Stage Door Jonny

In the second half of Jonny’s chat with Lesley Manville, Jonny recalls seeing her onstage for the first time in The Cherry Orchard with Judi Dench, what she learned from Judi, the story about working with her that she won’t repeat (but you should hear it, so here it is), why some great performers need to be on the verge of laughter, Tony Sher flashing in Tamburlaine the Great, her 13 projects with Mike Leigh, the man who influenced Lesley’s stage work maybe more than any other, playing a hamster at the Royal Court for a 10 year old, the pressure on young actors now, telling Caryl Churchill how she could improve Serious Money, breaking down the method behind Max Stafford-Clark’s rehearsal process, her response to men who take up too much space in the rehearsal room, where her confidence comes from and the magic- and pitfalls- of last shows. 

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This weeks guest is a gem: Oscar nominee and two time Olivier-award winner, the magnificent Lesley Manville. In her plushly upholstered dressing room at Studio 54, Lesley and Jonny discuss him hunting her like a fox, her upcoming appearance in Marianne Eliott’s Les Liasons Dangereuses, how theatre is a time machine, ending her triumphant run as Jocasta opposite Mark Strong in Robert Icke’s Oedipus on Broadway, her fabled 15 minute monologue, getting ill and wondering whether her lifelong feeling that she didn’t take her characters home with her was really true, wondering if great actors must be private people, Sam Mendes‘s advice about lying and it’s relationship to acting and the all-conquering past that Jonny and Lesley have in common.

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(CONTAINS VERY STRONG LANGUAGE) In the this week’s episode Jonny talks to celebrated theatrical disruptor Tom Morris. They talk about Tom’s most embarrassing moment in the theatre (it’s very embarrassing). His artistic directorship of Battersea Arts Centre and putting on shows without a script; how his work in alternative theatre was incorporated by Nick Hytner at the National; making Jerry Springer: The Opera; making Hytner experience Gay Shame; the genesis of the theatrical mega-hit War Horse; the two types of directors according to Simmo (spoiler: its blockers and wankers); when the floor opens up in front of a director, the paranoia sin-bin and what to do about it; why a puppet and a mirror gave Tom two of his most thrilling experiences at the theatre; why uncertainty in the theatre can provoke the perfect audience state; the creativity of an audience, setting Romeo and Juliet in a care home; what nags at him about the shows he’s done and getting older and less prophetic.

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In the second act of their chat, Sir Greg Doran remembers some of his late husband and leading man, Anthony Sher’s most unforgettable moments; Greg’s theory of “crossroads” and examples of how to meet them; Shakespeare’s radical extremity; Greg’s theory of what plunged the Bard into his late great tragedies; why Ian Mckellen defaces bibles; the comfort to be found after bereavement in Shakespeare’s brutality; the death of Tom Stoppard and Greg’s memories of him- and Tony Sher’s Yahrzeit candle.

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Jonny’s guest for his 100th episode is class on a stick. Sir Gregory Doran is the former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, for 35 years and with the late Sir Anthony Sher one half of one of the most celebrated power couples in British theatre (and possibly the first pair of married Knights). In this episode Jonny and Greg reminisce about meeting on Derek Walcott’s Odyssey, Greg’s padded bra and a portrayal of Lady Anne that silenced his bullies, memories of Tony Sher’s groundbreaking Richard 3rd, being taught a painful lesson by his future husband (that Tony had learned by being kicked up the arse by Jonathan Pryce), how Flaubert helped Greg become a director, killing the laughs at a matinee by announcing the Nobel Prize winner, how new shoes crashed Titus Andronicus’s jeep, throwing crockery at his leading man, Tony Sher’s occasional torment, writing about death as though it were Tony’s next great role and how they are still collaborators after death (on a new book), as they were in life.

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In the second half of Jonny’s chat with Elliot Levey, Elliot makes the case for why good actors submit; how directors reveal themselves through notes and acting that isn’t “mirror-kissing”; the moment Elliot regretted in the theatre and the horrible play that prompted him to nearly leave it mid performance via a fire exit; spending a decade at the National Theatre, how plays stay fresh and why Saturday night shows often smell of farts; what pisses him off about the theatre, the joy of Simon Russell Beale in a tiny part, the many delights of Polonius and a sudden Proustian recall of Jonny at the very beginning of his career.

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Jonny’s guest is the two time Olivier award winner and Loveliest Man in British Equity, Elliot Levey. In his dressing room at the Harold Pinter theatre before his award-winning performance in Mark Rosenblatt’s Giant, Jonny and Elliot begin by lifting the lid on podcasting’s dirty secret and Elliot’s generous superfan. They break down Giant, a play about Roald Dahl’s antisemitism at the time of the real-world horror of the war in Gaza, how Elliot’s view of the play and his character shifts with each days headlines and the catharsis of drama in a moral maze; there’s a delightfully unexpected visit from Rachel Stirling, a memory of working with her mother, Dame Dianna Rigg, and the delivery of a bottle of in-character rosé; Elliot’s memory of being in a play that addressed the aftermath of horror on the night of terrorist attacks on London, why theatre isn’t binary, in praise of being boring, an equally delightful visit from John Lithgow (and an insight into how Jonny seduces future guests) and Elliot’s theory that all supremely talented people are also supremely nice.

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In the second half of Jonny’s chat with Mark Strong, his guest describes feeling hated during Ivo van Hove’s A View From the Bridge; the strong conviction he had about the playing of Eddie Carbone; becoming a movie actor (not star), what he learnt from the camera and taking it back to the stage; working with Ivo before he became the global theatrical influencer he is now, his mischief,and how he fought the great director over what turned out to be strokes of genius; his sheer terror before he started performing View and the joy of conquering fear; creating “the right to be looked at”; building a character through the body; what he needs from a director and what he doesn’t; his “rant” about the business; two aging actors talk about innovations in sound; his worries about Macbeth and Jonny’s theory of the murderous king’s intrinsic sweetness; what pisses him off about the theatre and what he still wants from it.

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Jonny is joined this week by the actor who is the current toast of Broadway for his portrayal of Oedipus in Robert Icke’s updating of the great tragedy, Mark Strong. They start off by talking about Simon Russell Beale, original inspiration for SDJ and the way talent is sometimes undecodable. Being told what Mark’s “thing” was at drama school, the attraction of charm, his very unusual origin story, the importance of Steven Berkoff and fronting a punk band in making him a performer; the difference between being an artist and an artisan, working with the late Helen McCrory and Ian McKellen, a debate about Al Pacino- and uncontrollable crying as Oedipus.

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In a second half lightly underscored by the Wagner seeping in from Glyndebourne’s Parsifal, Jonny hears how the doyenne of modern lighting designers spent her formative years in the creative ferment of Theatre de Complicité, the tough love from another designer that propelled her, what makes an experience on a show great for her, the two types of directors, splitting up with Katie Mitchell, what makes light walk into a room, the change in the aesthetic she championed in the modern theatre, why she’s retiring, her relationship with fear, bothering Nathan Lane, missing her kid’s birthdays, why she’s never wanted to be a cinematographer, the fundamental change in the culture and what she wants for young artists today.

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