The Stratford theatre, established by Charles Flower in 1879, revitalised by Barry Jackson and Anthony Quayle in the 1940s and 1950s and radically transformed by Peter Hall into a national theatre company in the 1960s, was one of Britain's most significant cultural achievements. Simon Trowbridge examines the trailblazing years of innovation and creative achievement under Hall and Nunn, which saw a genuine company of directors, actors and designers revolutionise the performance of Shakespeare. He traces the Stratford theatre's slow rise to this position of prominence and its subsequent relative decline into something more ordinary during the 2000s.

The book tells the story of the Royal Shakespeare Company in three parts--a history of the RSC, from the establishment of the Stratford theatre to the present day; a biographical dictionary; and a source book. It combines, in a single volume, two earlier works, 'The Company: a Biographical Dictionary of the RSC' and 'The Rise and Fall of the Royal Shakespeare Company'.

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