Michael Coveney Libri

From her days as a star of West End comedy and revue, Dame Maggie Smith's path has led to international renown and numerous accolades including two Academy Awards. Recently she has been as prominant as ever, with high-profile roles as the formidable dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film franchise and as the eccentric Miss Shepherd in the film version of The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett. Paradoxically she remains an enigmatic figure, rarely appearing in public and carefully guarding her considerable talent. Drawing on persoal archives, interviews and encounters with the actress, as well as conversations with immediate family and dear friends, Michael Coveney's biography is a captivating portrait of the real Maggie Smith.

Leading drama critic Michael Coveney invites you on a tour of over 50 of London's most iconic and important theatres, with stories of the architecture and the productions which have defined each one. Sumptuous photographs by Peter Dazeley of the public areas, auditoriums and backstage areas complete the picture.

A history of modern theatre told in the lives of fifty outstanding stage actors from Laurence Olivier to Angela Lansbury.

Cameron Mackintosh is London's West End's leading theatrical producer of musicals such as Cats, Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables. He is also a significant theatre owner and has completed a two-decade campaign of refurbishment and rebuilding of eight London theatres, at his own personal cost of £250m, that has set the tempo for maintaining one of Britain's greatest cultural heritages for the next century, the West End theatre in the heart of the nation's artistic life. Master of the Housecharts the histories of these eight iconic London buildings; their origins, their stories, the iconic shows and productions, the stars and the glamour. Lavishly illustrated with images from the Delfont Mackintosh archive, the book also contains original architect plans and drawings, specially-commissioned photographs of the refurbishment, show posters and other theatre ephemera, and many sweeping panoramas of the exquisitely finished spaces.

Shortlisted for the Theatre Book Prize 2021This is the vital story of the amateur theatre as it developed from the medieval guilds to the modern theatre of Ayckbourn and Pinter, with a few mishaps and missed cues along the way. Michael Coveney – a former member of Ilford's Renegades - tells this tale with a charm and wit that will have you shouting out for an encore. This is the first account of its kind, packed with anecdote and previously unheard stories, and it shows how amateur theatre is more than a popular it has been endemic to the birth of the National Theatre, as well as a seedbed of talent and a fascinating barometer and product of the times in which we live.Some of the companies Coveney delves into – all taking centre stage in this entertaining and lively book - include the Questors and Tower Theatre in London; Birmingham's Crescent Theatre; The Little Theatre in Bolton, where Ian McKellen was a schoolboy participant; Lincolnshire's Broadbent Theatre, co-founded by Jim Broadbent's father and other conscientious objectors at the end of World War II; and Cornwall's stunning cliff-top Minack.