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Last week, I enjoyed the television series Magpie Murders. Tina read The Road from Belhaven, set in rural Scotland and Glasgow in the 1880s. She didn’t enjoy it as much as the previous book that she read by Margot Livesey.

Book: Making It So by Patrick Stewart
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Publication date: 2023

Source: E-audiobook borrowed from the library

Summary: Patrick Stewart’s wife likes to say that he grew up as a Victorian urchin. In fact, he grew up in poverty in Yorkshire during and after World War II in a tiny flat with a shared outdoor privy and a lamplighter passing by each evening. His prospects improved as a teenager when he discovered that he enjoyed amdrams — amateur dramatic theater productions.

With the assistance of his school drama teacher and the Council of his region, he was provided with a summer camp experience in his teens where he met teachers and theater people who helped pave young Stewart’s path into the world of acting. Of course, it required a lot of work on his part, including stints as a cub reporter, a furniture salesman, and a brick layer to pay expenses and his tuition at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

Before Star Trek, Stewart was a successful working Shakespearean actor. He had a handful of film and TV credits but no real interest in screen work. He thought that his career would and should be focused on the stage.

Thoughts: As I wrote about Alan Cumming’s memoirs, I often choose to read a celebrity memoir based on a desire to hear the author’s voice. Making It So was positively addictive in that regard. Even though this book has a 19-hour runtime, I didn’t want it to end. I could have listened to many more hours of Patrick Stewart’s storytelling.

In this case, however, I was already a fan of Patrick Stewart since I watched Star Trek: The Next Generation regularly when it was initially broadcast. I had very little knowledge of what he did before he sprang onto American television at age 47. And, I haven’t paid much attention since. I didn’t have access to Pickard when it first aired. I do now, so that’s high on my list of shows that I want to watch in the future.

There are so many of his stage shows that I wish that I could invent a time machine to go back and see, including his version of MacBeth and the production of Waiting for Godot that he performed with Ian McKellen. I’ve listened to him read A Christmas Carol on the radio, but I would have dearly loved to see him perform it as a one-man show. I both laughed and cried when he described the development of that show and about the London production after several holiday runs in the US. Such a moving story!

Appeal: Star Trek doesn’t make its appearance until half-way through the book, which might be a disappointment for Trekkies. Anglophiles, however, will love hearing about Yorkshire in the 1950s and about Stewart’s adventures in the Royal Shakespeare Company. I also enjoyed this book as the expression of a vigorous man in his 80s who still loves his work — inspiring!