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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

(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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.