Excerpts from the book

On the project

“For me, there could be no more entrancing world outside linguistics than this one; and to be involved in it, for a few months, was fortune indeed.....I suppose I fell into the category of 'tame linguist' as far as the Globe was concerned. And no linguist could have been tamer and more ready to collaborate. I think the Globe is the most exciting theatrical project of modern times.”

On original (Shakespearean) pronunciation

“ 'How do you know?' What is the evidence? That is what everyone asks, when you tell them about original pronunciation. And after the performances were all over and I began my media round, it was the question which everyone asked first, on Radio 4, Radio 5, BBC News, Richard and Judy.....So how do we know? You might think it is impossible to work out how people spoke 400 years ago. There were no tape recorders then. The earliest examples of recorded voices date from the 1870's.........but for anything before that we need to be auditory detectives. There are three basic principles..........”

On rehearsals

“What was exciting was to hear it (OP coming together) within a few scenes. I asked Romeo at the end of the rehearsal whether he had noticed the 'pull' from Juliet. He had. It would become a focus of his work with Charmian over the next two days, and in the event the lovers emerged with a powerful linguistic rapport. This is the crucial test - not how individual actors master OP, but how their OPs meld into convincing discourse.”

On performance

“As I left the Green Room before the first performance, I felt something in the pit of my stomach I did not recognize. I reported it to Hilary and she recognized the symptoms immediately. 'Butterflies' she called them. So that's what butterflies feel like, I thought. I had only known the cast a few weeks, had hardly exchanged a hundred non-Shakespearian words with most of them, and yet I felt for them as if they were my children.....”