The tumult of [this book] is testimony to one of the great creative forces of our time. Like the Shakespearean character with whom she has most in common, she has, in her way, once again voiced her own unanswerable demands, betraying neither 'faith, truth nor womanhood' in the process.

John Stokes, TLS

This is a book that anyone who works in the theatre, loves the theatre or hates the theatre, is under absolute obligation to buy. Joan Littlewood is the greatest theatre director of the present century, knocking possible rivals like Max Reinhardt and Jean-Louis Barrault into a cocked hat when it comes to intelligence, originality and the incalculable influence for good she has had on theatre all over the world.

John Wells, Spectator

You do not have to be even halfway interested in theatre to relish this welter of a book. It is compulsive, elusive and maddening. Read it.

Henry Livings, Financial Times

[This book] is big: nearly eight hundred pages. But then so is her life. For Joan Littlewood's unorthodox autobiography is a noisy, rumbustious, compulsively readable account of her attempt to create, through Theatre Workshop, something unseen in Britain since Shakespeare's day: a high-quality popular theatre. What emerges is a graphic contradictory portrait of a brilliant, restless animateur: a romantic revolutionary with a strong streak of Cockney common sense. You put down this turbulent, often moving book reflecting that the greatest paradox of all is that, although this particular Pope Joan has no children, she has left her indelible imprint on British theatre and has bequeathed us countless heirs.

Michael Billington, Guardian

It's as if she's talking to you, the reader - and she could certainly talk. All her prejudices and insecurities are here. But so is her extraordinary life-giving energy. She could touch genius.

Sir Peter Hall

This exhilarating autobiography, abrasive, impudent, grossly opinionated, and like her best theatre work, a fine piece of popular entertainment.

Evening Standard