Deep into his agreeably undemanding page-turner of a memoir, Patrick Stewart recalls a confrontation with his co-stars on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Arriving at the TV show from the Royal Shakespeare Company, the classical actor, now playing the stentorian Captain Jean-Luc Picard, is appalled by the “goofing around” on set. Denise Crosby, his costar, reacts to his harangue with levity. “We are not here, Denise, to have fun,” he replies ostentatiously. “When the cast erupted in hysterics at my pompous declaration, I didn’t handle it well,” Stewart remembers.
That anecdote neatly sums up the book’s tone. Clunkily titled for Captain Picard’s most durable catchphrase, Making it So is at home to the grand theatrical anecdote. Closing a story concerning the perkiest Beatle, he writes: “But that’s Sir Paul for you.” The rest of us wouldn’t know, Sir Patrick. Delivered in jaunty conversational prose that allows at least one “ta-dah!”, the book, however, also revels in playful self-deprecation.
Stewart’s rise was not meteoric. The book takes us through spear-carrying for “none other than Vivien Leigh” on an Old Vic World tour
Stewart deserves leeway. He has made some journey. Born into a humble Yorkshire home – no bathroom, no lavatory – he grew up speaking in deep dialect “nearly incomprehensible to Londoners, let alone Americans”. He still bears the psychological scars inflicted by an abusive father, whose return from the second World War crushed an apparent idyll.
His progress from amateur dramatics to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School to the Royal Shakespeare Company to a hit TV show and a knighthood is down to his own talent and determination. It also benefited from keen mentors and a system of local grants that did not survive the Thatcher regime. “I fear we shall never again see such an era of public investment in the arts and emerging artists,” he notes sadly.
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Stewart’s rise was not meteoric. The book takes us through spear-carrying for “none other than Vivien Leigh” on an Old Vic World tour, a step-up to rep and eventually regular work at the RSC. He is happy to repeatedly credit Star Trek with turning him into a star. Still, he wonders if Queen Elizabeth II knew who he was when she knighted him in 2010. “Oh, Your Highness, a very, very long time,” he replied when asked how long he’d been in the business.
Only a pedant would point out she might have preferred “Your Majesty”.
