John Bell's One Man In His Time is a personal exploration of Shakespeare

The question he's responding to is an honest one. Bell is 80 and has had a long and fruitful career in the theatre. Bell Shakespeare - the company he founded and was artistic director of until handing over to Peter Evans a few years ago - celebrated its 30^th anniversary last year. It is a well-established part of the Australian theatrical landscape.

And the title of his new one-man show, One Man In His Time, could be taken as a valedictory self-description as well as a reference to his beloved William Shakespeare.

"No, it's not a swan song," Bell says.

He calls it "a nice little piece to celebrate the company's 30^th anniversary".

Bell says he was asked by Bell Shakespeare to devise and perform One Man In His Time in 2020 to mark the company's first three decades. The onset of coronavirus spoiled this plan, as it did so many others, but a recording of him performing the piece was made at the Sydney Opera House in August last year and the live performances were rescheduled in Sydney in March and Canberra in April this year.

"The company is looking at reviving it towards the end of this year or maybe next year.

"There's still some life in it, I think."

One Man In His Time - which he conceived and devised - is, he says, "about aspects of Shakespeare in my life" - as director, as actor, as producer - "and about the life lessons I've learned from performing Shakespeare."

He'll also be reading excerpts from some of the plays. There will be readings from well-known plays such as Macbeth, Hamlet and King Lear but Bell says, "It's not quite a 'greatest hits' ... Some will be pieces people will recognise while others people won't have heard before: the history plays like Henry IV, you don't see that often, or Timon of Athens."

Bell says, "I tried to pick pieces people aren't terribly familiar with or to give them a slightly different twist."

It's a personal selection ranging across the tragedies, comedies and political plays.

Bell says he first encountered Shakespeare's works at high school through a couple of great English teachers.

The first introduced him to A Midsummer Night's Dream and the teacher's enthusiasm was inspirational.

"He performed the whole play - all the characters and voices ... it was wonderfully entertaining."

This lit the flame and the second teacher encouraged the young Bell to go into theatre. The result was a long, varied and distinguished career, ranging from stints with the Royal Shakespeare Company to co-founding Sydney's Nimrod Theatre to, of course, founding Bell Shakespeare with its extensive list of productions and educational programs.

While Bell Shakespeare productions, among others, have frequently, through sets and costumes, set the playwright's works in varying places and times, Bell says this - and diverse casting - work well as long as the fundamental meaning of the text is respected and audiences know what's happening.

He recalls Patrick Stewart telling him that playing a white Othello in an otherwise all-black production was "a disaster - it didn't make sense to the audience".

He's also had the occasional misjudgment himself but learned from the experience.

"I've done a couple of productions of Richard III as actor and director," he says.

In the first one, he says he tried too hard to be sensational.

"The second one I did was more consistent - I got the politics right and the history right."

But it's all a learning experience and Bell Shakespeare's successes have more than compensated with plenty of accolades and audience support, both in Australia and overseas.

"The number of people we've reached has got to be in the hundreds of thousands."

Perennial favourites like Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Macbeth continue to draw audiences and help underwrite lesser-known, riskier works, though there are still some the company hasn't produced yet.

"The Comedy of Errors was one of our biggest successes," he says.

It did well in Australia and in Blackpool and Bristol when it was taken to Britain.

While Bell has done a lot of other work, from directing opera to presenting works by playwright David Williamson, Shakespeare has provided him with sustenance for a lifetime.

As he's matured and had more life experience, he's been able to engage with the plays and their characters in different ways, testimony to their depth and richness.

A play such as Hamlet, he says, meant something very different to him as a 16-year-old than it did 10 years later, or a decade after that, or now.

Whereas, for example, he might once have sided with the anger and resentment of the young Danish prince, he's come to realise "There are many sides of looking at a question - there's no clear-cut angle".

And the much later play The Tempest, which on first reading seemed mostly just "a fantasy tale", "becomes more profound and meaningful as you get older''.

"It's a very personal statement on Shakespeare's retreating from the stage and summing up what life is all about."

He's developed empathy towards characters who might seem wholly unsympathetic and to characters of different social strata and gender. And he believes Shakespeare's female characters, as well as his male creations, "are very strong - Cleopatra, Rosalind - they've never been bettered".

If Bell is not about to retire, what's on for the rest of the year?

"I've got a lot of work with various musical groups."

He'll be reading from Beethoven's letters with the Tin Alley String Quartet and bringing Haydn to life through the letters by Stendhal with the Australian Haydn Ensemble as well as doing poetry readings with pianist Simon Tedeschi.

"I have a show for the Sydney Theatre Company in June, Grand Horizons - a new American play - and other things happening throughout the year."

Most of them won't be seen in Canberra, at least for now. But One Man In His Time, with Bell talking about and reading from his beloved Shakespeare, will be.

John Bell's revels are not yet ended.