The Greatest Shows on Earth is a book about fourteen theatre events from a dozen countries. From Peter Brook’s King Lear of 1962 through to the 2010 Oberammergau Passionsspiele, chapters explore work by Jan Lauwers and Needcompany, Robert Lepage, Silviu Purcărete, David Edgar and the Royal Shakespeare Company, Third World Bunfight, Peter Sellars, John Adams, Pilgrim and Tg STAN, alongside exceptional work from Bali, Portugal, Ireland, Germany and the Sydney Olympics Opening Event. What binds the chapters together is a belief that meaning is about personal interpretation rather than collective understanding; and that whilst the liveness of theatre disappears in a moment, spectatorship can translate into documentation that adds something to a work’s value, even as so much else of value can never be captured in words. In wrestling with ephemerality and memory, The Greatest Shows on Earth does more than make a case for what makes certain theatre ‘great’, it offers examples of writing about theatre that imbue analysis with emotion and documentation with the type of engagement that is usually edited out rather than invited in.

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