Playing Scared: My Journey Through Stage Fright review – Sara Solovitch sheds light on the age-old phobia

The fear of public performance is explored in the pianist’s captivating memoir

A notorious study first cited in the Sunday Times in 1973 reported that the most common fear in America was public speaking, outranking the fear of insects, bankruptcy and even death, a finding that has been quoted numerous times over the years, eventually leading Jerry Seinfeld to conclude that, if it were true, more people would prefer to be in the coffin at a funeral than at the lectern giving the eulogy.

Never mind that the study is not accurate: most people would rather give a public speech than die. But many people would rather do just about anything short of dying than give a public speech – and some of them, to be sure, would genuinely prefer to die. The morning before William Cowper, the 18th-century poet, was to appear before the House of Lords to discuss his application for a government position, he tried to hang himself, preferring death to a public performance. “Those… to whom a public examination of themselves on any occasion is a mortal poison may have some idea of the horrors of my situation,” he wrote. “Others can have none.”

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