Biographies can be wearying in their determination to slavishly recount every event of their subject's life and work in chronological order and mind-numbing detail: this one is almost equally wearying in its determination not to. Roger Lewis set out not to recreate but to celebrate; this he does, in a dizzying flight of bravura analysis, swooping on films and stage shows which interest him and wheeling away from those which don't, flapping disconsolately over certain personal relationships and pecking away at others. A picture emerges from it all - whether it's the "real" Olivier is impossible to say without reading the 5,000 or so biographical pages which Lewis calculates have been dedicated, so far, to the great actor - but it's divertingly different from the standard showbiz snapshot. A.W.