The Footsbarn company had its beginnings in a Cornish commune, very much in the spirit of the early 'seventies: yet unlike most companies formed in those years, it has not only survived but developed its work in ways which now communicate as fully to the cultural elite at international festivals as to non-theatre audiences in rural England. Geraldine Cousin, a lecturer in theatre studies at Warwick University. talked with members of Footsbarn at the time of their production of Hamlet in 1980, and again four years later while they were performing King Lear. Her descriptive analysis of those productions here runs parallel with the company's own assessment of how their work has developed. offering both a documentary retrospective of Footsbarn itself, and an individual approach to playing Shakespeare for contemporary audiences.