1 00:14:29,730 --> 00:14:37,110 Good evening and welcome to this big tent live event brought to you by the humanities cultural programme itself, 2 00:14:37,110 --> 00:14:42,540 one of the founding stones of the Stephen Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities here in Oxford. 3 00:14:42,540 --> 00:14:46,920 I'm Wes Williams. I'm the director of Torch, the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities. 4 00:14:46,920 --> 00:14:53,650 And it's my enormous pleasure to be introducing the beginning of this evening's event. 5 00:14:53,650 --> 00:15:01,450 And mainly to say that it's an enormous pleasure, as I say, to come from live from the story museum here in Oxford. 6 00:15:01,450 --> 00:15:09,470 What a perfect setting this is for tonight's discussion. We're all, as you can see, socially distancing whilst also live streaming this event. 7 00:15:09,470 --> 00:15:13,150 And we hope that you are safe and well wherever you are in the world. 8 00:15:13,150 --> 00:15:19,780 Before I hand over to our expert chair, I'd like to remind you that you can share comments and questions in the chat, 9 00:15:19,780 --> 00:15:27,310 but underneath the screen on YouTube to tell us more about this evening's event and about our two amazing guests, 10 00:15:27,310 --> 00:15:35,350 I'd like to welcome our chair for this evening. Dr. Saltz, Eltis associate professor in the English faculty and tutorial fellow at the college. 11 00:15:35,350 --> 00:15:41,860 Oxford Cels teaches Victorian modern and contemporary literature with an emphasis on theatre. 12 00:15:41,860 --> 00:15:48,250 She's written a number of books, one on the plays of Oscar Wilde and another on Women and Sex on Stage, 13 00:15:48,250 --> 00:15:54,850 alongside work on other contemporary authors Pinter, Coward, Betty Beckett, Rhatigan and Bernard Shaw. 14 00:15:54,850 --> 00:15:59,800 She is, she tells me, currently dithering her words between writing. 15 00:15:59,800 --> 00:16:03,130 On the one hand, another book about Oscar Wilde and the other, 16 00:16:03,130 --> 00:16:12,610 a book about the theatrical representation of work from melodrama through to early socialist dramas to musical comedies to the play of ideas. 17 00:16:12,610 --> 00:16:17,410 It's hard to think of anyone better qualified to introduce our guests for tonight's lecture. 18 00:16:17,410 --> 00:16:20,470 Sorry, it's not a lecture at all. It's a conversation. 19 00:16:20,470 --> 00:16:31,060 So over to you of thank you us and welcome everybody to this wonderful event with Lalita Chakravarti and Matt Wolf from the Oxford Story Museum. 20 00:16:31,060 --> 00:16:33,940 Welcome and thank you so much for doing this. 21 00:16:33,940 --> 00:16:42,550 So Lalit Chakrabarti is an award winning playwright and actress with a long and diverse career and frankly, terrifying array of talent. 22 00:16:42,550 --> 00:16:51,790 She trained at RADA, and her acting credits include a performance as Gertrude opposite Tom Hiddleston and Kenneth Branagh as Hamlet, 23 00:16:51,790 --> 00:16:57,970 starring in Fanny and Alexander at the Old Vic and forthcoming Amazon series Wheel of Time. 24 00:16:57,970 --> 00:17:02,020 And in another series, the BBC called Vigil. 25 00:17:02,020 --> 00:17:08,680 Her most recent achievements as a playwright include Life of Pi, a stage adaptation of Yann Martel's famous novel, 26 00:17:08,680 --> 00:17:17,080 which opened at the Sheffield Crucible in 2019 and won four awards at the UK Theatre Awards, including Best Play and Best Director. 27 00:17:17,080 --> 00:17:21,700 It will open in London's West End in 2021. 28 00:17:21,700 --> 00:17:24,850 Yes, we are so looking forward to that. 29 00:17:24,850 --> 00:17:33,580 She's also written Invisible Cities, which premiered in Manchester International Festival, which he adapted from the classic novel by Italo Calvino. 30 00:17:33,580 --> 00:17:36,010 It's an ambitious, stunning site. 31 00:17:36,010 --> 00:17:46,030 Specific production in 2012, a wonderful play, Red Velvet staging the life of the remarkable 19th century African-American tragedian. 32 00:17:46,030 --> 00:17:54,760 IRA Aldridge premiered at the Tricycle Theatre in London and went on to play to critical acclaim in New York and London's West End. 33 00:17:54,760 --> 00:17:57,820 Red Velvet was nominated for nine major awards, 34 00:17:57,820 --> 00:18:03,150 including two Oliviers and Lalita won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for most promising playwrights. 35 00:18:03,150 --> 00:18:06,190 I promise. I have to say she has delivered on. Absolutely. 36 00:18:06,190 --> 00:18:16,480 I think it's an all too promising playwright, but deliver the playwright to say that she curated the greatest wealth at the Old Vic in London in 2018, 37 00:18:16,480 --> 00:18:22,990 commissioning eight monologues of which she wrote one about the NHS on its 20th birthday, 38 00:18:22,990 --> 00:18:31,330 most recently in February this year, her moving and gripping to hand him streamed live from the Almeida, 39 00:18:31,330 --> 00:18:39,090 staging a love between men that is neither physical nor romantic. It starred Danny Sapone and her husband, Adrian Lester. 40 00:18:39,090 --> 00:18:49,890 Matt Wolf is an American theatre critic based in London, where he moved directly upon completing his degree from Yale in English for 21 years, 41 00:18:49,890 --> 00:18:54,300 he has worked as foreign arts correspondent and a leading voice on British theatre, 42 00:18:54,300 --> 00:19:00,000 one of the most informed, judicious, insightful critics writing today on the theatre. 43 00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:05,460 He's been London theatre critic for Variety and then for the International Herald Tribune. 44 00:19:05,460 --> 00:19:08,370 In 2009, he helped boost the Arts Desk, 45 00:19:08,370 --> 00:19:17,730 an art centred website that within a few years of its inception was named Best Specialist Journalism website at the Online Media Awards in London. 46 00:19:17,730 --> 00:19:31,150 Thank you for joining us, Matt and Lalita. And if we could now start with a quick clip from him, Lolita's latest play. 47 00:19:31,150 --> 00:19:42,220 Three two one oh oh oh nine. 48 00:19:42,220 --> 00:19:51,640 What was he like, your dad? It was hard to get his approval, but when I did Jesus, it was like the sun was shining on me. 49 00:19:51,640 --> 00:20:12,500 Miss swallow your pride. If I have things you need to borrow. 50 00:20:12,500 --> 00:20:21,290 And as you may or may not get from that clip, I have to say, it was watching and only watching online, which is sadly the only way we could see it. 51 00:20:21,290 --> 00:20:33,950 I was so gripped by the relationship between the two men that when one said, I've invested money, my money, and I just got so tense. 52 00:20:33,950 --> 00:20:41,780 And so I had to stop and watch the markets the next day thinking I need a little bit of distance and I won't give away the plot at all. 53 00:20:41,780 --> 00:20:46,250 I hate people who give plot spoilers, but what I felt at the end was love. 54 00:20:46,250 --> 00:20:54,980 I really did. And that's an extraordinary achievement for a play that you wrote to be performed in person with people 55 00:20:54,980 --> 00:21:00,180 locked in the room and that closed and then instead was scattered watching it through a screen. 56 00:21:00,180 --> 00:21:08,000 So tell me about translating the two, or would you have done anything different if you'd known it was going to be online? 57 00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:11,000 No, I don't think so. It's a play. It's for theatre. 58 00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:17,630 And I'm so glad that it left you with a feeling of love, because that's exactly what it's a love story between two men. 59 00:21:17,630 --> 00:21:21,290 And no, I wouldn't have done anything different. 60 00:21:21,290 --> 00:21:31,730 The process was very unusual in that we thought, you know, when when my grandkids tell me, ask me, what did you do in the pandemic drama? 61 00:21:31,730 --> 00:21:40,160 I'll be able to go, wow, I started with this play that was going to be normal, you know, in a in a theatre totally full. 62 00:21:40,160 --> 00:21:46,370 Then it was going to be socially distanced. Then we locked down. And Adrian, who was in the play, my husband and I got covid. 63 00:21:46,370 --> 00:21:50,550 And then it was, how do we make this happen? Can we make this happen? 64 00:21:50,550 --> 00:21:57,560 Are we well enough? Yes, let's live stream it. And so it organically happened. 65 00:21:57,560 --> 00:22:03,260 And the Almeda, Rupert called it the artistic director was amazing because he absolutely roll with the punches and went, 66 00:22:03,260 --> 00:22:07,880 how how do we make a piece of theatre now? 67 00:22:07,880 --> 00:22:13,940 And so we knew maybe two or three weeks before it was streamed that that's where we were going. 68 00:22:13,940 --> 00:22:19,040 So I think we have that benefit of knowing. Right. We are working for Camera and Adrian Downing. 69 00:22:19,040 --> 00:22:26,240 The two actors were also versed in in theatre and film, so they know how to play a camera as well. 70 00:22:26,240 --> 00:22:32,060 So that was very that was a brilliant given. Yeah. 71 00:22:32,060 --> 00:22:33,650 So it's a wonder, I mean, 72 00:22:33,650 --> 00:22:42,530 in the sense that it feels so much of the theatre in the way is also that it feels like it has a huge cast because so much of its identity 73 00:22:42,530 --> 00:22:50,330 coming from who you love and who's around you and family and everything else that I felt like I'd seen about 20 people despite only two, 74 00:22:50,330 --> 00:22:54,320 which seems like something that you it's sort of built into your writing in some ways. 75 00:22:54,320 --> 00:22:59,450 That's sort of what theatre can do that. No, but nothing else can. It's all about relationships. 76 00:22:59,450 --> 00:23:05,800 Right. So you want to see people play a relationship and when you're on stage. 77 00:23:05,800 --> 00:23:10,580 When you take everything away, if you took the SAT, the costume, the lights, everything, 78 00:23:10,580 --> 00:23:15,410 it's me and you and our relationship and that's the joy of theatre, is how do we play? 79 00:23:15,410 --> 00:23:21,700 So forget I know the whole point is the audience, forget the audience and get to them in the moment. 80 00:23:21,700 --> 00:23:29,320 And it's all about that thread between the two actors. And so in order for the actor to feel it's so exposing such an exposing thing theatre, 81 00:23:29,320 --> 00:23:34,540 you have to feel very secure within the words within the environment that you're in and within your history. 82 00:23:34,540 --> 00:23:40,150 And so I I guess I'm I like writing history for people. 83 00:23:40,150 --> 00:23:43,360 And who are they? Who were they? Who do they want to be? 84 00:23:43,360 --> 00:23:49,240 What I know and family and relationships offstage are as important, particularly in something like this, 85 00:23:49,240 --> 00:23:53,830 where you are not limited to two actors, but you want to create the world around them, 86 00:23:53,830 --> 00:24:00,610 because that really makes me think of the relationship between IRA Aldridge and Alan Tree when 87 00:24:00,610 --> 00:24:05,680 they're sort of learning to act off each other and kind of train each other in that intimacy. 88 00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:12,730 But in red velvet, so much of it's also about how in the theatre, it's not just those two people in that moment. 89 00:24:12,730 --> 00:24:16,690 It's all the assumptions, theatre traditions, how we watch. 90 00:24:16,690 --> 00:24:22,090 They kind of get in the way or. Yes, or dictate how we understand what's actually being. 91 00:24:22,090 --> 00:24:30,100 But that's kind of life. Right? So even now, we are all judged on how we look, how we sound, what we wear, what we order in a cafe. 92 00:24:30,100 --> 00:24:36,460 You know what we're judged on? Everything and everything about us tells a story. 93 00:24:36,460 --> 00:24:40,540 And so within that environment where your you have a stranger, 94 00:24:40,540 --> 00:24:49,780 an outsider coming into the inside world of the theatre where everybody knows each other, but then even within them, there is hierarchy and status. 95 00:24:49,780 --> 00:24:52,570 Who who is leading this company? 96 00:24:52,570 --> 00:25:00,160 The women have to be less than the men, even though that talent might be more you know, all of those details are there. 97 00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:04,030 So I think they're all judging each other. That's all the politics. Yeah. 98 00:25:04,030 --> 00:25:10,540 But there's also that contradiction that in theatre, the real is often less real than the theatrical. 99 00:25:10,540 --> 00:25:20,380 Explain that. Well, I just think, well, how are Auldridge cannot play Othello because he's black in that in that context, 100 00:25:20,380 --> 00:25:23,670 according to the set of all the racist assumptions at the time and so on. 101 00:25:23,670 --> 00:25:29,500 So that's actually the real doesn't there's prejudice causing that. 102 00:25:29,500 --> 00:25:37,750 Yes. Well, it's the judgements of the people who would be watching him and their preconceptions of what a black actor is. 103 00:25:37,750 --> 00:25:44,080 And what's brilliant about doing this play now a red velvet now is that we've moved on, thank goodness. 104 00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:49,240 And you judge it through a different lens. But there are still there are details in the lens. 105 00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:54,920 We judge it through now. So people had very different responses to the play. 106 00:25:54,920 --> 00:26:03,700 A few men, not a lot of men said to me that Harlina, the Polish journalist, they didn't see the point of her and women would say, I loved Harlina. 107 00:26:03,700 --> 00:26:08,410 That was me. And what I really liked was people identified with different characters within it. 108 00:26:08,410 --> 00:26:15,270 And it made it a more complex experience. So it's always politics, just the politics and how it's everything. 109 00:26:15,270 --> 00:26:19,390 Politics really right from that. Let's have a clip from Red Velvet. 110 00:26:19,390 --> 00:26:41,930 Great. IRA Eldridge was a black American actor who came to Britain from New York. 111 00:26:41,930 --> 00:26:55,030 He played Shakespeare and other parts up and down the country, and he was arguably one of the most famous actors around at the time. 112 00:26:55,030 --> 00:27:02,080 Some theatre is fun, some theatre passes at the time, some theatre is a bit of a laugh, 113 00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:09,700 but I hope the cast hopes and we all hope that this play will be amongst those pieces of theatre. 114 00:27:09,700 --> 00:27:31,980 That's important. That's why I think. 115 00:27:31,980 --> 00:27:38,200 Lovely to see that clip and to be reminded of a play from so many years ago, and yet the memory is very immediate. 116 00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:40,620 One of the remarkable things that you've been doing during the last years, 117 00:27:40,620 --> 00:27:46,800 if you haven't been doing enough, is writing a book with your husband, Adrian Lester, about your careers. 118 00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:50,640 And it's told in sort of general format, and it's called a working diary. 119 00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:54,030 And it's extremely insightful and with reference to red velvet. 120 00:27:54,030 --> 00:27:59,310 You have a very interesting moment in the book where you say that you worry that it might have been a one off. 121 00:27:59,310 --> 00:28:01,320 And I wondered what you meant by that. 122 00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:10,060 Was it because you thought I don't have another place in me or that the acting will overtake the writing or I don't want to write another play? 123 00:28:10,060 --> 00:28:18,480 I'm only going to write a play with my husband. Interesting. I don't remember writing that, but it must have been that day. 124 00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:22,440 I think people thought it might have been a one off. 125 00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:29,100 That's what I feel now because when I started writing well, I've been writing a long time before Red Velvet was on, 126 00:28:29,100 --> 00:28:39,900 but when I came out and with this play, it wasn't very well accepted, but it wasn't a usual path an actor would write. 127 00:28:39,900 --> 00:28:48,100 And so I think I was it was regarded as, oh, you've written this amazing piece and it's obviously been in your mind and heart for quite a long time. 128 00:28:48,100 --> 00:28:52,500 It took me so long to realise it. Maybe that's it. 129 00:28:52,500 --> 00:29:01,380 So I feel I feel that was more I can't remember what I wrote in the day, but I feel maybe that was more how I how I would interpret that now. 130 00:29:01,380 --> 00:29:05,700 So rewinding the tape before Red Velvet, I first became aware of you, of course, 131 00:29:05,700 --> 00:29:12,810 as an actor and all sorts of roles of the National Theatre and elsewhere, but particularly a very acclaimed actor. 132 00:29:12,810 --> 00:29:19,030 I'll never forget a performance he gave at the World Court in 2007 in a very powerful play at the World Court upstairs called Free Out, 133 00:29:19,030 --> 00:29:28,800 going by an Indian writer called Anupama Chandrasekar. And you played the single mother of a teenager who gets caught up in a sexting scandal. 134 00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:33,420 And this seems to be absolutely a play right for attention again today. 135 00:29:33,420 --> 00:29:37,380 So the point is your acting career seemed to be going very well. 136 00:29:37,380 --> 00:29:43,200 How then did you fold writing into the mix? It's funny how it seems and how it feels. 137 00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:49,470 Right. So I guess, am I a successful actor? 138 00:29:49,470 --> 00:29:53,670 I work, which is great. It's great. And I have some really good roles. But there are always gaps. 139 00:29:53,670 --> 00:29:59,040 There are always gaps in which you get bored and you need to stay creatively alive. 140 00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:07,260 And then also some of the parts that I play can be frustrating because you're playing functional roles that help other people's stories. 141 00:30:07,260 --> 00:30:11,010 And that's fine. That's what the party is. But that's what you're limited to doing. 142 00:30:11,010 --> 00:30:19,020 And there's so much more that you could be doing. So I guess I started writing because I wanted to exercise every single part of me. 143 00:30:19,020 --> 00:30:25,530 I didn't want to be limited to the part I was given and I wanted to write things that I knew I was capable of. 144 00:30:25,530 --> 00:30:30,720 And so now I've made a bit of a rod for my back because it's I've got two careers and 145 00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:38,010 and and they're both really touchwood if there was any wood around going really well. 146 00:30:38,010 --> 00:30:41,580 So how do I fold it? I'm just dogged, very disciplined. 147 00:30:41,580 --> 00:30:46,830 I mean, writing and discipline is one thing that people really talk about, you know, how do you crack the discipline? 148 00:30:46,830 --> 00:30:50,490 So it took me a few years to crack that and go, OK, I won't go for a walk. 149 00:30:50,490 --> 00:30:54,900 I'm going to write the computer, I'm going to sit and do it. And now I write everywhere. 150 00:30:54,900 --> 00:31:02,790 So if I'm filming, I will write on my way to set. I will write in between scenes, I will write everywhere. 151 00:31:02,790 --> 00:31:08,190 And then I leave the space for the acting as well. Interesting that you've written several times for Adrien. 152 00:31:08,190 --> 00:31:12,390 One of the reasons that sometimes people write plays is to give themselves a vehicle. 153 00:31:12,390 --> 00:31:17,130 Have you thought about writing for yourself and are you writing for yourself? Yes, I have. 154 00:31:17,130 --> 00:31:26,190 Now, I sort of avoided it to start with because I had advice that just be the writer is hard enough being the writer of a play. 155 00:31:26,190 --> 00:31:32,880 And that advice was really good because with red velvet it was so overwhelming to suddenly be the writer rather than a performer. 156 00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:42,250 It's a very different level of exposure. And so I sort of adopted that is not writing for myself, but I have written a couple of projects for myself. 157 00:31:42,250 --> 00:31:42,480 Yes. 158 00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:51,180 As a play called Karma that before the pandemic was going to be on in Birmingham at the Wrap, which I hope will happen as we start to open up again. 159 00:31:51,180 --> 00:31:55,020 And then there's a film as well that I've written a part for myself in. 160 00:31:55,020 --> 00:31:58,380 Tell us about what role have you written for yourself and the play be interesting. 161 00:31:58,380 --> 00:32:06,330 How do you see yourself as a character in a play? Interestingly, it's not how I see myself, but it's a good part. 162 00:32:06,330 --> 00:32:11,580 And so the karma is about three generations of women in one family. 163 00:32:11,580 --> 00:32:17,190 And the grandmother is a self-help guru, the daughter, her daughter, 164 00:32:17,190 --> 00:32:21,930 which is the part I would play as a psychiatrist, and her daughter, who's 18, is in crisis. 165 00:32:21,930 --> 00:32:30,480 And it's about mental health within sort of a female family and and the expectations on women and. 166 00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:33,750 How hard is being a girl, no matter what age you are? 167 00:32:33,750 --> 00:32:41,200 And it's funny, I mean, it's really visceral and anything that makes me laugh is always on the slightly on the wrong side. 168 00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:47,760 You know, where if I know it makes me laugh. I know it'll get theatre laughing because I, I've got a wicked sense of humour. 169 00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:52,650 So so it's funny, but it's also about the pressures on these three women. 170 00:32:52,650 --> 00:33:00,450 It's very interesting, again, in your memoir that one feels a kind of tension in terms of agency and power because you talk in the 171 00:33:00,450 --> 00:33:04,710 book about the good thing about being an actor is you get hired for the job and then you do it. 172 00:33:04,710 --> 00:33:09,930 End of story with a writer. Of course, it's potentially much more and more and more fierce. 173 00:33:09,930 --> 00:33:14,700 But on the other hand, it's your baby, which is not the case when you're acting as an actor. 174 00:33:14,700 --> 00:33:20,790 I I'm hired at the probably at the very end of production, you know, where all the work's been done. 175 00:33:20,790 --> 00:33:23,790 And then I come in and interpret it and it's great. 176 00:33:23,790 --> 00:33:27,930 You know, you go in and you just do it from one point of view, from the point of view of your character, 177 00:33:27,930 --> 00:33:31,620 and you fit into the story that has been seamlessly worked out by somebody else. 178 00:33:31,620 --> 00:33:39,810 But as a writer, I mean, the thing I really I really miss as a writer when I'm being that person with that hat is that as an actor, 179 00:33:39,810 --> 00:33:43,380 everyone thinks what you do is marvellous. So you do something brilliant. That's fabulous. 180 00:33:43,380 --> 00:33:47,730 Could you try this? Could you try that? And as a writer, you get none of that. You just get right. 181 00:33:47,730 --> 00:33:52,470 This doesn't work. That doesn't work. This doesn't work. And you get all the notes of how to make it better. 182 00:33:52,470 --> 00:33:59,610 So it took me a little while to realise, oh, I don't I don't get the applause. I just have to I just have to go in and get the notes. 183 00:33:59,610 --> 00:34:05,340 It's an endless stream of notes, because when you were at the Donmar, John Gabriel Borkman, a production I remember very well, 184 00:34:05,340 --> 00:34:13,200 you were directed by Michael Grandage, where you're not who, of course, is somebody now a very successful director who had begun as an actor. 185 00:34:13,200 --> 00:34:19,290 And Michael has always said when asked, does he want to return to acting, he says absolutely not. 186 00:34:19,290 --> 00:34:27,300 So I just wonder whether, as you said over to writing, whether it may be part of you said, like, Michael, I'm going to put my acting days behind me. 187 00:34:27,300 --> 00:34:30,240 But it sounds like you never said I've not been able to. 188 00:34:30,240 --> 00:34:34,860 When I first came out as a writer, people said, well, you're going to give up the acting now, aren't you? 189 00:34:34,860 --> 00:34:38,220 Because now this is happening and I can't explain it. 190 00:34:38,220 --> 00:34:41,850 No, it's just I love acting. I absolutely love it. 191 00:34:41,850 --> 00:34:47,160 If you get the part, the bit I don't love is when the parts are boring and you just have to do it because you have to pay the bills. 192 00:34:47,160 --> 00:34:50,730 You know, that's what my dad says to me. Well, every job is boring. 193 00:34:50,730 --> 00:34:53,400 And I think, oh, OK, fair enough. OK, this is the boring bit. 194 00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:57,930 But but when you get a role that requires the skill and the craft to look at the history, 195 00:34:57,930 --> 00:35:06,210 look at the character, work out, why do I say this at this moment? What is this relationship and how can I fly and play it live? 196 00:35:06,210 --> 00:35:11,280 I mean, nothing replaces that. It's it's a fabulous feeling once you're riding it. 197 00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:20,820 So, no, I can't give up the acting, although I understand there's a powerlessness in acting, which I'm very lucky that I can instigate projects. 198 00:35:20,820 --> 00:35:25,140 Now with writing, I can say, right, I've got a blank piece of paper. I want to tell this story. 199 00:35:25,140 --> 00:35:28,560 As an actor, you can never you can instigate projects and you can also. 200 00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:31,950 You were just talking about your father. You can also honour a member of your family. 201 00:35:31,950 --> 00:35:36,120 And didn't you write a play at the Old Vic, which directly influenced by your dad? 202 00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:41,550 And maybe you can just tell us what that was like to have that ability to honour a parent on stage? 203 00:35:41,550 --> 00:35:43,710 It's an amazing thing. The Old Vic asked me. 204 00:35:43,710 --> 00:35:50,310 I was in Fanny and Alexander, which you are talking about swords and and they asked if I would curate one of their one voice seasons, 205 00:35:50,310 --> 00:35:57,990 which is a short experimental moment where they commissioned monologues about a certain epic anniversary topic. 206 00:35:57,990 --> 00:36:03,720 And it was the 17th birthday of the NHS. So my dad's an orthopaedic was an orthopaedic surgeon. 207 00:36:03,720 --> 00:36:07,680 He's retired now. And so I love the NHS. I've grown up in it. 208 00:36:07,680 --> 00:36:14,340 You know, we used to go there every Christmas and my dad would anatomically carve the turkey for the patients. 209 00:36:14,340 --> 00:36:20,100 You know, we'd serve it. You know, it was that kind of that's how much I feel very at home in a hospital. 210 00:36:20,100 --> 00:36:24,090 And so when they gave me this option, I was like, I would love to do that. 211 00:36:24,090 --> 00:36:29,340 And also because all the doctors and nurses and staff that I've met are from everywhere. 212 00:36:29,340 --> 00:36:33,180 They they are the world that I see. And I wanted to honour that. 213 00:36:33,180 --> 00:36:41,490 So I had the luxury of of of commissioning these eight different writers, of which I was one eight amazing actors. 214 00:36:41,490 --> 00:36:48,060 Adrien directed it actually. And and then my piece, it was each decade of the NHS. 215 00:36:48,060 --> 00:36:54,480 So mine was the nineteen eighties. And because I've been so busy sort of talking to the other writers and trying to get the stories, 216 00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:58,170 you know, different and varied, I'd forgotten about mine. 217 00:36:58,170 --> 00:37:01,500 I thought, God, what am I going to write about. And I thought my dad. 218 00:37:01,500 --> 00:37:09,240 So I interviewed my dad a couple of times and he explained to me how you do a hip operation and the 219 00:37:09,240 --> 00:37:15,120 cutting of the Fascher and the precision of this incision and that incision in the bone and all of this. 220 00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:18,840 And then I constructed a story based around him. 221 00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:27,810 It wasn't him completely, but based around his experience and the stories he told me of medicine in India when he was there. 222 00:37:27,810 --> 00:37:32,950 And it was brilliant art. Malik played the part. And when my. Art Malik, he was who he was. 223 00:37:32,950 --> 00:37:37,660 It was just lovely, you know, there he is. He's not a man of the theatre, my dad. 224 00:37:37,660 --> 00:37:42,280 And so to meet somebody who was playing him, he was he was really chuffed and lovely. 225 00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:47,170 And is it fair to assume as we move out of the pandemic, God willing, that, you know, 226 00:37:47,170 --> 00:37:50,560 the last 14 months for an actor might have been extraordinarily difficult because 227 00:37:50,560 --> 00:37:56,310 people are wondering where's the work and how are they going to find the work? But you, of course, didn't have to just cling to that. 228 00:37:56,310 --> 00:37:59,990 You could you know, you can write regardless of what's going on in the broader world. 229 00:37:59,990 --> 00:38:05,500 So in a sense, have you been using this period to really focus on the writing? 230 00:38:05,500 --> 00:38:10,030 I've been unbelievably busy. I think most of the writers I speak to have been. 231 00:38:10,030 --> 00:38:16,660 It's been a time for development, right? A time to sit in in your room with your computer and have your thoughts. 232 00:38:16,660 --> 00:38:21,160 That's all that's been left to us all locked down in a pandemic. And actually that is writing. 233 00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:27,550 So, yeah, I've been really, really busy, which is how I wrote him. So him has been a it wasn't a locked down play. 234 00:38:27,550 --> 00:38:31,240 I was commissioned for it before we went into this crazy time. 235 00:38:31,240 --> 00:38:37,510 But it has been because it's a two hander and you could do it socially distanced if we were clever, 236 00:38:37,510 --> 00:38:43,120 which Blanche MacIntire, our director, was very clever. That was speeded through. 237 00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:51,850 So Red Velvet took me seven years to get on stage and 30 draughts and him took me a year and five draughts where I thought, 238 00:38:51,850 --> 00:38:56,260 oh my God, this is so quick it needs to be good enough. So I worked really hard on it. 239 00:38:56,260 --> 00:39:00,080 What is it like that when you're ready specifically for the person to whom you're married? 240 00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:02,870 In other words, do you and agree boundaries? 241 00:39:02,870 --> 00:39:09,510 At the end of the day, you're not kind of, you know, lying up till two o'clock in the morning saying, what about that third line of defence? 242 00:39:09,510 --> 00:39:13,960 And your daughters are going, Mom, dad, stop. Let's talk about something else. 243 00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:22,060 I mean, do you actually sort of agree boundaries or is it constantly with you 24/7? My gosh, I think we wouldn't be married if that was the version. 244 00:39:22,060 --> 00:39:30,250 And, you know, there are there are proper boundaries that have not been spoken but have, like osmosis been worked out. 245 00:39:30,250 --> 00:39:33,610 I think Adrian knows to leave me to it. 246 00:39:33,610 --> 00:39:38,740 I don't like being bothered when I'm doing the first draught. It has to come. 247 00:39:38,740 --> 00:39:41,470 I often don't like a director attached to a first draught. 248 00:39:41,470 --> 00:39:49,210 I don't like anybody informing me what I should be giving me that voice because I need to feel the story and own it and do my version. 249 00:39:49,210 --> 00:39:52,930 And then once I've done the first draught, everyone can talk about it and tell me what they think. 250 00:39:52,930 --> 00:39:57,520 So yes, Adrian is very he's not hands on as you think. 251 00:39:57,520 --> 00:40:05,470 He's he's he knows what I'm trying to say. And I think that's that that is the sort of majority of writing. 252 00:40:05,470 --> 00:40:10,210 Is that in your head you think you're saying something and on the page you're not. 253 00:40:10,210 --> 00:40:15,670 When somebody else reads it, a third person with it, it doesn't say what you're trying to say. 254 00:40:15,670 --> 00:40:22,060 But Adrian will go. I know what you're trying to say. Try this, try that, and then [INAUDIBLE] help me get there. 255 00:40:22,060 --> 00:40:26,530 But, um, no, it's it's brilliant working with him because he knows when to ease off. 256 00:40:26,530 --> 00:40:31,480 And he also knows that I need my space to tell the story. You talk about a third person reading it. 257 00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:37,030 And of course, one interesting string Jiabo has to do with adaptation and in adaptations. 258 00:40:37,030 --> 00:40:41,080 There's always the third person who is the author of the source material, 259 00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:45,400 whether it's a teller Calvina with Invisible Cities or Yamato with Life of Pi. 260 00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:47,830 And we have some clips from those that we can look at in a minute. 261 00:40:47,830 --> 00:40:54,340 But I just thought maybe it might be interesting to hear a little bit just generally about the appeal of adaptation. 262 00:40:54,340 --> 00:40:58,570 And then we can look at the clips. What why adapt when you can write original work? 263 00:40:58,570 --> 00:41:08,620 What's the joint adapting? I think writing original work draws on the same my my experiences in life and my ideas of story. 264 00:41:08,620 --> 00:41:12,100 And actually you have to preserve that a little bit. 265 00:41:12,100 --> 00:41:19,270 As with acting, you know, you can't when I was it rather we did an exercise sense memory Stanislavski, I was trained in Stanislavski's method. 266 00:41:19,270 --> 00:41:30,910 And since memory is about using experiences that you have yourself and putting it into a character, so one, I've gone off piste, but stay with me. 267 00:41:30,910 --> 00:41:35,530 One, I remember asking my acting teacher that if you have to play a murderer, how can you do that truthfully? 268 00:41:35,530 --> 00:41:36,610 And she said, you know, 269 00:41:36,610 --> 00:41:45,070 when you're trying to kill a mosquito and just imagine that feeling of trying to get the mosquito and that feeling is how you play a murderer. 270 00:41:45,070 --> 00:41:51,670 You kind of translate that. And so that sense of truthfulness, there's a limit to your own experience. 271 00:41:51,670 --> 00:41:55,780 And so having an adaptation, a book where someone's given me the story, 272 00:41:55,780 --> 00:42:02,110 they might not have solved the structural drive of it or or the three act sense of it, 273 00:42:02,110 --> 00:42:05,020 that they might not have solved that, but they'd give me the characters. 274 00:42:05,020 --> 00:42:11,980 They've given me what happens at the beginning, maybe not the middle and the end, and I have to work out how to get there. 275 00:42:11,980 --> 00:42:13,390 It's really exciting. 276 00:42:13,390 --> 00:42:23,650 When I did Yun's book Life of Pi, I felt I felt like he was in the room all the time and I had to honour his amazing book My Way. 277 00:42:23,650 --> 00:42:30,270 So it felt very supportive. Actually, Italo coverers book is a different thing, but. 278 00:42:30,270 --> 00:43:29,450 It definitely would Life of Pi, should we look at a few years from the loss of Life of Pi and Invisible Cities? 279 00:43:29,450 --> 00:43:34,260 I mean, talk about a spectrum of work here, you've got him which is paired to the bone, 280 00:43:34,260 --> 00:43:38,720 a two hundred very distilled, and here you have these kind of extravaganzas. 281 00:43:38,720 --> 00:43:46,190 I noticed that one of the reviews of Invisible Cities said very admiring review, said that this ought to be unstable. 282 00:43:46,190 --> 00:43:50,300 And yeah, obviously it wasn't on stage because it was stage. 283 00:43:50,300 --> 00:43:53,720 So how do you enter into something that ought to be on stage? 284 00:43:53,720 --> 00:44:00,080 But Leo Warner, the director who is the head of Fifty Nine Productions, 285 00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:06,590 is digital and video production company, said to me, you know, I mean, Italo Calvino is book. 286 00:44:06,590 --> 00:44:10,280 I haven't come across it before. And when I read it, it's like a crazy book. 287 00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:18,710 You know, this opium fuelled discussion between Kubelik and Marco Polo and this these 55 cities that are cities under the ground, 288 00:44:18,710 --> 00:44:23,630 cities in the sky, cities under water, crazy things. I mean, you could put this on stage. 289 00:44:23,630 --> 00:44:29,780 How am I going to do this in a quiet theatrical manner? And he said, just write the impossible and we'll stage it. 290 00:44:29,780 --> 00:44:31,700 And so that's absolutely what I did. 291 00:44:31,700 --> 00:44:42,050 And, you know, at the end of the play, I have Marco Polo shows Kubla Khan through digital projection, his entire empire. 292 00:44:42,050 --> 00:44:47,720 So we go through historic Grecians cities and, you know, 293 00:44:47,720 --> 00:44:53,030 Middle Eastern cities that come into present cities, into future cities and New York and all these things. 294 00:44:53,030 --> 00:44:57,560 And then it explodes. The world explodes. And Leo did it. 295 00:44:57,560 --> 00:45:04,070 But that must have been so interesting because actually, although the writer is presumably the person who's usually in control with that one, 296 00:45:04,070 --> 00:45:09,710 I bet you didn't really know how it was going to turn out, did you? Because there were so many, so many different. 297 00:45:09,710 --> 00:45:16,160 And there were 22 dancers from Rombauer and Sidi Larbi Sharkawi, who is choreographing. 298 00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:23,040 And it was a site specific, specially built theatre by a designer who is an architect. 299 00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:26,420 So she built all this sort of architectural set. 300 00:45:26,420 --> 00:45:30,770 It was an extraordinary thing to do, but it was a very different way of working because it was spatial. 301 00:45:30,770 --> 00:45:36,140 And that's why I wanted to do it, because it was a it was epic be it was this impenetrable book, 302 00:45:36,140 --> 00:45:41,660 which some people go, that's my seminal novel of my life. And some people go, oh, my God, I didn't understand it. 303 00:45:41,660 --> 00:45:44,870 And I was sort of sat between the two of them going, yes, I understand both of you. 304 00:45:44,870 --> 00:45:56,930 I'm such a Gemini, you know, and and but to work with this epic storytelling and these different media and kind of theatrical sky's the limit. 305 00:45:56,930 --> 00:46:03,890 Obviously, financially it wasn't. But just imagine what what the story could be and let's try and make it happen. 306 00:46:03,890 --> 00:46:10,940 Was that good? Was that a good springboard for doing Life of Pi? Just because they were both big, they were both involving lots of different elements. 307 00:46:10,940 --> 00:46:16,340 Was that helpful when it came time to do Life of Pi? Well, in that way that it never rains, but it pours. 308 00:46:16,340 --> 00:46:21,020 I did those jobs simultaneously, so they were literally rehearsing at the same time. 309 00:46:21,020 --> 00:46:23,810 And I'm in rehearsals rewriting at exactly the same time. 310 00:46:23,810 --> 00:46:31,820 So I was going from Sheffield to Manchester to London and just kind of making going slightly crazy and eating a lot of chocolate, I think. 311 00:46:31,820 --> 00:46:41,120 But I'm sure they informed each other. But they I mean, it was thrilling, thrilling because Life of Pi is again digital projection in a different way. 312 00:46:41,120 --> 00:46:48,740 Puppet's a very strong story. Fantastic Director Max Webster pulling all these elements together. 313 00:46:48,740 --> 00:46:55,010 Beautiful score of music by a composer who works a lot in Bollywood movies. 314 00:46:55,010 --> 00:46:57,330 Yeah, it's both really exciting. 315 00:46:57,330 --> 00:47:04,730 We have a wonderful anecdote in your book about with the rehearsals for Life of Pi, the rehearsal room in Sheffield originally not being big enough. 316 00:47:04,730 --> 00:47:10,610 So quandary about how can we get a rehearsal, we can actually accommodate all these people, these people and all these puppets. 317 00:47:10,610 --> 00:47:15,230 You know, we had an orang-utan, a tiger, a zebra, I mean, a full sized puppet zebra. 318 00:47:15,230 --> 00:47:22,190 These are big puppets. And then because it was such an epic piece, we had a rehearsal boat. 319 00:47:22,190 --> 00:47:27,920 So the boat comes out of the stage in the production. And so they built us a boat and it's on a revolve. 320 00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:35,570 So they built us a boat because to get these five characters on a boat and make it that you can see everybody and you can see the story happening, 321 00:47:35,570 --> 00:47:41,320 we needed the boat in the room, but once they built the boat in the rehearsal room, there was no space for the rest of us. 322 00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:48,920 So it was it was it was challenging for sure. But of course, Life of Pi also had an issue that that Invisible Cities wouldn't have had clearly, 323 00:47:48,920 --> 00:47:52,310 which is that Life of Pi was is known to many who may not even know. 324 00:47:52,310 --> 00:47:57,050 It was a book. Yes. Known to many from a film for which Ang Lee won the Oscar for best director. 325 00:47:57,050 --> 00:48:03,590 So that's not exactly an incidental thing. So how did you how did you deal with that or did you just sort of put that totally to one side? 326 00:48:03,590 --> 00:48:07,160 I saw the film when it came out and I loved it, but I didn't watch it again. 327 00:48:07,160 --> 00:48:11,120 And thankfully for me, which isn't great in life, I don't remember very much. 328 00:48:11,120 --> 00:48:17,570 So it's so it's great. I didn't really remember the film and then the book I loved when I read it, when it first came out. 329 00:48:17,570 --> 00:48:23,210 And so I read that again and again and and that it's a totally different story actually. 330 00:48:23,210 --> 00:48:28,190 And there are elements in the book that I really wanted to. 331 00:48:28,190 --> 00:48:34,520 Floor that just aren't in the film at all, so I didn't think about the film because again, with reference to your book, 332 00:48:34,520 --> 00:48:42,710 you talk about being very pleased that the critics of Life of Pi appreciated the layering of themes that you hoped would be palpable. 333 00:48:42,710 --> 00:48:48,920 And it seems as if that's been appreciated. And now, of course, that trailer is for a production that wasn't able to happen because of the pandemic, 334 00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:52,760 but now will be able to happen towards the end of this year. 335 00:48:52,760 --> 00:48:58,250 Can you say something then about maybe what the play can allow for those people who think I saw the movie? 336 00:48:58,250 --> 00:49:06,020 I don't need to see it again. What can the play give them? The play will give them a thrilling ride because it's basically about survival, 337 00:49:06,020 --> 00:49:12,020 which is what we've all done right during this pandemic in varying degrees of awfulness and difficulty. 338 00:49:12,020 --> 00:49:18,350 It is about I mean, it's literally about a boy who who the ship thinks his family drowned. 339 00:49:18,350 --> 00:49:25,010 He's alone on a boat with these four wild animals or a Bengal tiger, an orang-utan, a zebra and a hyaena. 340 00:49:25,010 --> 00:49:31,010 And how more now than actually when I wrote it, being on the ship, the shipwreck of life, 341 00:49:31,010 --> 00:49:34,760 you know, my God, we're all we've all been bobbing on the Pacific, haven't we? 342 00:49:34,760 --> 00:49:39,350 We've all been in our boat going, oh, my goodness, what where am I? 343 00:49:39,350 --> 00:49:46,130 What's going to happen? And will I reach the shore? So it's a it's it's the puppets are amazing. 344 00:49:46,130 --> 00:49:54,260 The puppet work. Finn Caldwell and Nick Barnes, who made and directed the puppets are so lifelike but theatrical. 345 00:49:54,260 --> 00:50:01,730 And Yann Martel, the novelist, was insistent that the animals are scary because these wild animals would be. 346 00:50:01,730 --> 00:50:08,810 And it was a great note actually, because they are. So it's a thrilling ride, but it's also a piece of theatre and it's beautiful to watch. 347 00:50:08,810 --> 00:50:12,440 But it sounds actually very movingly from what you're saying is if there there 348 00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:16,280 is potentially something more apposite about the material now post pandemic, 349 00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:19,730 when we do get to see it at Wyndham's, then there might have been in June. Twenty twenty. 350 00:50:19,730 --> 00:50:23,300 Who would have thought that. Yeah, who would have thought that everything takes on a new spin. 351 00:50:23,300 --> 00:50:28,880 Right. And that's, that's the great thing about live theatre is the relevance to where you are now. 352 00:50:28,880 --> 00:50:37,400 You go into a space with a group of other people and you examine the life on stage, whatever it might be, but your own. 353 00:50:37,400 --> 00:50:42,110 Can you say a little bit the leader, because it's been so interesting for those of us observing theatre about how 354 00:50:42,110 --> 00:50:47,180 productions have been sort of held in abeyance during the pandemic because many, 355 00:50:47,180 --> 00:50:51,830 many productions were announced, were rehearsed, whatever, a lot of them have fallen by the wayside. 356 00:50:51,830 --> 00:50:53,540 And I know in London and on Broadway, 357 00:50:53,540 --> 00:51:01,340 there have been quite a few that have been kind of just put put in a metaphorical room and waiting to be released. 358 00:51:01,340 --> 00:51:05,090 Was it always the case that you knew Life of Pi would come back? 359 00:51:05,090 --> 00:51:10,220 Were the actors and you and Max, the directors sort of staying in touch just to chat each other along? 360 00:51:10,220 --> 00:51:16,250 How did you keep it palpable? The funny thing, you know, being a writer, I'm now on the management side. 361 00:51:16,250 --> 00:51:21,140 So when I'm an actor, I'm on the acting side. But when I'm a writer, I'm on the management side. 362 00:51:21,140 --> 00:51:27,260 So I wasn't with the actors going, what's going on? Because because you don't it's a different sort of relationship. 363 00:51:27,260 --> 00:51:32,360 But I knew Life of Pi was going to happen because we had such an extraordinary response in Sheffield. 364 00:51:32,360 --> 00:51:38,750 We only ran for three weeks and the reviews and the chat about it was amazing. 365 00:51:38,750 --> 00:51:42,290 And it's is a book that sold 50. I'm not taking credit for that. 366 00:51:42,290 --> 00:51:46,190 Fifteen million copies of this book have been sold around the world and the film. 367 00:51:46,190 --> 00:51:56,240 So it's got this huge following anyway. So I think if any show was hopefully going to come back, Life of Pi was a shoo in. 368 00:51:56,240 --> 00:52:01,730 So I was lucky in that. I think it was. Yeah, I think it was always going to happen. 369 00:52:01,730 --> 00:52:08,630 And did you use this time to tweak or tinker with it in a way that you might not have done otherwise just because you have the luxury of time? 370 00:52:08,630 --> 00:52:11,690 Or is there a point you just have to say no enough. I've done what I'm going to do. 371 00:52:11,690 --> 00:52:17,060 I was always going to tinker with it because until it's only right, when it's right. 372 00:52:17,060 --> 00:52:23,990 And as we go into rehearsal again, I'm sure there'll be other things that need to be changed because it's a different it's a process theatre that's 373 00:52:23,990 --> 00:52:29,990 that's that we're going to build out into the stalls and it's going to be a different Sheffield is a thrust stage. 374 00:52:29,990 --> 00:52:34,970 So we need to adapt our production as well as the theatre to facilitate the show. 375 00:52:34,970 --> 00:52:41,690 So in terms of the technical storytelling, I might have to change some of it to fit what we're able to do. 376 00:52:41,690 --> 00:52:46,700 But no, I did do I did rewrites anyway, but not huge ones because the basic story works. 377 00:52:46,700 --> 00:52:52,100 But there were certain relationships, certain moments that with the luxury of hindsight, 378 00:52:52,100 --> 00:52:56,840 you can go, oh yeah, I can just do that in the peace and quiet without the kind of crazy. Oh, my God, we're opening. 379 00:52:56,840 --> 00:53:04,670 We're previewing. We've got to get it on. I've managed to do that now as a multi hyphenate, which you are an actor writer. 380 00:53:04,670 --> 00:53:07,790 If you ever thought of adding a director to the mix, because as you know, 381 00:53:07,790 --> 00:53:12,920 there are playwrights like Arthur Fugard who writes and sometimes directs his own work. 382 00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:17,370 Alan Ayckbourn, same thing. Would you like to muddle? 383 00:53:17,370 --> 00:53:21,500 No, never. I'm not a director in the slightest at all. 384 00:53:21,500 --> 00:53:26,720 It's not something I. I can give you a thought. Like, I don't mind sitting next to a bit. 385 00:53:26,720 --> 00:53:28,510 Like Maxwell often asked me, what are you. 386 00:53:28,510 --> 00:53:34,750 And blanched the same, you know, and I give thoughts in terms of what I think the line means and what I intended, 387 00:53:34,750 --> 00:53:40,540 but no, I do not want the responsibility of making it all come together in a beautiful thing. 388 00:53:40,540 --> 00:53:45,790 I get the impression, too, that it's very interesting that as a writer and this is this is a real critics question, 389 00:53:45,790 --> 00:53:50,620 that as a writer you are reading the reviews because you want to know what the critics are saying. 390 00:53:50,620 --> 00:53:57,580 Now, I'm always told and maybe the actors are lying, but I'm always told that actors never read the reviews or they do when their mum, 391 00:53:57,580 --> 00:54:02,860 since the reviews to them is over, but never while the run is on because that's the last thing you want. 392 00:54:02,860 --> 00:54:06,760 So are you sort of readjusting your relationship to the press as well? 393 00:54:06,760 --> 00:54:09,820 I read all reviews even. It's not even as an actor. 394 00:54:09,820 --> 00:54:16,600 And when Ellen and Red Velvet says, you know, we have to read the reviews because we have to know what they see, otherwise, what's the purpose of us? 395 00:54:16,600 --> 00:54:25,300 That's why I think I think I need to I mean, not all forgive me, but some critics are free to say, yeah, yeah. 396 00:54:25,300 --> 00:54:29,320 But I like to know what is being seen, perceived put out there. 397 00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:34,220 And sometimes there's something really useful. Sometimes there's something really encouraging. 398 00:54:34,220 --> 00:54:38,260 Um, yeah. I always I've always read reviews. 399 00:54:38,260 --> 00:54:46,210 Do you feel as if you're writing, you are writing because you're an actor, not necessarily for yourself, but just you know, what actors like to say. 400 00:54:46,210 --> 00:54:49,510 You know what sounds good coming out of an actor's mouth. 401 00:54:49,510 --> 00:54:56,290 So can you I assume you can't switch off the actor side of you when you're writing because you know what it's going to sound like? 402 00:54:56,290 --> 00:55:03,430 Yeah, I write completely as an actor. So once it gets to a certain stage, I'm playing all the parts as I write and it's thrilling. 403 00:55:03,430 --> 00:55:04,810 I can be absolutely anyone. 404 00:55:04,810 --> 00:55:12,130 I always thought I was versatile, but, you know, I can play a child or a man or I can do anything, which actually now everyone can do comedy. 405 00:55:12,130 --> 00:55:18,460 But I play all the roles. I do some really dodgy accents because I do quite a lot of international parts. 406 00:55:18,460 --> 00:55:21,790 And, um, but but I'm on my own, so it's okay. 407 00:55:21,790 --> 00:55:25,840 It's just to get the rhythm of the tune of the accent. 408 00:55:25,840 --> 00:55:34,630 But yes, I always write as an actor and I, I do know how, you know, you can tell clunky language if it does, if it's not easy to say, you can tell. 409 00:55:34,630 --> 00:55:37,180 But I think it all comes from story and character. 410 00:55:37,180 --> 00:55:44,590 So it's not necessarily how it comes out of the actor's mouth, but it's if there's story and character and a reason for saying these words. 411 00:55:44,590 --> 00:55:51,670 And I'm a it's the thought between the words actually that you don't write, but you need to know what the thought is from one sentence to the next. 412 00:55:51,670 --> 00:55:57,400 And then you know that you're on to a proper dialogue or monologue or whatever it is. 413 00:55:57,400 --> 00:56:05,320 And it seems as if and I suppose one doesn't want to jump the gun. But obviously, you know, I read kind of the industry response to things. 414 00:56:05,320 --> 00:56:09,130 And from the very beginning with Life of Pi, there was talk about, you know, 415 00:56:09,130 --> 00:56:13,960 after the buzz in Sheffield, in the reviews, there was talk about, you know, Western opening batsman. 416 00:56:13,960 --> 00:56:17,530 And when The Daily Mail this is the new big thing, you know, move over The Lion King. 417 00:56:17,530 --> 00:56:20,860 It's going to go to Broadway. And I don't know if they can make a movie. 418 00:56:20,860 --> 00:56:25,930 I think it's already been a movie. But how has that palpably changed your life? 419 00:56:25,930 --> 00:56:29,800 Are you getting offered different things? Do you now have the luxury perhaps of saying no? 420 00:56:29,800 --> 00:56:38,540 What difference does it make to you? It's definitely put me on the map in terms of not being a one time, one time hit, you know? 421 00:56:38,540 --> 00:56:45,400 Oh, she did something else. She wrote another thing. And yeah, it has it's completely changed. 422 00:56:45,400 --> 00:56:50,740 I mean, but doing these epic things like Life of Pi and Invisible Cities, 423 00:56:50,740 --> 00:56:57,340 bigger projects are coming to me, which is really exciting because it's lovely writing on a big scale. 424 00:56:57,340 --> 00:57:03,460 And and, you know, you still keep budget in mind, but to have to do what Leo said, 425 00:57:03,460 --> 00:57:08,440 think the impossible and we'll make it happen because actually theatrically, you can make anything happen in a black box. 426 00:57:08,440 --> 00:57:14,770 You can make the world explode. You don't need to see it explode. But if you put the intention right, you can do it. 427 00:57:14,770 --> 00:57:21,970 And it's given me the luxury of with him, you know, saying I want to write something small, I want to write something intimate. 428 00:57:21,970 --> 00:57:31,450 I want to come away from that and write something that is a virtuosic piece for two actors who I know are extraordinary. 429 00:57:31,450 --> 00:57:33,250 It gave me that doorway. 430 00:57:33,250 --> 00:57:40,270 And do you feel as an actor, I mean, it there's just a sense that maybe things are a bit more fluid, a bit more open than there might have been. 431 00:57:40,270 --> 00:57:43,150 Definitely back when you were doing free, outgoing, definite, you know, 432 00:57:43,150 --> 00:57:47,390 Glenda Jackson played King are not saying you need to play your bit young for that. 433 00:57:47,390 --> 00:57:53,170 I mean, do you feel now that there are more options available to you than there might have been ten or twenty years ago? 434 00:57:53,170 --> 00:57:59,050 Absolutely. Definitely. The world has changed, let alone the pandemic, the BLM movement, 435 00:57:59,050 --> 00:58:09,790 everything that's happened in this last year when we've been locked away has shaken, I would say, all of us and shaken our world view. 436 00:58:09,790 --> 00:58:15,250 And I think young people are saying no to so many things that were in place. 437 00:58:15,250 --> 00:58:19,510 And they're right. You know, it's time to reinvent, rethink, 438 00:58:19,510 --> 00:58:23,890 but it doesn't mean we have to throw the classics out and we have to throw the things that we did out before. 439 00:58:23,890 --> 00:58:28,030 We just have to find a new way of telling them that is relevant to us now, which is the whole. 440 00:58:28,030 --> 00:58:31,840 The point of all art, and if you can't do that, then why do it? 441 00:58:31,840 --> 00:58:36,100 You know, so I think it's really exciting. Yeah, and there are so many more. 442 00:58:36,100 --> 00:58:43,420 Well, I think there are a lot more female writers. I don't know if there are, but I feel like in the last few years, female directors, 443 00:58:43,420 --> 00:58:50,450 people of colour, I think that there's a we can that there's been a window of we need it. 444 00:58:50,450 --> 00:58:56,060 There are people doing it because they've been a lot of us quite long in the tooth and have been around for a while. 445 00:58:56,060 --> 00:59:00,250 And so people are coming to it because they think, oh, this is a career I could do. 446 00:59:00,250 --> 00:59:03,250 How much of all this trajectory, though, really takes you by surprise? 447 00:59:03,250 --> 00:59:10,370 In other words, when you got to Rodder, for instance, is there any provision for wanting to write or I mean, it's an acting academy. 448 00:59:10,370 --> 00:59:16,540 Yeah. Do you have writing classes? Yes, we did. We had playwriting classes that were about analysis. 449 00:59:16,540 --> 00:59:23,770 But also we did we had a term of writing Lloyd Trott's, who still teaches at RADA. 450 00:59:23,770 --> 00:59:25,720 We have playwriting classes with him. 451 00:59:25,720 --> 00:59:34,630 And he he brought in a writer who taught us and I remember the exercises that stuck with me for a term he taught us and he sent us out and he said, 452 00:59:34,630 --> 00:59:39,670 listen to a conversation on the tube or in a shop or whatever it is, listen to a conversation, 453 00:59:39,670 --> 00:59:47,260 write it down as accurately as you can, cast your fellow classmates and then direct them in that conversation. 454 00:59:47,260 --> 00:59:56,770 And it's such a it's a basic writing exercise to just get reality and accuracy and character in language. 455 00:59:56,770 --> 01:00:01,030 So, yes, absolutely rather didn't. I mean, it is an acting training completely. 456 01:00:01,030 --> 01:00:05,920 But if you have and especially now, I think that's really expanded because acting and writing, 457 01:00:05,920 --> 01:00:12,130 they're they're encouraging, diversifying your talents and using everything you have, which is brilliant. 458 01:00:12,130 --> 01:00:18,970 And I guess there were avenues it wasn't as clear because I didn't know I was a writer when I was a writer. 459 01:00:18,970 --> 01:00:22,690 So you weren't writing kind of no scenes for your classmates? No. 460 01:00:22,690 --> 01:00:30,700 Although the last play I did, which we do as public performance for agents and directors to come and watch us and hopefully hire us wasn't terrible. 461 01:00:30,700 --> 01:00:35,380 It was a terrible, terrible forehand. And we were all appalled that this was our last show. 462 01:00:35,380 --> 01:00:42,670 It was awful writing. So I literally every night went home and rewrote the scene and I had never written anything in my life. 463 01:00:42,670 --> 01:00:48,040 I thought it can't be any worse than what this thing is. And if this is meant to show off our talents, it's not good enough. 464 01:00:48,040 --> 01:00:54,160 So on my own, I might have been a typewriter. I mean, it was 1990, you know, it's a long time ago. 465 01:00:54,160 --> 01:00:59,830 I can't remember if it was maybe a computer, but I brought in a scene each day and I rewrote the play. 466 01:00:59,830 --> 01:01:03,570 I love it. I get credit for it. Do you remember? I don't think I could. 467 01:01:03,570 --> 01:01:10,150 It is quite a big writer, but it was a terrible thing when I read it. 468 01:01:10,150 --> 01:01:14,820 Yes, it's been sharpened. I was that good. 469 01:01:14,820 --> 01:01:21,010 But in fact, I was wondering, following on from that, as an actor for hire now by other playwrights, 470 01:01:21,010 --> 01:01:26,890 do you think the parents are going to think, I'm not sure about her because she's going to go home and sort of rewrite my script? 471 01:01:26,890 --> 01:01:32,320 And actually, I wanted to say what I wrote. Yeah, there absolutely. I have to be I have to put my writer head away. 472 01:01:32,320 --> 01:01:37,810 But I'm also extremely respectful of the writers because I think, my God, I can come in here and go, no, I wouldn't say that. 473 01:01:37,810 --> 01:01:43,930 But you spent years working out what I would say. And so I'm very dogged about learning the lines I'm given. 474 01:01:43,930 --> 01:01:50,920 And if they're not, if they don't make sense because there's something that they've missed, I will respectfully offer it through the right channels. 475 01:01:50,920 --> 01:01:53,320 But what about because, you know, you do film and television. 476 01:01:53,320 --> 01:01:59,470 And of course, the adage about screen is that we say films aren't written, they're rewritten because everything gets tweaked at the last minute. 477 01:01:59,470 --> 01:02:03,820 Or sometimes you've got a star who just says, I'm going to say whatever I want to say and who cares what the script says. 478 01:02:03,820 --> 01:02:07,660 So what happens on a film set? Is it just a kind of free for all? 479 01:02:07,660 --> 01:02:14,200 I don't do film very much, but on TV some some of them are much more relaxed and some of them are dogged about the lines. 480 01:02:14,200 --> 01:02:20,200 So you just have to see what the rules are and that particular one and and play by their rules. 481 01:02:20,200 --> 01:02:25,390 But I am very respectful because there's nothing worse. I mean, we're all where we're all in it together. 482 01:02:25,390 --> 01:02:29,470 Right. And we're all it takes a long time for anything to get made. 483 01:02:29,470 --> 01:02:37,780 And when you do, that's a time for celebration. And I often feel when I'm writing and I'm in the rehearsal room, it's a fabulously collaborative time, 484 01:02:37,780 --> 01:02:41,290 but everybody's literally shaking you to get the best out of you. 485 01:02:41,290 --> 01:02:44,800 It's quite exhausting because they're going like this doesn't make sense. 486 01:02:44,800 --> 01:02:48,820 That doesn't work. We need to and ultimately it makes the project better. 487 01:02:48,820 --> 01:02:58,510 But it is hard. So I'm really I know what the writer is going through when someone goes, I wouldn't say that, you know, well, then offer something. 488 01:02:58,510 --> 01:03:01,750 What would you say? And why wouldn't you say it as opposed to I don't like it. 489 01:03:01,750 --> 01:03:04,960 So easy to blame the lines. Yeah, well, that must be interesting because I'm sure it's not. 490 01:03:04,960 --> 01:03:07,450 You've been part of many a cast where at the end of the days you say, 491 01:03:07,450 --> 01:03:12,670 let's all go off to the pub and dis the writer and now you know that you're the one who's being dis. 492 01:03:12,670 --> 01:03:18,610 Yeah. So you can play both sides of the equation. Was it always a no brainer that you would go into the theatre? 493 01:03:18,610 --> 01:03:24,550 Did you have some sort of other career percolating when you were young? No, I was always going to be an actor once I worked out what it is. 494 01:03:24,550 --> 01:03:27,960 I liked drama, but but once I worked out this. 495 01:03:27,960 --> 01:03:34,260 Could be a job I was always going to be. And when did you work that out? I think I was six six. 496 01:03:34,260 --> 01:03:39,870 OK, that's pretty good. Yeah, I was six, but my dad found out when I was 14. 497 01:03:39,870 --> 01:03:44,520 I then went, oh, never mind, you'll grow out of that. And then and then I didn't. 498 01:03:44,520 --> 01:03:48,000 But he was pretty glad when you got to Toronto. Yes, he was. 499 01:03:48,000 --> 01:03:54,600 He didn't know what it was to start with. And then, um, because I was gonna go to university and my drama teacher said, try, just try. 500 01:03:54,600 --> 01:03:58,380 And I thought, I'm never going to get it. I'll have a go. And then the first audition, I was in love with it. 501 01:03:58,380 --> 01:04:02,040 I thought, oh, my God, you could do theatre all day. All day. 502 01:04:02,040 --> 01:04:06,600 They teach you fencing and voice. And I was like, oh, my God, this is amazing. 503 01:04:06,600 --> 01:04:10,770 And so by the third audition, the third record, I want to get in. 504 01:04:10,770 --> 01:04:16,260 And when I did get in, I said to my dad, I got into Rada and then he's a he's a surgeon. 505 01:04:16,260 --> 01:04:21,270 So he went to the theatre, see the other theatre, and he was doing an operation. 506 01:04:21,270 --> 01:04:26,390 And the nurses he told his colleagues that I'd gotten into Rada and they were like, oh, that's. 507 01:04:26,390 --> 01:04:31,510 Think if I knew it and then he changed his mind, yes, you can go so from one theatre to the other. 508 01:04:31,510 --> 01:04:39,880 Yeah, totally. Yes, absolutely. We've got some great questions coming in with the other questions. 509 01:04:39,880 --> 01:04:45,010 So one person wants to know, what do you really want to adapt for theatre? 510 01:04:45,010 --> 01:04:49,180 I mean, it sounds like you got other things that you'd love to get your hands on. 511 01:04:49,180 --> 01:04:55,900 You know, I'm doing them so and I can't talk about them until until they're out there. 512 01:04:55,900 --> 01:04:59,890 But I only pick things that I want to do. 513 01:04:59,890 --> 01:05:05,260 It's the luxury of being an actor. What do you think draws you to the things that is hard to know what the hook is? 514 01:05:05,260 --> 01:05:13,300 Actually, I haven't quite worked it out, but I know when I get the hook because I don't know, it's an instinctive, immediate thing. 515 01:05:13,300 --> 01:05:18,830 And there's some I've been approached with some amazing projects, but I haven't had the hook. 516 01:05:18,830 --> 01:05:27,070 And so I think, well, yes, I could do it. But the luxury, you know, it's it's really nice that I can just take so long to write anything. 517 01:05:27,070 --> 01:05:32,470 You know, it takes two years or more. So you really and I need something that will keep me coming back. 518 01:05:32,470 --> 01:05:36,490 So I need that hook. So to some extent, in, I think some red velvet, 519 01:05:36,490 --> 01:05:42,520 this talk about what makes an important play is that that's something I wanted to be important in some way to you, to other people. 520 01:05:42,520 --> 01:05:45,190 It needs to move. You need to have a good time. 521 01:05:45,190 --> 01:05:52,090 So I'm a big fan of theatre that is enjoyment, not endurance, because I think we come out to have a good time. 522 01:05:52,090 --> 01:06:01,240 Right. That is ultimately the point is it's entertainment. But if I can make you feel and that can be laughter or crying or anything, 523 01:06:01,240 --> 01:06:09,280 I want to give you a good story where you get immersed and you travel and you feel and I love truth. 524 01:06:09,280 --> 01:06:14,260 Humanity. Yeah. 525 01:06:14,260 --> 01:06:17,890 And somebody else, as he mentioned, working with a Bollywood composer with you. 526 01:06:17,890 --> 01:06:26,920 Imagine working on musicals at some stage, too. Yes, I'd love to do a musical, actually, and especially having a husband who can do it. 527 01:06:26,920 --> 01:06:35,680 Yeah, you can do all. I did have an idea for a musical that hasn't had it far and found its place yet, but my agent says, wait, just wait. 528 01:06:35,680 --> 01:06:39,910 And she's right because actually you push an idea and it goes nowhere. 529 01:06:39,910 --> 01:06:48,580 And then a few years later, a door opens. So you get a sense of there's I mean, like with red velvet, it suddenly arrived at just the right moment. 530 01:06:48,580 --> 01:06:51,910 Is there a sense that have you got an instinct for that? 531 01:06:51,910 --> 01:06:56,710 You realise speaks to that moment that when things will arrive? Oh, no, not at all. 532 01:06:56,710 --> 01:07:01,120 I wish I did. That would be brilliant. Then I'll just be working constantly. I wish I did know. 533 01:07:01,120 --> 01:07:06,730 I've got a story that I worked on for 20 years and and it's a true story. 534 01:07:06,730 --> 01:07:10,720 And it's about a murder that happened in nineteen sixty that my dad was involved in. 535 01:07:10,720 --> 01:07:14,830 And I've written it as a film. I've invented it as a TV. 536 01:07:14,830 --> 01:07:20,990 I've gone through so many companies to make it into a TV three parter and everyone goes, oh it's brilliant. 537 01:07:20,990 --> 01:07:31,780 What a fabulous story. No. So but now twenty years later, theatres are interested in it and and it feels like it's not easy. 538 01:07:31,780 --> 01:07:38,770 I have to write it, but but it's there. And so if I'd known 20 years ago I had to wait, then maybe it would be easier. 539 01:07:38,770 --> 01:07:45,370 But no, I didn't know. How does it feel like a real transformation, thinking of writing it now for theatre when you'd been seeing it as something. 540 01:07:45,370 --> 01:07:49,660 Yeah. Screen. Yeah, but I like writing across every genre. 541 01:07:49,660 --> 01:07:55,630 I like it because there's such different disciplines and I work in all of them. I don't as an actor I haven't done very much film, I've done a bit. 542 01:07:55,630 --> 01:08:00,580 But I mean I've adapted Red Velvet into a film and it's it's brilliant to write 543 01:08:00,580 --> 01:08:04,810 for these different forms because it demands different storytelling skills. 544 01:08:04,810 --> 01:08:08,920 What do you feel are the essential different storytelling skills for each theatre? 545 01:08:08,920 --> 01:08:13,870 Is all relationship. TV is story, story, story, story. 546 01:08:13,870 --> 01:08:20,080 Get on. Where are we going? What are we going to go somewhere exciting and film is. 547 01:08:20,080 --> 01:08:31,720 Film is a bit more of an auteur ship of. Scale, you can tell scale, but you can tell such detail in it, because I don't need to make you say anything, 548 01:08:31,720 --> 01:08:35,950 I just need to give you a setting that tells me what you're feeling. 549 01:08:35,950 --> 01:08:42,580 So it's not about dialogue. It's about the whole picture. 550 01:08:42,580 --> 01:08:51,100 Um, we have another question is what do you think the outlook is, the drama students graduating this year and. 551 01:08:51,100 --> 01:09:03,400 Yeah, it's been so tough, I feel anybody who's under 23, 24 and an education of any time from age four upwards, I think how hard is this time? 552 01:09:03,400 --> 01:09:10,780 It's interesting, actually, because although it's probably felt really hard, how can you do drama on a zoom? 553 01:09:10,780 --> 01:09:22,360 How can you do a movement class and a fencing class on a zoom? But there is the thing about our industry is not adaptation as in books, 554 01:09:22,360 --> 01:09:28,960 but you adapt to the different situations and that adaptation creates something new. 555 01:09:28,960 --> 01:09:34,660 And I think that drama students will have been hungry as we've all been hungry to do. 556 01:09:34,660 --> 01:09:38,620 What you want to do will hopefully have been reading and we've all been watching. 557 01:09:38,620 --> 01:09:44,770 If we're not drama students, we will all be watching TV but stories and imagining who what we can play, 558 01:09:44,770 --> 01:09:51,550 what are our strengths, what are our weaknesses. And the industry is hungry for young people. 559 01:09:51,550 --> 01:09:58,390 It just is. You need the next you need the next person who's going to replace the person before it's just how it works. 560 01:09:58,390 --> 01:10:06,520 So I don't think they'll it's going to be hard because so many theatres and and companies will be struggling financially. 561 01:10:06,520 --> 01:10:10,870 But there will be other innovative ways that people are telling stories. 562 01:10:10,870 --> 01:10:20,470 And there is this absolute you know, like Rada I'm still involved with RADA are very much about diversify. 563 01:10:20,470 --> 01:10:26,260 Right. Act, direct, sing, dance. If you've got the skills, go for it. 564 01:10:26,260 --> 01:10:32,810 And I think that is going to bring about a whole new kind of type of performer. 565 01:10:32,810 --> 01:10:42,200 And Madeline says, do you do any research when doing or adaptations, whether it's funny, Alexander Hamlett, it's a little leucovorin. 566 01:10:42,200 --> 01:10:47,900 And does your research change if you are acting or writing so completely predicting a huge 567 01:10:47,900 --> 01:10:53,390 amount of research for things like completely our old and different kinds of research? 568 01:10:53,390 --> 01:10:57,860 Oh, my God. Are you ever wary of research? No, I love this research. 569 01:10:57,860 --> 01:11:06,590 Fabulous. Because truth is so much more interesting than fiction and the detail you get from truth in the film of Red Velvet, 570 01:11:06,590 --> 01:11:13,430 I've put Edmund Kean back in because he was originally in a draught, but he didn't serve the narrative of the state yet. 571 01:11:13,430 --> 01:11:22,340 So he's off stage. But in the film, I put him back in as a character and I was just rereading all my research for the film and oh, it's brilliant. 572 01:11:22,340 --> 01:11:31,940 Edmund Kean used to ride a horse everywhere and he used to ride it up the stairs into Drury Lane Theatre and his horse was called Shylock. 573 01:11:31,940 --> 01:11:36,020 Now, who would have to say that? What is it that's got to be there? 574 01:11:36,020 --> 01:11:40,430 I mean, you just think, oh, I can't imagine. You could not. 575 01:11:40,430 --> 01:11:49,010 And he was he was a he was a fabulous, amazing actor and a drunk, amazing drunk on the horse going. 576 01:11:49,010 --> 01:11:50,820 Exactly. Exactly. Called Shylock. 577 01:11:50,820 --> 01:11:57,470 What we know is I don't know if that's right to call him Shylock on a film, but I just think how could you I would never imagine that. 578 01:11:57,470 --> 01:12:02,060 So I love research. I do much more research as a writer than an actor. 579 01:12:02,060 --> 01:12:09,920 As an actor, I'm responding more to just one part. And if there's anything that I'm talking about, then I need to know what it is. 580 01:12:09,920 --> 01:12:11,330 So I'll look those things up. 581 01:12:11,330 --> 01:12:18,560 But it's much more instinctive as an actor in terms of why am I saying this in this situation and what should I know, what context am I in? 582 01:12:18,560 --> 01:12:24,680 But as a writer, I yeah, I research all the time, even down to in red velvet. 583 01:12:24,680 --> 01:12:28,790 They're having tea constantly, I thought, did they have milk and tea. 584 01:12:28,790 --> 01:12:33,050 So I Googled and I found out that China was so, such a nerdy thing. 585 01:12:33,050 --> 01:12:38,090 I become a real nut. China was so thin that if you put hot tea in it, it might crack. 586 01:12:38,090 --> 01:12:41,870 So you put your milk in first and then and they did if it wouldn't crack. 587 01:12:41,870 --> 01:12:48,650 So in eighteen thirty three, that is how they have to. So now we know why we go there. 588 01:12:48,650 --> 01:12:53,150 We only find China. There we go. Brilliant. 589 01:12:53,150 --> 01:13:01,210 Have you ever found something out that's been really unhelpful. Yes, and then you have to work around it for your storytelling. 590 01:13:01,210 --> 01:13:07,780 So I found out for Red Velvet that I had met, had played with Charles, 591 01:13:07,780 --> 01:13:16,930 came in in Belfast in 1829, and the play is set in 80, I think twenty nine or thirty one. 592 01:13:16,930 --> 01:13:23,020 And then he meets Charles in my play in 1833. And Charles doesn't play with him. 593 01:13:23,020 --> 01:13:27,100 And Charles is not meant to know that he's a black actor. How do I get past that? 594 01:13:27,100 --> 01:13:35,500 If actually he actually met him and played and in this version he's saying I won't play with him and I didn't know he was black. 595 01:13:35,500 --> 01:13:41,920 So Adrian said to me, you have to make it fit the facts, which I can't. 596 01:13:41,920 --> 01:13:45,160 I can't. How do I just pretend that it's not there? 597 01:13:45,160 --> 01:13:53,800 And he said, but people will know that they played together in 18, 20 whenever it was, and then it negates this part of the story. 598 01:13:53,800 --> 01:14:00,220 So I kind of gave in after months of like I gave in and I've worked out a way to tell the story. 599 01:14:00,220 --> 01:14:04,720 And I basically Charles was meant in my story. 600 01:14:04,720 --> 01:14:10,090 Charles, the playbills were printed, but Charles was ill, so he didn't turn up. 601 01:14:10,090 --> 01:14:15,580 So he never, never he thinks that he played it. But, you know, I said, well, I have invented. 602 01:14:15,580 --> 01:14:20,080 And who's going to say this funny lately? We're going with the version. 603 01:14:20,080 --> 01:14:27,730 It's also a question about what what kind of involvement do you have when one of 604 01:14:27,730 --> 01:14:32,530 your plays transfers like for Manchester or Birmingham ever to the West End? 605 01:14:32,530 --> 01:14:39,820 So when Invisible Cities went from Manchester to Brisbane, sadly, I wasn't asked to Brisbane and it was the same production. 606 01:14:39,820 --> 01:14:45,040 So I was unnecessary. I mean, the writer, if the writer is necessary, you go with it. 607 01:14:45,040 --> 01:14:49,860 But in something like that, it was written and ready and done with Life of Pi. 608 01:14:49,860 --> 01:14:58,580 I will be no, I'm completely involved. So involved in any casting in any decisions because the space has changed. 609 01:14:58,580 --> 01:15:07,630 So the script might need to change to suit it. So but I'll be in rehearsals less so when we did it in Sheffield, I was in rehearsals every day, 610 01:15:07,630 --> 01:15:13,990 but when I was invisible cities in this one, I'll, I'll be there intermittently but on the end of a phone if I need to do anything. 611 01:15:13,990 --> 01:15:16,510 And in previews, previews are really important. 612 01:15:16,510 --> 01:15:22,390 So I'll watch every preview so that then you can just do the tweaks because once you see it up and running with the audience, 613 01:15:22,390 --> 01:15:30,550 which is the extra telling of what the story is, then you need to change it and shift things about. 614 01:15:30,550 --> 01:15:36,970 And how's that been? So with him where you didn't have an audience or not there. 615 01:15:36,970 --> 01:15:40,990 So you can feel it at the time. Yeah. So how does it feel we had to do it. 616 01:15:40,990 --> 01:15:41,530 How different. 617 01:15:41,530 --> 01:15:51,460 Yeah, we had to do it the other way round so that the two actors hammered the script, as did the director and Rippert and staff at the Almeda. 618 01:15:51,460 --> 01:15:55,870 You know, everybody went to the script and I changed it, changed it, changed it. 619 01:15:55,870 --> 01:15:59,770 And then and then we just did it. Yeah, we just did it. 620 01:15:59,770 --> 01:16:04,120 And I mean, it's that thing of making it a chocolate. 621 01:16:04,120 --> 01:16:08,120 It needs to be something that's enjoyable. And you take the whole thing and it's wonderful. 622 01:16:08,120 --> 01:16:12,340 It doesn't outstay. It's welcome. So length was really important. 623 01:16:12,340 --> 01:16:18,160 I'm going to make a couple of little tweaks and changes when we hopefully get to do it live again, 624 01:16:18,160 --> 01:16:22,870 because then you see how it's working and then you can just change it a little bit to make it better. 625 01:16:22,870 --> 01:16:29,620 Have you got a real hunger for that being doing the work with the with the sound of people responding? 626 01:16:29,620 --> 01:16:39,220 Yeah, there were bits that I wrote literally for audiences, you know, and, uh, and they don't work when there's no audience. 627 01:16:39,220 --> 01:16:44,020 So the actors are just with each other, you know, or on their own. 628 01:16:44,020 --> 01:16:54,730 And without that hum of how people respond when they pick up on something or they laugh, you know, that sense to hear that is is love. 629 01:16:54,730 --> 01:16:59,650 I think it's extraordinary at the end of the streaming of him where the Adrian and Danny Bough. 630 01:16:59,650 --> 01:17:06,550 Yeah, but of course. Yeah. They're not bowing to the thunderous applause that we are giving them through a screen. 631 01:17:06,550 --> 01:17:10,400 So it'll be lovely to do that in. Yes. And get the applause. Yeah. 632 01:17:10,400 --> 01:17:14,590 Yeah. Those are the moments you feel sort of breath when you can't say thank you. 633 01:17:14,590 --> 01:17:18,010 And if it's part of the experience it can be an experience. Yeah. 634 01:17:18,010 --> 01:17:22,070 It's us being vital as audience. You think you're important. Yeah, right. 635 01:17:22,070 --> 01:17:28,850 Right. But when audiences audience, you have to play your part. 636 01:17:28,850 --> 01:17:33,020 And there's a question, really important question is what is the first play you will go and see? 637 01:17:33,020 --> 01:17:43,010 And this is for you as Matt as well. When we can go to theatres, what's like what will be on on if you got a you can actually do it. 638 01:17:43,010 --> 01:17:49,690 Yes, it's my, you know, life and it's a play called Herding Cats. 639 01:17:49,690 --> 01:17:56,110 I listen to Coxon and it's coming next week to the Soho Theatre in Soho and it's only, I think, four, five per. 640 01:17:56,110 --> 01:18:00,980 Promises, but it's got a very interesting trick to this version of it. 641 01:18:00,980 --> 01:18:08,330 There are three characters in the play and in this version of it, two of the actors will be in the room at the Soho Theatre in front of us. 642 01:18:08,330 --> 01:18:12,230 And the third actor, Greg Sherman, will be appearing simultaneously. 643 01:18:12,230 --> 01:18:18,470 I mean, [INAUDIBLE] be part of the cast, but beamed in from L.A., which is eight hours earlier. 644 01:18:18,470 --> 01:18:22,400 So it'll be seven thirty U.K. time in the evening at eleven. 645 01:18:22,400 --> 01:18:29,060 Thirty in the morning. I wonder if they'll black out the windows so that he's in the same time frame he's in the evening, 646 01:18:29,060 --> 01:18:32,510 because that's very strange if he's in daylight, unless he's meant to be an American. 647 01:18:32,510 --> 01:18:38,930 And also, of course, I don't know, the place will be looking to see to what extent maybe that is allowed by the narrative. 648 01:18:38,930 --> 01:18:43,700 Maybe he's a character. He's an outsider. Yeah, that's one [INAUDIBLE] of a way to be an outsider. 649 01:18:43,700 --> 01:18:51,320 Also, if they're ready for the ad libbing and improvising built in for when the Internet connexion goes well, 650 01:18:51,320 --> 01:18:58,340 for sure, the understudy is sitting in the third row and the. 651 01:18:58,340 --> 01:19:06,970 Have you got a top of the list go to. The life of Pi is obviously visible right there. 652 01:19:06,970 --> 01:19:10,880 Yes, and then there's a couple of other things that I'm going to be involved in, but they're not announced yet. 653 01:19:10,880 --> 01:19:15,380 So I can't I can't say anything. What are you a play go with? 654 01:19:15,380 --> 01:19:20,060 I mean, do you like going to the theatre just to do kind of free night where you just go to see something? 655 01:19:20,060 --> 01:19:24,140 Because I have got kids who are older now. I haven't been that free to just do it easily. 656 01:19:24,140 --> 01:19:28,370 But yes, with planning, I've definitely gone once or twice a week, not nowhere near as much as you have to. 657 01:19:28,370 --> 01:19:36,350 Twice a week is a lot. Yeah. Yes, definitely. I like it. You have to you can't write for the theatre and not see spaces and people and writing and. 658 01:19:36,350 --> 01:19:40,790 Well the news out there is. Yeah. And to see how stories work and know. 659 01:19:40,790 --> 01:19:45,950 Yeah I do get a last question that's come in then we are going to be totally over time. 660 01:19:45,950 --> 01:19:53,300 Is the curriculum in schools and universities in the right place or going in the right direction to support theatre in the arts. 661 01:19:53,300 --> 01:20:00,220 So I don't know anything about the curriculum in schools and universities other than cuts are being, um. 662 01:20:00,220 --> 01:20:05,980 Pushed, so if you're cutting the arts, no. What do you think we should be doing? 663 01:20:05,980 --> 01:20:11,050 What would you love to see? What kind of directions do you think we should be celebrating? 664 01:20:11,050 --> 01:20:15,060 Writing, acting, dance? Doesn't matter if you can do it or not. 665 01:20:15,060 --> 01:20:21,070 It's about confidence. It's it it assists performance and understanding. 666 01:20:21,070 --> 01:20:29,650 Performance assists you in all elements of your life, being able to imagine being in someone else's shoes, being able to see what a story does, 667 01:20:29,650 --> 01:20:31,720 whether you think you're into the arts or not, 668 01:20:31,720 --> 01:20:40,510 you're reading books or watching TV or playing video games which have stories, you know, story surrounds us and we need it. 669 01:20:40,510 --> 01:20:46,210 So it is about respecting it actually, let alone the amount of money that we bring into the country. 670 01:20:46,210 --> 01:20:55,930 So to put it in its rightful place, it is as valuable as the sciences in the maths and the humanities, all the different subjects that we do. 671 01:20:55,930 --> 01:21:03,400 It's essential to our existence, which is, I think, what has really been shown in the pandemic where we've all been locked away. 672 01:21:03,400 --> 01:21:10,490 And if you don't encourage the makers of the future. 673 01:21:10,490 --> 01:21:15,980 What are you doing? Absolutely. Thank you. 674 01:21:15,980 --> 01:21:21,470 Thank you. That was just wonderful. Thank you all for sending wonderful questions. 675 01:21:21,470 --> 01:21:30,500 Thank you for joining us. Here is two theatres opening to us bring together and a proper full funding to the arts. 676 01:21:30,500 --> 01:21:37,700 We love the Culture Recovery Fund. Keep it there and keep supporting the arts in the universities and in schools and so on. 677 01:21:37,700 --> 01:21:41,900 And thank you to the Torch and Story Museum for setting this up. 678 01:21:41,900 --> 01:21:47,070 On the twenty seventh of May, we have Alice Oswald giving the professor poetry lecture. 679 01:21:47,070 --> 01:21:52,190 So maybe reconvening with everybody online again then. 680 01:21:52,190 --> 01:22:06,328 But stay safe and thank you.