Harriet Walter is well known for her performances at the Royal Court (Cloud Nine, Hamlet with Jonathan Pryce), the RSC (Nicholas Nickelby, Macbeth with Antony Sher) and the National Theatre (Arcadia), as well on television, where she played Amy on Unfinished Business and Harriet Vane in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. In this book, she uses her experience to illustrate the processes involved in performance.

Why didn't Shakespeare write more roles for mature women? For Harriet Walter, the solution was to ignore the dictates of centuries of tradition, and to begin playing the mature male characters.
An exploration of the Shakespearean canon through the eyes of a self-identified "feminist actor" - but, above all, a remarkable account of an acting career unconstrained by tradition or expectations.