An evening with Simon Russell Beale

Bath Festivals is thrilled to welcome one of our most beloved actors, Sir Simon Russell Beale, to Bath for a special event celebrating the launch of his memoir, A Piece Of Work.

Spend a captivating evening with one of the finest actors of his generation, as he delves into his life, his extraordinary career on stage and screen, and his enduring fascination with the world’s greatest playwright.

Simon Russell Beale has played many roles on stage, film, television and radio, from Winston Churchill to Stalin, George Smiley to King Arthur. But ever since his appearance at school as a glamorous Desdemona, he has been captivated by Shakespeare.

He will reveal what it is to approach and live with some of Shakespeare’s most famous characters, drawing on his experiences as a man who has played many parts, and attempt to get under the skin of the playwright and find out what drove him – how collaborative was Shakespeare? Was he an instinctive ‘conservative’ or, rather, gently subversive? Did he suffer from insomnia and experience sexual jealousy?

Beale will also take us backstage, sharing fascinating behind-the-scenes anecdotes from the great and the good – including his friends Sam Mendes, Nicholas Hytner, Stephen Sondheim and Lauren Bacall – and revealing some of his own surprising sources of inspiration.