The Reviews Hub, 24th of June 2021, Helen Tope
Actor, director and co-founder of the English Shakespeare Company, Michael Pennington has forged a career across five decades. With substantial theatre credits including King Lear, The Seagull and The Madness of King George III, Pennington’s versatility has seen him cross over into film, with a star-making role as Moff Jerjerrod in Return of the Jedi.
Now approaching his sixth decade in the business, Pennington has written his autobiography. In My Own Footsteps is a memoir packed with names, from the theatre giants of the 1960’s (Paul Scofield, Alec Guinness) to Hollywood’s current A-Listers. But rather than dropping them with a clang Pennington’s contacts populate his world. The book bustles with energy - as we walk with Pennington, he creates a sense of time and tradition. This is Pennington’s chief skill as a writer - conveying the almost imperceptible shift from boozy lunches to a more sober work culture, with tightly-managed schedules.
While other stage memoirs have been more concentrated (Antony Sher’s Year of the King, for example, focuses on Sher’s preparation for his role as Richard III), Pennington’s autobiography takes in his whole career. Examining his own development, Pennington is aware of not necessarily moving in a straight line, but coming back to people, places and characters later in life - he refers to it as “following in my own footsteps”, which becomes a metaphor for the entire book. Relishing the chance to have another go, it’s Pennington’s sense of adventure that stays with you.
With Pennington’s career spanning television, film and theatre, there’s plenty of showbiz gossip to entice even the most casual reader. From meeting Harrison Ford on the set of Return of the Jedi to a fascinating insight into what’s it like to apply for the job of running the RSC (it eventually goes to Michael Boyd), the love Pennington has for the industry is evident throughout. He speaks movingly about lost colleagues - his chapter regarding the late actor Richard Griffiths is especially touching. Michael praises the talents of these actors with real generosity, mindful that some of them are in danger of being entirely forgotten.
What is particularly interesting about Footsteps is Pennington’s lack of ego when it comes to presenting himself on the page. At times somewhat prickly, he freely admits where he got it wrong, both professionally and personally. Aged 78, Pennington still sees himself as a work in progress.
In biographies where the star wields the pen, there’s always tends to be a trade-off. Crisp, clear prose or a no-holds-barred glimpse into the personality. What Footsteps delivers is an all inclusive self-portrait of an actor not just looking back on his career, but looking forward to the next opportunity. This is not a carefully edited, media-trained version of the actor. Pennington allows us access to every part of his personality, and Footsteps is a better book for it. While the biography ducks and dives between the present and the past, across each page is the authentic sound of Pennington’s voice - restless, searching and indelibly curious.
British Theatre Guide, Philip Fisher
Michael Pennington is now a grand old man of the theatre, having been everywhere and done everything in a career currently extending into its sixth decade.
In My Own Footsteps, published by the new imprint Michael Pennington Books, falls somewhere in the ground between autobiography and memoir, while recalling what has generally been a very full and happy professional life.
This delightful volume is one of the few happy consequences to arise from the coronavirus pandemic, since without more free time than its author would have wished for, it might never have been written.
Pennington is a superb anecdotalist, which should be the big selling point. Indeed this book reads like the upshot of a series of nights out sharing a few drinks in a comfortable theatre bar or possibly enjoying a sumptuous meal in a small, intimate group.
Without any family history in the industry, as a child, Michael Pennington knew that he wanted to be an actor and neither public school nor Cambridge could knock the idea out of him. Indeed, his varsity career involved very little study but a great deal of stage action in a generation that included the likes of future National Theatre directors Sir Trevor Nunn and Sir Richard Eyre, as well as John Cleese, Miriam Margolyes and Stephen Frears and lifelong friends John Shrapnel and Robin Ellis.
The breadth and depth of this actor’s career is astonishing. There must have been odd periods when he was resting but these rarely manifest themselves, with one acting opportunity chasing joyously after another from graduation to the present day.
Younger readers may not be aware of many of the early highlights in the career of a man whom they might best recognise for his appearance in Star War movies. He is also an accomplished and experienced director and producer who created the English Shakespeare Company with Michael Bogdanov.
Pennington managed three separate stints acting with the Royal Shakespeare Company and candidly describes his attempts to become its Artistic Director in 2002 when he was beaten to the finishing line by Michael Boyd.
This book and read like a Who’s Who of British theatre in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of our own, which is partly a tribute to a warm and open character who seemingly befriended everyone he met from Nicol Williamson and Peggy Ashcroft in the early days to John Barton, Sir Peter Hall, Richard Griffiths, Francesca Annis, Dame Judi Dench and hundreds more.
On a wider stage, we also learn about his friendship with Romanian actor/director, politician Ion Caramitru. A cynical reader might begin to accuse him of name-dropping but that would be unfair given his genuine interactions with all of the great and the good.
One of the pleasures of reading this life story id its ability to veer off course to tell fine stories, before coming back to relatively chronological account of a life and career. Favourite writers also make regular appearances, particularly Shakespeare, Chekhov and the Neapolitan Eduardo Fillippo.
Away from the theatre, the story can be a little more clouded as alcohol and other intoxicants certainly played a part, love of beautiful women another, while a passion for cricket learned in childhood leads us into the text. Readers also learn some helpful tips about actual directing techniques from a deeply insightful chapter on two productions of King Lear.
They will eventually come out considerably better informed about theatrical politics, the joys of working on the stage and the nature of a man whose company would clearly be a pleasure if you ever bumped into him in a pub or theatre bar.
The Spy in the Stalls, Dominica Plummer
In My Own Footsteps is veteran actor Michael Pennington’s latest book, and fans of his work will enjoy this hefty yet entertaining read. It’s an autobiography, and like all good actor biographies, is both gossipy and insightful. Pennington has been a significant participant in, and witness to, some of the best theatre and television drama in the last fifty years, so this record will be of great interest to historians as well.
Historical seriousness aside, Pennington’s title refers to that well known fact of an actor’s life - that you often begin with one part, or one play, and find yourself circling back to it several times during the course of your career. Pennington’s big break was the part of Troilus while still a student at Cambridge. It got him into the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1964, and after paying his dues as various spear carriers, and learning a lot of craft from observing the greats sharing the stage with him, Pennington returned to Troilus and Cressida again in the 1970s. Pennington is characteristically modest and funny about this, but making your mark in Troilus and Cressida - one of Shakespeare’s most difficult plays to bring off successfully - is no mean feat.
In My Own Footsteps treats the reader to chapters that are organized not by date but by theme. Most of these themes great jumping off point for an autobiography that the actor himself describes as “a patched up story of an unfinished life, not told in strict sequence, but depending on a series of adventurous cues”. The chapter on cricket is followed,for example, not by his early years at the RSC, as one might expect, but a jump forward in time to the 1970s and the Royal Court Theatre in its counter culture phase. Pennington took part in the beginnings of the Theatre Upstairs, playing American characters in Michael Smith’s off-Broadway play Captain Jack’s Revenge.
Pennington’s writing style includes an acute eye for the details of an actor’s craft that many theatre writers miss. His descriptions simultaneously illuminate and demystify it in memorable ways. Much of In My Own Footsteps is devoted to accounts of his own experiences of acting, but just as fascinating are the details of watching the craft of Paul Scofield, Peggy Ashcroft and Alan Howard, to name just a few. And not just on the stage, but while waiting in the wings to go on, or relaxing in the green room. Since Pennington’s own career spans a golden age of acting at the RSC in both Stratford and London, as well as television drama, many readers may find these accounts the most interesting. But it would be a mistake not to linger on the chapters that describe his time at Cambridge, where he crafted his own acting training course despite the best efforts of his college to teach him about English literature, and on those chapters describing his work after his years at the RSC. Pennington also has a knack for encountering figures of historical importance at significant times in their lives. His account of working with Romanian actor Ion Caramitru (later Minister of Culture in Romania after the fall of Ceausescu) and the part Hamlet played in ending that regime is a wonderful story that illustrates yet again how putting on great theatre can be a revolutionary act.
In My Own Footsteps is not Pennington’s first book and this autobiography is not an exhaustive account of his career. He does not, for example, write about his time as actor manager of the English Shakespeare Company (which he founded in 1986 with director Michael Bogdanov) but that is the subject of another book by the author, so readers should not feel cheated. Instead we are invited to immerse ourselves in an intimate and vivid account of his varied experiences of acting both on stage and television during the latter part of the 20th century, and in the company of many of his period’s most celebrated artists. Warmly recommended.
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