s missing words
This book tell you all you have ever wanted to know what could of what should been said by all those amazing women I all those amazing plays and read and writes by the perfect Harriet Walters Brava !
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Frank Avocado
- 28-11-24
Genuine fun
This playful book provides insight in to acting, how much it involves play, how an actor inhabits a role and the impact that process has long after the play is complete. Walter relishes the opportunity to revisit female roles with an unforced, unpretentious wit and word play, nicely performed in the audio book
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