` This beautifully written book by the director Michael Blakemore puts most such volumes to shame. It is full of both sharp insights & sudden shafts of wisdom. Often wonderfully funny, it is also touching & painfully honest. By the time you have finished Arguments with Engl&, the author feels like an unusually wise & sympathetic friend.` Sunday Telegraph ` Some of the most exhilarating writing about theatre ever committed to paper, a beady & original analysis of Britain (and incidentally British theatre) in the 50s & 60s, a profound account of the evolution of modern Australia, & a darkly frank one of the inner life of its author. His arguments with England are in the end arguments with himself, but they are utterly engrossing.` Simon Callow, Guardian