Anna Bishop, the rebellious wife of the English 'Mozart', Henry Bishop, eloped in 1839 with the dissolute French harpist Nicholas Bochsa and began an adventure lasting forty years. She and her lover survived shipwreck, bandits, cholera outbreaks and civil wars while singing in the world's great opera houses and in makeshift venues at the outposts of ‘civilisation’.

The story of a railway worker’s son who became one of the most powerful, outspoken and charismatic figures in European theatre. Sir Peter Hall has been director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, artistic director of Glyndebourne, and director of Britain’s National Theatre from 1973 to 1988. He has directed over 150 productions of plays, operas and films, and now runs his own acclaimed theatre company.

"Compulsive stuff for anyone interested in the subsidised theatre of the last three decades ... his insights, off stage as well as on, are still much needed" David Lister, Independent

"It becomes a classic story, rather like an Arnold Bennett novel, of an outsider who, through talent, energy and doggedness, fights his way to the inside … an unusually honest book" Michael Billington, Country Life

Never published before, the two novels in this volume mark the beginning and the end of the seven-year-long writing partnership of Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell. In Lord Cucumber, Orton and Halliwell romp through an ineffably camp pastiche of a vintage Mills and Boon novel with borrowings from Ronald Firbank.

By contrast, The Boy Hairdresser, tells of the tortured relationship of two rootless young men. Astonishingly prophetic of their lives together, it is a lasting monument of the strengths and fatal weaknesses of Orton and Halliwell's creative collaboration

Vastly entertaining autobiographical account of two journeys: one all over the world with an eccentric one-man show, the other to the heart of the history of the Jews.

Having established a moderately successful, but inevitably intermittent acting career, Gareth Armstrong felt the need of a reliable side-line to cover the gaps. A one-man show seemed the answer - and Shylock a good subject. But no-one was more surprised than he by the way first his research and then the character took over his life.

He has now travelled the world over with Shylock, from San Francisco to Sri Lanka, from Romania to New Zealand, his myriad encounters enriching both him and the show, adding ever more threads to his one-man story of the Jew.

Frequently hilarious, often provocative, this account of a Gentile actor's exploration and discovery of the most famous of fictional Jews is fascinating, revealing - and always entertaining.

'a gem to add to that small but rich library charting the rigours and devotions of an actor's life' Guardian

'A winning combination of autobiography, travel writing, theatrical gossip and Shakespearean analysis' Independent

John Fraser starred in films such as Repulsion, El Cid and Tunes of Glory, and was nominated for a British Academy Award as Best Actor for his performance, opposite Peter Finch, as Bosie in The Trials of Oscar Wilde. He has written fiction, non-fiction and drama. This paperback edition includes a previously unpublished chapter.

"Genuinely moving...a deliciously gossipy read, but much, much more than a set of anecdotes about famous people. What distinguishes Close Up from a hundred other celebrity memoirs is the skill of the writing, and also the sense that a real warm heart lies at the centre."

ROSE COLLIS is the author of a number of critically acclaimed books, including Colonel Barker's Monstrous Regiment: A Tale of Female Husbandry (Virago), A Trouser-Wearing Character: The Life and Times of Nancy Spain (Continuum), and Portraits to the Wall (Cassell).  Her features, celebrity interviews and reviews on politics, literature, film, television, theatre and history have appeared in over 30 publications including: The Independent, The Times and Time Out.  She received the Society Of Authors, 2004 Michael Meyer Award for her research for ‘This Effing Lady’ and is currently working in conjunction with Peter Quilter, who is writing a stage play about Coral Browne.

As the 1970s dawn, Peter Nichols is watching his hit play, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg being filmed—and hating it. His next play, The National Health, is doing good box office at Olivier's new National Theatre—but Olivier seems unsure who Nichols is. And Forget-Me-Not-Lane is shortly to open at the new Greenwich Theatre amid much anxiety.

But it is typical of these truth-to-life diaries that these events appear in the interstices of coping with three small children (and a fourth in long-term hospital), an extended family and the renovation of a tumbledown barn in France.

What emerges is one of the most candid—and therefore frequently hilarious accounts of the way that, however elevated the circles in which one moves, everyday life will keep obtruding.

''What a treat...the most devourable theatre book in ages'' Express

''These gimlet-eyed diaries make rollicking good reading. We await the next volume with nervous anticipation'' Sunday Telegraph