Quick Take
- Performance: Robert Meldrum handles the full seven hours alone, a performance none of the three reviews specifically discuss.
- What it covers: Shakespeare's accessibility, myth-busting the Bard's reputation for difficulty, a plays-and-poetry overview.
- Feel: Brisk, introductory, reassuring rather than academic.
- Our call: A solid pick for Shakespeare beginners, but check the author mismatch on the listing before you buy.
This audiobook commits early to a single argument: Shakespeare only feels dry and impenetrable because of tedious teachers and hammy actors, not because the work itself is inaccessible. Seven hours and nineteen minutes later, it has made that case about as directly as a single-volume guide can, walking through the plays, the poetry, and the life behind them without much academic hedging. Whether that directness works for you depends on how much Shakespeare background you already carry in.
Three Reviews, Three Different Bars to Clear
A corrective is how the synopsis frames the whole project, arguing that archaic language should not be a barrier and that the sheer beauty and sophistication of the work can be a joy for any audience, not just students forced through it in school. That is an ambitious promise for seven hours, and the audiobook delivers on it mostly by staying introductory, summarizing the life and background before walking through the plays and poetry in a way meant to be accessible rather than exhaustive.
Three listeners left reviews, and each measures the book against a different bar. Katty1 calls it a good basic guide, useful specifically for listeners who never studied Shakespeare at school, which matches the book's own stated goal closely. Felixcat goes further, calling it very in-depth and informative on both the available biography and the plays and poetry, awarding five stars after what the review describes as hours of listening. Adam clark's five-star review is the most personal of the three, describing a long fascination with William Shakespeare that survived being tested by school and calling the book wonderful.
Reflective and storytelling-focused is the tone here, treating Shakespeare's life as inseparable from the plays rather than as a separate biographical unit tacked onto a literary survey. That matches the single tag on this listing, Art & Literature, and it explains why the book spends real time on characterization and wit rather than simply cataloging play titles and publication dates.
Meldrum's Full Seven Hours for Bolinda
If your last encounter with Shakespeare was a mandatory unit in a literature class, this audiobook is built for exactly that memory. Katty1's review makes the target audience explicit, a good basic guide for listeners who did not study the plays formally, delivered without assuming prior knowledge of staging conventions or textual scholarship. Robert Meldrum narrates the full seven hours and nineteen minutes, and Bolinda audio, a publisher known for straightforward literary and biographical audio, released it in mid-2012.
Invention and Wit Instead of a Wall to Climb
Invention and wit, not archaic language treated as a wall to climb first, are the stated entry point here. That framing matches what Felixcat's review describes, an in-depth, informative listen covering both the available facts of the life and a real walk through the plays and poetry, which is a fuller treatment than the word introduction usually implies.
Two genre categories sit on this release, biographies and memoirs alongside literature and fiction, both pointing at the same audience: readers drawn to the person behind the plays as much as the plays themselves. Seven hours is enough time to cover both without collapsing either into a footnote of the other.
None of the three reviews frame this as background listening either. Felixcat specifically calls out hours of listening as part of the appeal, suggesting a guide dense enough to reward sustained attention rather than something to half-follow while doing something else. That is a useful data point for anyone deciding whether seven hours is better spent in a single stretch or across several sessions.
Credited to Bryson, Written About Ros King
A genuine authorship mismatch sits on this listing, worth flagging before you buy. Bill Bryson is credited as the author, but the synopsis text itself is written in the third person about a different person entirely: Ros King sets out to remind us of the sheer beauty and sophistication, and later, King argues archaic language should be no barrier. Whether this audiobook is Bryson's own well-known Shakespeare book or a separate guide by Ros King that got attached to the wrong listing is not something the available data resolves, so treat the author credit and the synopsis as two claims that need reconciling rather than one confirmed fact.
Only Truncation Makes Seven Ratings Add Up
Similar caution applies to the star rating. Seven ratings sit behind the displayed 4.5 average, with only three written reviews visible, and that combination only works out mathematically under truncation rather than standard rounding. Nothing here should be read as a confirmed average, just a rough signal from a small sample.
Beyond the authorship question, it is worth noting what this audiobook does not claim to be. Nothing in the synopsis suggests original scholarship or new archival research; the stated goal is staying accessible, not breaking new ground on Shakespeare studies. Listeners expecting a scholarly reassessment rather than an introductory guide should adjust expectations accordingly before starting.
A Brisk, Sympathetic Reintroduction After Years Away
This suits listeners who want the accessible version of Shakespeare, the one built for people who left school assuming the plays were duller than they are and never went back to check. All three visible reviews come from listeners in the United Kingdom, which may say something about where this particular Bolinda audio edition has found its audience so far, even if it says nothing about how it plays elsewhere.
Listeners circling back to Shakespeare as adults are a fit too, the way Adam clark's review describes, a fascination that survived being tested by school and resurfaced later in life. If that describes your own relationship with the plays, seven hours pitched at exactly that reentry point is a reasonable investment.
Skip it if you already have graduate-level familiarity with Shakespeare scholarship, since nothing in the synopsis or the reviews suggests this goes beyond an introductory treatment. Skip it too if the author mismatch bothers you enough that you would rather confirm exactly whose book this is before spending a credit on it. Choose it if a brisk, sympathetic reintroduction to the Bard sounds appealing after years of assuming the whole subject was off-limits.
How long is the Shakespeare audiobook?
The audiobook runs seven hours and nineteen minutes, covering Shakespeare's life and background before moving into a guide through his plays and poetry, aimed at listeners without existing academic training in the subject or prior exposure to formal Shakespeare scholarship.
Do the reviews for this audiobook mention the narration?
No. All three written reviews focus entirely on the content, how accessible or informative the book felt, without commenting on Robert Meldrum's delivery, pacing, or narration style specifically. Anyone curious about the audio performance itself will not find guidance in the existing reviews.
Can I trust the 4.5 rating on this audiobook?
Only loosely. Seven ratings back the 4.5 average, but just three written reviews are visible, and that math only holds up under truncation rather than standard rounding rules. Treat it as a rough positive signal from a small sample, not a precise, confirmed score.
