Simon Callow's one-man show on the life of Shakespeare is the kind of evening the word bravura was invented for. Mr Callow certainly pulls out all the stops - and then pulls out the things holding the stops - in a performance that is never less than committed. The writing has a few infelicities, but as a whole it's an entertaining look at the life and work of the planet's favourite playwright.

The play starts off giving us a bit of background of Shakespeare's family. His dad was the town ale-taster, and also arranged for travelling players to come to town, perhaps thus giving his son a taste for the theatre.

Young Will then spends a few years in the local grammar school where he learns the art of rhetoric, and such linguistic tools as argument, counter argument, exemplification and conclusion. Callow then gives examples of these modes of speech in a number of Shakespeare's plays. For example  "Friends, Romans, countrymen lend me your ears" is an example of synecdoche. I think the thesis is that his schooling had a profound effect on his work; however, I'd imagine that most writers naturally use such language without having spent years studying Latin.

Things pick up a pace when Will gets to London. The 16th-century city is vividly described as a thriving place of taverns, brothels, industry and crime. It's a place where every street is a running sewer, though the new-fangled playhouses are doing a roaring trade.

We also learn a fair bit about the political history of the time. Including the fact that each year about 800 people were hanged, "or the equivalent of 9,500 in today's terms". You can do this kind of calculation with money, but it's just absurd to suggest that Elizabethan man was somehow worth 12 modern Englishmen.

One problem the play has is that comparatively little is known of Shakespeare's life: as Callow notes he disappears from view for years at a time. Therefore various episodes, such as leaving home or the death of his son, are illustrated using speeches from his plays. It's always a risky undertaking to mine any artist's work for autobiography, and I think I'd have felt happier if this was a play about Shakespeare's characters rather than the man himself. Especially as Callow's performance of the "casting" scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream is perhaps the funniest piece of Shakespearean acting I've ever seen. I really think if he did the Dream as a one-man show it would be a runaway success.

Despite a few quibbles Shakespeare: The Man from Stratford is a thoroughly engaging play with a magnificent performance from Callow.

The play continues until Saturday, July 17.

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