CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
The Seven Ages
Prologue: The Boy with the veil
AGE I INFANT, MEWLING
1 The front room
2 Our war
3 The return of Alfred Jacobi
4 The Christmas Conned ’em
5 Mum
6 Dad
AGE II SHINING MORNING FACE
7 ‘With one little touch of her hand’
8 Confinement
9 East London boy
10 My teachers
11 Intimations of immortality
12 The lads of life
13 The passport prince
14 Cloud-capped towers
AGE III SIGHING LIKE FURNACE
15 First term, first love
16 The Marlowe Society
17 Princes and puppets
18 ‘Honorificabilitudinitatibus’
19 Encounters with a colossus
20 The Brummie Beast
AGE IV SEEKING THE BUBBLE REPUTATION
21 A shameful episode
22 ‘I thought Hamlet looked a bit down at the wedding’
23 Sir
24 Clay feet and other parts
25 Giving away Michael York
26 Leading in the dark
27 The Idiot
AGE V AND THEN THE JUSTICE
28 The intangible ‘it’
29 From Kaiser to Emperor
30 ‘Hamlet, played by Derek “I, Claudius” Jacobi’
31 Enter Richard II
32 A marriage proposal
33 Terrible news
34 So we’ll go no more a-roving
AGE VI A WORLD TOO WIDE
35 Ultimate nightmare
36 The RSC
37 Proboscis magnifica
38 The Jacobi Cadets
39 Two broken codes for the price of one
40 Life among the great and good
AGE VII STRANGE EVENTFUL HISTORY
41 My new family
42 The summons
43 Walks on the dark side
44 Russell Crowe’s bum
45 Shakespeare’s end-games
46 Aren’t we all?
Picture Section
Afterword and Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Publisher