audiences drawn . . . from all over the world come to see Shakespeare’s plays at Stratford-on-Avon with an extra sense of expecting something more (or rather, something else) than they can get at even the most exciting production in other theatres. Some of them come with a sense of dedication. Quite a few, I am sure, come with a feeling of penance. As a gentleman was heard to remark leaving the theatre one night after one or other of the ‘tragedies’: ‘Every bloody play I come to now seems to last more than three hours.’ . . . It sometimes astonishes me that the genius of Shakespeare and the combined skill of the director and actors should succeed in keeping such members of the audience quiet, let alone satisfying them. For really, a number of them have so little idea of what is in store for them that I can well believe the story which was told me by members of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet Company who were performing at that theatre for a fortnight before Peggy Ashcroft and I opened there in The Merchant of Venice. Two ladies were reading their programme for the ballet Coppelia, and one said to the other: ‘Oh dear! We’ve picked the wrong day. Peggy Ashcroft and Michael Redgrave aren’t dancing.