My Gurus

SHAKESPEARE
I fell in love with Shakespeare at the age of 12 for the sense that anything is possible on a stage, the magic alchemy that happens when an actor speaks his words with integrity and skill, and, of course, for the humanity of his writing.

MARGARET STEWARD
I had a brilliant drama teacher, at a progressive boarding school. Margaret set up a travelling theatre in the holidays. We did two plays in rep – the first year was Sartre’s ‘The Flies’, and a compilation dance/drama. We played schools and community centres, rigging sets and lights, and handing out leaflets to drum up audiences. I think it encouraged self-reliance and a can-do attitude. From our first company of (I think) seven young people, six went into the profession: Jeremy Brock went on to co-create ‘Casualty’ and win an Oscar for ‘Mrs Brown’, Ben Ormerod became an internationally acclaimed lighting designer, Vivian Munn became an actor and director and teaches at RADA, Stephen Mollett became a professional writer and Jessica Cohen became a dancer with Rambert.

TERRY HANDS AND THE ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
I trained as Assistant Director to Terry Hands. His ‘Henry V’, was one of the shows that inspired me to go into theatre. I worked on his ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ and ‘Cyrano’. Terry is a master of stagecraft. I drew on what I learned from Terry when I later trained as a studio director at Granada TV. There were no new plays in that season, so the other assistant and I set up festivals, commissioning work from Peter Flannery, Nick Dear, Edward Bond, Seamus Finnegan, Daniel Mornin and Lenka Janiurek – the forerunner of what became ‘Not the RSC’.

PATSY RODENBURG
I met Patsy at the RSC. Her rigour and clarity with text and voice work, and her integrity, have been an inspiration ever since. I have worked with her on most of my Shakespeare productions and at the Guildhall School. Patsy got me excited about teaching, and widened my horizons to include work in American universities and schools such as the Juilliard.

NICK SALMON
I encountered Nick when he was programming Roger Wingate’s Maybox Theatres, and Marc Vlessing brought me in to develop new projects – before long we were a new production company, Act Productions. No-one knows more than Nick about commercial theatre. I learned hugely from his devastating mix of ruthless pragmatism and irresistible charm, and his sound business sense.