Michael Blakemore’s memoir begins with his departure from Sydney in 1950 to study acting at RADA in London, and ends with him on the threshold of his new career in 1965 as director of such major successes as A Day in the Death of Joe Egg and The National Health. An early enthusiast of Bertoli Brecht, Blakemore made his name directing plays by Peter Nichols. He quickly acquired a reputation for independence and originality, staging plays by Arthur Miller, David Hare, Peter Shaffer, Don DeLillo, David Mamet and seven premieres by Michael Frayn. He worked with his actors, seizing on accidents to build moments of spontaneous truth. This memoir describes his initial fifteen years in English repertory theatre.

Compared to Peter Finch, Leo McKern and Keith Michell, Blakemore, at twenty-one, was still a youngster when he left Australia. This was before Tyrone Guthrie’s report could affect the formation of the Elizabethan Theatre Trust in the excitement following Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh’s Australian tour in 1948. Blakemore’s early grounding in theatre craft as an actor shaped his capacities as a director. He has been called an actors’ director in recognition of his great debt to repertory, but that’s only the half of it: he learned much from contact with giants such as Olivier and Guthrie.