Towards the end of his life, Bertolt Brecht explained that his commitment to theatre began “when I found other plays wrong”. It is tempting to believe that Stephen Parker embarked on his biography after finding previous efforts wanting. Drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished material, including even Brecht’s medical records, Parker’s meticulously researched and expertly presented work could well offer the most rounded picture yet of one of the twentieth century’s most complex and controversial artists.Born to a Catholic father and Protestant mother in Augsburg, a perfect, obedient pupil grows into a rebellious, idiosyncratic adolescent. Parker tracks key changes – a move to Munich to study medicine, ebbing idealism over the course of the First Wo