When it was first published in 1984, this book exposed the pressures, rewards and insecurity of an actor's life, and caused a storm of controversy for its forthright views on the shortcomings of contemporary directors. Ten years later, Simon Callow has provided a new and gloomy assessment of the state of British theatre today, with the decline of ensemble playing, a lack of training for young actors, brochure theatre where novelty replaces substance, and audiences who applaud the hydraulics of the stage machinery rather than the quality of the actor's performace. It ends with a warning that without attention to the roots of the art of stagecraft, the tree of British theatre will surely die.