William ​Shakespeare: In His Times, For Our Times

When ​anyone produces a Shakespeare for their time, they usually reduce him to their own lack of vision. Michael Rosen is different. He places Shakespeare firmly in his own time – and so makes him belong even more to our time. His Shakespeare is disturbed, demanding, angry, astonishingly radical, and human enough even to sometimes be frightened. The problems he struggled with come to a head in our world. Michael Rosen writes of him with great insight and generosity, and never belittles him. For him Shakespeare is not just a sage wandering around the horizon, but someone you could bump into any time coming round the street corner. Yet in the end my respect and awe for Shakespeare were even greater, and so was my understanding. I wish I’d read this book years ago. It’s as if Michael Rosen pointed to someone standing at his elbow and said, ‘Meet your contemporary Shakespeare!’ Uncannily, I think I did.

Edward Bond, playwright and theatre director