Jonathan Miller - Theatre and Opera Director HARDtalk


Jonathan Miller - Theatre and Opera Director

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private investment. On BBC News, time for HARDtalk. Welcome to

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HARDtalk. My guests today has had a career of mind-boggling diversity

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and creativity, at devise an easy label. Jonathan Miller, is known as

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a director and producer of brown theatre. He is also a writer,

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performer, sculptor and photographer, who trained in

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medicine and sometimes seems more fulfilled by science than his life

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in the arts. For five decades, he has been a dominant figure in

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British cultural life, but he has never seemed entirely at ease with

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HARDtalk. Thank you, it is nice to be here. Scientists and artists. Is

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it possible for you to tell me which matters more to you? It is quite

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hard to put any sort of emphasis on one at the expense of another. I was

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brought up and learnt to be a biological scientist, eventually

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taking up the medicine. Then, by an accident, fell into the theatre, and

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went on to do it as a result of receiving many invitations to do

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more. Can I start without? Were you seduced by performance, by the

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stage? By the adoration of crowds question mark absolutely not.

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just that I had finished qualifying as a doctor. Someone came from

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Oxford, saying, would I like to take part in a show at the Edinburgh

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Festival? It was with two people from Oxford, me and someone from

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cabbage. It was much more successful than any of us thought it would be

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-- Cambridge. It played in London for nearly 18 months. And to remind

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people who aren't aware of how big it was, we're about names that

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resonated for years. Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett, and you.

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We come back to this notion of seduction. You had in on a track to

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go into scientific research... neurophysiology and neuropsychology.

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I thought that I would take time out, I never thought it would lead

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to a succession of unsolicited invitations to do something else.

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suppose, particularly since the publication of a long biography of

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you recently, which was titled, in two minds, there is a temptation to

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see a constant tension within Europe between the desire to prove yourself

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as a scientist, and your equally strong attraction to performance, to

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directing, to that world of entertainment. I was always

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interested... Performance was something I did very briefly, for

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that to a half years. I never performed again. I used to present

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television, but that was not performance, that was a way of

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talking about my interests. I went on doing television for the history

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of medicine and that sort of thing, I talk to psychologists and so

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forth. I don't think I felt, I was in two minds. I wished I had gone in

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-- gone on ?I ? -- gone on tended to do, or which my parents intended

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me to do, but something cropped up which I could never have

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anticipated. I don't want to sit here and sound like a very

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unqualified psychiatrists, but your father was a psychiatrist, a very

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famous one. I was just wondering whether, throughout your life, for

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all of the successes we will talk about in theatre and opera and

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elsewhere, there was a nagging sense that you should be someone else?

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Yes. I felt I will take time out, do the show, make some extra money,

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because you did not get paid much as a junior doctor. I thought it would

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give me a little more affluence and I could take up jobs that won't that

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well-paid in those days. One thing led to another. I just simply

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Mariano Rajoy -- gradually drifted away. All the interests I had

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developed from the age of about 16 onwards in biology and in the

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history of ideas continue to preoccupy me to this day. We will

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talk about this later. I want to get into theatre now. Your career is

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amazing in that one looks through the course of it, and you have done

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a lot of Shakespeare. You've been with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

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You have done New York. You have directed performances all over the

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world. You have worked with Laurence Olivier, all sorts of greats. And

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yet, again, an odd thing. You don't seem to like the theatre that much.

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It is not that I dislike it, I like doing it, but I don't like going to

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it. My parents used to take me to the old Vic, and I could remember

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seeing Shakespeare. Nowadays, the last 20 or 30 years, I have hardly

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gone to the theatre, I enjoy making it and doing it. There are tasks

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that preoccupy me, which go back to what it was that interested me in

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medicine. You make it sound almost a soulless and technical... No, it is

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a way of really investigating what the soul is, if it exists. One of

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the things that preoccupies me about the theatre and performance, what is

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it for someone to be a living person? What is it that I would

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encourage them as a director to do to convince the audience that they

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are in the presence of someone other than the actor who is doing it on

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the stage. I was very struck by something you told the New York

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Times years ago, that you, it was about the little details. We talk

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about the size you worked with, and no one could begin with anyone other

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than Olivier, even for him, was a key question of persuading him the

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tiniest of details on stage, the mannerisms, the hand movements that

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they matter in must lay. That is what this is all about. That is what

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I was encouraged to direct my attention to as a young doctor will

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stop the diagnostic skill is partly to do with noticing something which

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would otherwise pass unrecognised. Then, you build up a diagnosis on

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the basis of it. You worked with Olivier when you were relatively a

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young director, and he was an ageing superstar. You have always had a

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repetition for being forceful. Never forceful. If I was forceful, it was

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because I reminded people, my performance of what they knew

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anyway. The forcefulness was just simply them saying, oh yes, of

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course, how stupid not to have remembered that will stop I have

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never, with one or two exceptions, ever bullied someone to do things

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that they did not recognise was truthful. If you don't mind, we will

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come back to that. But I am struck with you not having worked in

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theatre for sometime, you are back and you have a play that was not

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very well known. I admit I did not know it. I did not know much about

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it, at all. I was invited to do it, I read it, I thought it was

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marvellous. I have been doing it on tour. Having not done it for six

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years, and this is a quote from the Independent newspaper, you said, I

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am not interested in the theatre and frank we never was, are you would

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juices flowing again? They always were flowing. I enjoyed doing

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theatre, I enjoy directing. Not because I am dictatorial. It is not

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directing in that sense. I like the collective experience of working

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from 10am in the morning until 530 in the evening with people finding

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out how to be someone else. Talking about Olivier and the past, do you

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think that right now in theatre, I am thinking of the London West End,

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there is a preoccupation with getting the biggest names,

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particularly for movies and television onto the stage. Is it

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getting in the way of good production? Yes, I think it might

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be. I don't know, because I have not seen many of them. To be fair, it

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hasn't stopped you from commenting. I comment only in the sense that if

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you are interested only in casting celebrities, the chances are that

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you are not interested in directing the negligible details of reality.

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That is the only thing that the -- interests me. I am very interested

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in people doing things, and getting people who are pretending to be

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someone else to do things so realistically that the audience can

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actually maintain this double vision of delighting in the fact that they

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are seeing this that or the other known actor pretending to be someone

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who they aren't will stop isn't there something really important

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about getting big names into the theatre, in the sense that, I can

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speak from personal experience, I took my daughter to see Macbeth.

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knew from a couple of movies who he was. I looked around, there were

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more than an average number of young people. Young boys and girls in the

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audience. It seemed to me that was what one way in which theatre is

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reaching out to a new audience. Maybe now that is the case. There is

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a great deal of, as you know in this medium, in all media, there is a

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preoccupation with celebrity. And I think that an awful lot of young

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people have become seduced by famous names, and they will go to see

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someone who is famous am rather than engaging in the absolutely

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extraordinary experience of seeing people are tending to be people that

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they are not. Of course, Olivier was a superstar. Perhaps you are judging

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these names today because then made their names in television, and

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perhaps you don't care to that. but there were still lots of people

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who were not superstars, when I'd worked with Olivier, I worked with

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extremely distinguished younger actors who were not at that time

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very famous, but who were extraordinary. Olivier, I bless him

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to this, never loomed larger than the other people with whom he was

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working. He just simply took part in a community of performance. That was

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what was so attractive. I think that when people came to see it, although

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there were obviously delighted to see someone like him, they were also

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delighted to see that he was participating in something where in

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fact lots of people were acting really. The cliched phrase is,

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dumbing down. I wonder if you, when surveying British culture, looking

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across theatre and television, whether you sense a dumbing down of

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high art. Do you worry about it? do worry about it. It means people

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are distracted from most of what is interesting about high art, if there

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is such a term. The arts are interesting, all should be

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interesting, because it actually draws your attention to aspects of

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reality and aspects of your own personal experience, which you would

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otherwise overlook. That is the only thing that interests me. What is

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something that is alive? How does it display itself and make itself

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distinct from the inanimate? But it is also important to reach a broad

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audience. I do not think that is important at all. You are happy to

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put on a show that attracts an elite audience? Not an elite audience, but

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an audience that already has an interest in seeing something like

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that, in seeing something real. Not interested in having a statistically

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larger number of people coming to watch it then otherwise would. It is

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very nice, in fact, if the theatre is packed. But I am perfectly happy

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to have a theatre... Everyone in the cast is happy if there are 400

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people there, rather than 2000. did a lot of work in opera, not just

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in London. All over the world.We have talked a lot about your

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relationship with the bigger stars. You had a very difficult

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relationship... She wanted to do something that was not proper. She

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wanted to put in two arias. It would make her more noticeable. You said

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they were Jurassic. If I go on doing the same part, over and over

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again... They assume they know the person they are playing. The person

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they are playing does not exist. There are an infinite number of

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versions of the person who bears that name, that might be the

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difference in the way in which you, or whoever, has played it

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previously. I wonder if you ever sought to intimidate. Either you

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were directing or producing for the theatre. No. I have always just

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chatted to people. That is how I direct. Informal conversations. I

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would usually say, "Wouldn't it be interesting to say..." I would not

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put people into fixed positions. When you're singing, we were

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thinking out loud, you must face in one direction and fiddle with your

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clothes, while we were talking. was a fascinating example. Almost

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all of the interesting performers, as opposed to the Jurassic Park

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singers, would say I was right. "I have suddenly discovered the way to

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sing that aria, which I did not know how to do before." Let me flip this

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around a bit. Let me put the spotlight on you. As a star and one

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of the most famous directors in your time, to be honest about it, do you

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thank you had been too thin-skinned, over the years, for your own good?

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--think that you. I'm thin-skinned about being written about by people

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who the audience never meet. There is a wonderful scene where the girls

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go out to some mysterious place, where the Wizard of Oz is. This

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voice booms out of them. The little dog runs across and pulls aside the

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curtain. And you reveal the person who has been the Voice and he is a

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negligible figure. If you are frequently written about and you

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suddenly realise, if only the public had seen the man behind the curtain,

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they maybe... You may disagree with that critic. But he probably was not

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delivering his verdict with malign intent. Yet you take it very

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personally. For example, one famous incident, you reacted really badly

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to criticism from Tom Sutcliffe. Then you happened to meet him. And

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then you had a huge row with him. You allegedly said, "I wish you were

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dead." I never said anything like that. I did not like him. He has

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this way of condescending upwards. Talking about condescension,

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superiority and inferiority. Here is a fabulous quote from you. You said

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having your work assessed by some of the London critics was akin to

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rolling a Faberge egg under a pigsty door. In some respects, I do think

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that. You have one heck of a superiorty complex. I know what I

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can do and I know many of them cannot do it - it's comparable

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things. It is very irritating to be written about by people like the man

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behind the curtain, that the little dog could pull the curtain, so the

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public could see the person. I see what you're saying about critics.

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This is not just about critics. This is a journalistic exaggerated thing,

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the friction. It is true, is it not? You have called Peter Hall a

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safari-styled bureaucrat. I am not certain I ever said anything like

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that. I worked with him very briefly after having worked with a much

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greater figure, Laurence Olivier, who employed me. Then I was kept on

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by Peter Hall in order to give the impression he was not sacking the

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people who were his predecessors' stars. I did not get on with him. I

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did have an enormous amount of condescension from him. I just got

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out. Then he began to talk about me in a way which I found was very

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irritating. It was a madness, that misrepresentation of why I got out.

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You get judged and it is difficult sometimes. Obviously for you.

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just irritating. You strike me as somebody, in the broader sense, as a

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sensitive man. I get irritated. But I never met anyone who works in the

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theatre and who does not have the same sort of feeling about this

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curious sort of condescension which they experience from critics.

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of them did not get in the press, like I do because I write. You have

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the gift of the phrase. I want to move on from that.

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This is difficult, in a way, but in deeper terms, at times of your

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creative life, you have actually struggled. Struggled to find the

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energy to be creative. You have suffered from depression,

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have you? I get gloomy. But most people do, at one time or another. I

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do not think about creativity. I think about what I thought about

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when I was doing medical science or biological science. Theatre has

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struck me as something in which you can be interesting because you have

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recognised, unidentified aspects of human life or aspects of biological

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life which previously had not been seen. That is the only reason why I

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do it. I am driven by something that is sociological, or scientific

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curiosity. Most of the scientific and socialogical curiosity is driven

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by a determination to see what had not been recognised before. You have

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taken a particular path. You have struggled with your skills and

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talents in the sciences and art. Do you regret some of the decisions you

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have taken? Maybe even the path you have taken? Not really, no. But it

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would have been nicer to go on looking at people with pretty

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serious brain damage in order to understand what seeing and acting

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consists of. You once said something very striking. You were asked what

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you would like your legacy to be. You said, "One respected scientific

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paper would be the legacy I would really like." I might have thought

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that at one time. I am perfectly happy to have people see a

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production of mine, which drew their attention to aspects of a human

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existence which they had previously not noticed. That is what is so

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interesting about the arts and the sciences. When you come up with a

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scientific truth, you actually draw people's attention to the aspects of

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