Ladies and Gentlemen, good evening! We've decided that I am "opposition" and Jeremy Herrin is "government". It's wonderful to see so many of you here. Welcome to the pre-performance talk for "This House". My name is Kate Mosse I'm a novelist and playwright and the biographer of CFT. I have a slightly extra hat on tonight as the deputy chair of the National Theatre because this production is going to start here then it is going on to the Garrick Theatre. It is a co-production with the National Th
eatre and of course with "Headlong" of which Jeremy Herrin is the artistic director. Before we start, can I ask who has seen it already here? All those who've seen it before say "Aye"! (Laughter) If you haven't seen it before say "No". I think the "Noes" have it? Who is going in this evening? OK, we'll try not to spoil anything, although to be honest, I think most of us know what happened between 1974 & 1979. Jeremy, welcome back! Thank you. It's fantastic to have you back here in the Minerva. N
ow, this was a new play by James Graham. 2012 in the Cottesloe (now the Dorfman). It was such a success, we sold every ticket so it went to the Olivier. It was a sell-out there. What's it like coming back to something that was such a big play when you did it? Actually it's not really very far on to do a revival. No, it's only about 3 years. It all came about because we were very close. The business was so good in the Cottesloe that we went to the Olivier. The business was so good in the Olivier
that we felt there was a real desire for people to see this show, to enjoy such a brilliant bit of writing. We were right on the cusp of transferring it to the Aldwych. At the last minute after we'd done all the agreements with the actors, also the creative teams' availability was all in place, Andrew Lloyd-Webber changed his mind about his dates because of something going on with a musical that he'd written called "Stephen Ward". That offer to the theatre-owners was too good to refuse. So we g
ot pipped at the post. We got pushed out. I'm not going to make a joke about that obviously...... But I've got about 10 minutes of material! So I'll just keep going! What was extremely pleasing about that, another show I did, the Hilary Mantel novels, some of the actors from "This House" came & joined, we collaborated on the Wolf Hall plays. That was the play that kicked "Stephen Ward" out of the Aldwych. So there's a level of Cromwellian revenge that was pleasing. But to go back to the main poi
nt, it always felt there was a there was enough fuel in the play. Also how the play talks to the culture. The audience just basically having what I felt was a really good time. It's a play that at first glance doesn't look like it's going to be the most appetizing and sort of entertaining evening. When James took the idea to Nick Hytner, the National said to him; "come and write a play for us". He went for a meeting and Nick Hytner said; "what have you got?" James said well I've got to play abou
t the Whip's office in the Labour Government, 1974 - 1979. Nick said; "have you got anything else?" (Laughter) It doesn't sound like the most exciting show. James' genius and the stormy excitement of the time was, in terms of my generation and I'm about 10 years older than James, certainly James' generation, it was a story that we'd missed but for everyone that lived through that time it was full of characters and very vivid. He thought it was a really brilliant way to examine the limitations an
d possibilities of our eccentric parliamentary process. When we first did it of course we were just trying to understand what a hung parliament was like. Coalition politics The play seemed very apposite in those terms. We now realise that the plays is a classic play, I think. By examining a particular period, it sheds some light on what's happening now. With what's happening now in the UK, with what's happening in terms of our relationship to Europe, what's happening within each of our political
parties and how they're attempting to reform themselves and to continue the fight and get back to the ideology. This play illuminates that. It illuminates and possibly challenges our prejudices about about where we are. It felt like it was a really important play to try to revive. There was a hunger there for it. Because of my relationship with Chichester and Jonathan Church's generosity he (Jonathan Church) said come back and do something in our last season. What you want to do? I said I've go
t a very, very expensive thing I want to do. Generously he saw the show and loved it. He was all for supporting it the first time round. He said "yes, come and do it". We''ll get a group together and we'll see if we can take it into the West End. So between Chichester and "Headlong" and Caro Newling & Nimax we formed this lovely coalition to take it to the Garrick in November So, it's been brilliant. Speaking of "illuminating", can I ask you to turn your torch off? Yes, you're sort of shining on
me! I was trying to see what's happening out there. We've got a new bit of set today. My colleagues were going to light it. But the light isn't on. So when you come back in tonight have a little look above the entrance and let's see if we've managed to locate the light and turn the light on. James, when we were just chatting before you were saying how hard it is, this close to opening night, which is tomorrow here and then obviously in November in the Garrick to see the play as a whole thing.
It's right down to the detail above the door many of you will have seen the front-of-house staff dressed as members of the House of Commons entertainment committee. All these sorts of things. So once you're in a new space (& you know this place very well, many of the actors are old Chichester hands), half of the cast was from the original productions and now you have some more. Once you're in here, how much does the production that you first did change? How much of a new production is this? O
r is it genuinely a revival but maybe slightly blocked differently? That's a really interesting question. I suppose the play is the same but the production is new because it involves new people. Even for the half of the cast that were involved before they have to behave differently because the energy from their new colleagues is different. It takes a while to become its own thing. The preview process and the rehearsals have been really great. But these things take a while for everybody to land i
n the same shared reality and the same physical space. Last night felt like we'd worked it all out. The thing about this show is there are so many "bits". It's a very intricate, complicated machinery. There are all sorts of cogs that need to whir and click together. The whole mechanism doesn't quite work unless each of those cogs are working together. That's from the 16 members of the cast to the 3 members of the band to Laura the DSM. It's got to be one of the most complicated shows to call bec
ause of the difference in timing. The lighting on each particular scene it's just very, very intricate. if it was another sort of project we would be talking about "mission fail". Each of those cues could be "mission fail". Suddenly the audience is pulled out of what we're trying to do technically. They're thinking about it as a piece of theatre rather than engaging in the stories and In order for that to happen it's incredibly detailed. With something like that, so many people working together,
it takes a long period of time. To answer your question it's got to be new. It's here and it's now with this combination of people. However I entered into it with a slightly different feeling in that I know that we made a success of it twice before. So the first time we did it, thinking of Nick Hytner asking if we had anything else, we weren't convinced at all that anybody would get it or enjoy it. For those people who haven't yet seen it, one of the things you will know from the wonderful com
pany that Jeremy runs "Headlong" is there is an element of physical and interpretive theatre which is not strictly naturalistic. So there is this wonderful, seemingly traditional Chichester set and then there is your fingerprint on it. This is a very different sort of thing. Can you explain a little bit about this? My sweaty fingerprint? i don't think I used the word "sweaty". The thing about "Headlong" is that I always like to think of it as a company that that can really make more positive th
e possibilities of theatre. If you were introducing somebody's to theatre for the first time they would come away from the evening thinking that was very dynamic very active very exciting art form. It's no more intentional than that just being my taste. It's all about serving the play. So for example you'll see tonight that the opening sequence is a bit of choreography, a bit of dance, a bit of movement which seems completely unlikely. There's something about getting a company of people who, let
's face it, are largely middle-aged men doing some contemporary dance as a way of summing up the spirit of parliamentary democracy. There's something really exciting about that. What it also says to the audience is we're not mimetically trying to represent reality. We're doing a doing a version of it. We're doing an essence of it. We're going to take some narrative shortcuts. We're going to do some things that are just expressive to get an idea across. We're not going to be bogged down in realis
m. I'm sure that you can see already that the set is a classic composite set. It's trying to do several things at once. Yes, we're trying to represent some offices but we're also trying to represent the kind of romance, the possibilities of the familiarity of of the House of Commons. So it probably comes about from someone like me having a slightly short attention span and wanting a glut of information at all times. My taste is that storytelling should be collegiate and every aspect of every pro
duction, if it isn't pointing the audience in the right direction to plug into the narrative, romantic, emotional, possibilities of a show then it should be changed to do that. The process that we've been on as a company has been about trying to refine that. It's about trying to get that into company's bodies. It's about allowing them to express their characters in a way that absolutely contributes to the main flow of the drama. Well I've seen all the versions so far and I think this is the best
. Good!! I've enjoyed it every time. There is something about it it in this particular space which is incredibly thrilling. You have live music as well. Can i just bring you back to something you said earlier about that the politics of it? On the one hand those of us who are of a certain age will remember the lights going out at six o'clock, the winter of discontent leading to the Lib-Lab pact. How different is it now? Some of the lines that are said in the play which is the same text could have
been written for yesterday. Even more than they could have been in 2012. How does that change it for you as a director? Does it change it at all? It seems to be very clearly speaking to the issues that mattered. The EU comes up a lot although it's a different way round. There are references to proportional representation, how voting works. If anything, this is more current than it was. This is absolutely a tribute to James's play. When we were building up to the revival we were getting excited
about it. I thought: "Oh fantastic" because of what was happening with the recent devolution bills. It was pre "Brexit". However we were talking about the referendum. I thought it will be fantastic & we'll get James to write a whole lot of new stuff. That will make it more topical. Then we we read it again in preparation for the new production and thought:- this is the story of that time. It resonates because it was true to that time. It still resonates because he's a remarkable writer. He has
an amazing brain and only looks about 14. He looks completely unlikely. But he's so on top of the politics and also the politics of this time how they speak to the essential ideas that any any drama about a British political process in history speaks to you. It talks about the tension between principal and pragmatism. it talks about the essentially adversarial nature of our system. It talks about how Coalition is weird for us when it isn't for our European neighbours. He's speaking so clearly ab
out the fundamentals. He's reflecting them in that time. To go out of that and make it topical is to deny how thorough job he did the first time. We have changed a couple of things. However I think we would have changed them before if we had more time to rehearse it the last time. That's the other thing that's really great about a revival. You get more time to work on it. I'm sure it's the same with your writing, Kate. At some point you've just got to hand it over. Otherwise the process just con
tinues, doesn't it? Yes, you're "never done". I'm sure I'll have to get dragged out of here. I'll be dragged out of here on Thursday night and told never to return. I could already feel it this afternoon with the actors. I was picking around with the tiniest details. Time for the director to leave! yeah so it's definitely time for me just Definitely time for me to hand it over. Do you think, at the heart of it that it's a play about the morality or the immorality of politics? I don't know. To me
, yes, it could be about that. I think what's wonderful about it is that you can engage with it in all sorts of different ways. At the moment thinking I'm thinking about it is a play that explores the possibility of honour in politics. It's about where that sits and and how fit a parliamentary process is for our experience of being human. It's about making the best, whatever side of the ideological house we're on. I think it's fair to say that most people in politics getting into it for good rea
sons. They want to affect the quality of life for their communities, their country for the better. There are a few show-ponies that want to further themselves. They want to further their own ambition. But generally the system is is grueling and challenging enough. There's a level of inspection, even more so now than the period we're talking about in "This House". Unless you're really serious about it you're putting yourself up for a massive amount of invasion of your privacy. Also very difficult
working hours. I think it explores whether the system that we've slowly evolved over the years suits us. It asks a lot of questions. I think it probably ends up relatively favourable about that. I know that James is interested in and approves of the Whips. He thinks of that as good a way as any of doing it. He likes the adversarial way of our "first-past-the-post". That may change as the makeup of our country changes and the "Left" don't have enough seats to be possibly a an alternative. One of
the things that struck me even more watching it last night than it had on previous occasions was that there at the heart of it there are these strong relationships. There are the two chief whips, played wonderfully by Phil Daniels who was in your original company and Malcolm Sinclair an actor very beloved here in Chi. But also there are the deputy whips which are at the emotional heart. They are Steffan Rhodri and Nathaniel Parker. When you're casting something like this, are you pinning it on
those four to start with? Or do you think of it as an ensemble piece? For me it was about male friendship. It was definitely an ensemble piece. Everything is properly connected rhythmically. That's been the learning process over the last week or so for people who are new to it to realise that actually their job is to represent their character truthfully. That is part of the job but the rest of it is to "tee-up" the narrative for everybody else. They need to play together as you would in an orch
estra. That is another very visible example of playing in an ensemble. You've just got to cast everybody really well. You do need to cast those characters in relation to each other. We knew that Phil was going to do it. Therefore we needed some sort of energy that would oppose that. Someone to be the "yin" to Phil's "yang". Malcolm is definitely that. They're a really brilliant double act. Likewise Stefan and Nat. They are contradictory and complimentary energies. They have the ability to repres
ent the class of their characters. Technically it's a challenging play because in certain areas it demands the precision and clarity that you would normally insist on with a farce. The timing has to be just so. The information the audience gets has to be rigorous and completely ordered and very precise. Otherwise the thing just doesn't work. There's also an emotional interior to those characters. There's a reveal of that at certain points in the evening that demands the greatest acting. Over the
course of these interviews this season, both here in the Minerva and over the way in the main house, directors have a different approach to how they encourage or discourage their actors to research. This is complicated because you're right in the "moment". The "member" for this place, the "member" for that place. It requires us to listen very hard and have a certain amount of knowledge. Although James' play is so brilliant you don't really need it. What do you say to the actors? Do you leave it
up to them to decide whether they will read Tony Benn's diaries? Maybe Barbara Castle's diaries? Or do you say if they want to read certain books this would be helpful? There is a level of research. You create the climate of the production. We start with a lot of research. Then we know what we're talking about and so are empowered to make artistic decisions thereafter. I think the worst thing is to make artistic decisions based on nothing. There are certain things, like our voting for example.
The voting that you'll see tonight is subtly different in the chamber because there are more people involved There's a period of time that we don't put the audience through. It's when the votes are collated and all put on one piece of paper. We do a physical gesture towards the ritual. We keep the the rhythm of that in order to to sell it as an idea. Now we know that it doesn't start like that. In fact when we first started rehearsing it we probably had 11 or 12 votes over the whole course of th
e evening. We just realised that narratively there was no point in that. We were putting the audience through this ritual. We were insisting on the ritual being realistic and exactly the same every time. People were just going to want to kill themselves. (Laughter) So we did the research, we knew exactly what it entailed. We made artistic choices based on that. I think that's what it's about. Otherwise you're stumbling around in the dark. Then the choices you make are not smart ones. So there's
a basic level of research that we all do as a company around the table. We had clerks from the parliamentary estate come to sit around the table and answer our questions. We had visits to the House of Commons. We went to the Whip's office. We met the civil service that organise things for the whips. We met several MPs and people who are now in the House of Lords. One of the characters who is portrayed in the evening, Ann Taylor, actually just stepped into our rehearsal room and told us what it w
as all about what it was like. We had her sitting across the table from Lauren who plays her. It was quite moving and a one-off experience. She looked at a particular scene. It is a scene where our fictional Ann Taylor responds to a set of circumstances. In the first draft she responded in quite a mild way. Ann said, it wasn't like that. It wasn't like that, I was much harder. She told us what she said and we thought:- Oh my God, can we really say this? She said, that's what I said! It's a big m
oment quite late in the play. The audience often gasps. When you hear that gasp that's a real line. One of the things I noticed last night is that it is obviously a very moving & thought-provoking play. It's gripping. It's also very funny in lots of places. Are you as the director and the company sometimes surprised at the things that you thought were hilarious seem to fall like tumbleweed like into the room and other things the audience is rolling about that you hadn't heard the humour? Does th
at happen? Sometimes. That first thing happens every now and again. That takes you into my favourite subject which is the science of comedy. There was a bit that wasn't getting a very big laugh. I realised it was because something else was happening on stage. The audience weren't hearing the word "north". I suggested to Malcolm that we really made sure that they heard the word "north". Then that's a solid laugh. It's as simple as that. Comedy is always information. You need the right amount of i
nformation at the right time. You can kill a joke by taking too long. That means that the audience is ahead of you. They've already thought it funny. Also you can kill a joke by doing it too quickly, then they don't quite get it. That's what timing is all about. It's stacking up the right amount of information so you're just ahead of an audience's thought process. You are exploding an idea that they're just on the cusp of. Yes, the comedy is really great. This is a very challenging space in term
s of comedy because you're on three sides. Comedy , or at any rate that big strong laugh with a hard-edge at the top is normally based on the whole audience getting the information exactly the same time It doesn't quite function like that here. That's fine as well because the success of this doesn't depend on a kind of hit rate of laughs. If the audience wants to laugh then there's space for them to do so. We don't go out of our way to change reality in order to create humour. We're trying to re
present, more or less, real life as it is lived. I'm going to ask the audience for questions soon. Or shall we call them "the members"? Order! Order! I have a final question first. When you go back to a project, do you have that fear that we all sometimes have when we return to a beloved novel or any beloved thing where you worry that maybe this time the thing that was so special before, maybe I'm going to read it and it's not going to seem so great this time? How do you deal with that? Did you
feel fearful? Yes, I worried about that. Theatre is so ephemeral in lots of ways. It's just about what happens between a group of people. The audience is the most important part of that combination. Sometimes it is a bit like lightning in a bottle. Someone like me will work very hard to try and control those circumstances. There is a little element of "magical thinking" if you like. A sort of "willful belief". I'm talking about the science of comedy. However the most delicious aspect of that is
that you can never quite round up the equation. There's always something that's just a little bit mysterious, that is beyond our understanding. I think that keeps us honest as people, that's why we like it. But yes, I was nervous about this. This is a treasured one. It is treasured memory. It's one of my favourite shows. This is because the scale of the achievement was so great. Also because of the relationships involved. It was the first time I worked with Ray Smith and Paule Constable, who has
become a good friend and collaborator. These are designers and lighting designers. On a personal level, lots of really very important relationships came through the project the first time. It's been lovely because it feels like a very dear show that I can share it with lovely new colleagues such as like a Nat Parker whom I worked with on something else and Kevin Doyle and Steffan Rhodri whom I've also worked with. We have brought some actors in that I haven't worked with before. So yes, I was n
ervous about that. But then, the play is the thing. It's a brilliantly written play. If you follow it's instructions whether they're overt or tacit, it will look after you. Do you think it is one of the great political plays? I think that as a feat of writing it's a magnificent example. I don't know if your experiences and the audience experiences agree but I have a theory. I think most writers write two-handers. Sometimes they write two-handers with 8 people on the stage but it'll be two people
talking to each other. The drama will progress in binary units. It's very uncommon to meet a writer like James. James wasn't even 30 when I met him and read the draft. He's a young writer who could write jokes, who could write ideology, who could write emotion, who could write outside of his own experience. He could represent a historical time and frame it in a way that talked directly to our own time. He could genuinely write a play for 16 actors, where where the drama would progress for each
of them. This is where with each installation with a character who seems innocuous is creating an incredibly complex nexus of dramatic momentum. By the end of it, almost unknowingly, because you've had such a great time, you realise that there are hundreds of stories at stake. They are all coming to a fulcrum narrative moment. This comes out of the drama that we've established here and penetrates people's memories of their real experience. I think it is an incredible achievement. Just logistical
ly, I think he's brilliant. One of our producers, Caro, put a tweet out. She said when she saw the first preview that a new play becomes a classic play. It feels like this now is part of that the story. You've done a wonderful thing in terms of bringing the audience into the story. There is this wonderful thing that this House of Commons bar behind you is a live bar. You can all buy your interval drinks although I don't think they're 1974 prices. Yes, they are.....Only joking! We have an audienc
e question. Hello Jeremy! Could you tell us a bit more about how you want to involve the audience in this play? You've talked about introducing some different elements, some "headlong" elements. It's not a reconstruction of a House of Commons debate. Could tell us a bit more about the significance off the set, particularly the fact that we've got these benches here. What are you expecting from people who sit on those benches other than just to listen and laugh throughout the production? Yes, the
y do need to listen and laugh in the right places. They don't really have to do anything When we were going through the design and we were trying to work out how do we get a sense of the chamber? The excitement of the chamber when the benches are teaming on a night where it's one of the big votes. So the obvious idea was to sit the audience on them so they're always full. So when we have our whips engaging, as they would, with their members, then suddenly you get engaged too. Occasionally people
on certain sides vote along with the motion. They're encouraged to do so but the show doesn't depend on them because, as you know, audience participation is often quite irritating. It feels quite free and easy. The Member for Chichester! Yes! Their only involvement is to populate the space. It allows us to help it work. I was sat there where you guys are on the 3rd row and it's a wonderful experience. Oh dear, I'm talking about my own show. I sound like an idiot, I'm sorry about that! Not at al
l! You sound enthusiastic. That's brilliant! It felt really good fun. You did look as if you were having fun being part of it. I was having a great time! Lots of the audience were having a chat to your actors. It was quite hard to separate them out. A question from (the honourable) Michael Baker. Were these benches and the Speaker's chair in the London production? Or have they been made specially for here? I think this Speaker's chair is original. When I was around the back of it, trying to so
rt out some technical stuff I noticed some graffiti. When we finished the run at the Olivier. They took some of the stuff out of the workshops at The National & populated a temporary bar called "The Prop Store" on the river with a whole lot of stuff from famous shows and the Speaker's Chair was one of them. People would sit in there and get their photos taken. Around the back of it it says something like "Gaz woz 'ere. Prop Store 2013". So it feels like this is a relic. It's staying with us. I t
hink the rest of these benches were destroyed because they were used in the Green Room backstage at The National. So that we've made these again. These are the ones that are going to move module-like into the Garrick Theatre. They will be in a different configuration. I wish they could stay here, they're very comfortable! (Laughter) One of my colleagues overheard somebody saying "Oh yes, they've always had these benches, they're very good!" "Yes but they look a bit like the House of Commons don'
t they?" "Oh they've always been like that!" (More laughter) Question from that gentleman please. Kate I'd like to ask the director a question that relates to directing a modern play rather than a Shakespeare play. The great thing about Shakespeare is he's not there to criticise what you're doing with his play. However, as I understand it, you're quite close to James and probably, I'm guessing, is quite directly involved. It's coming across in this talk that you've got your own creative instinc
ts and your own assertive character so my question is: Was there any friction between you and James and if not why not and how did that inter-play work? Oh it's very, very difficult, he's a bully. (Joking) No he's a wonderful person. He's very open and very collaborative. When he wrote the play I don't think he imagined this sort of configuration at all. I think he imagined an "end on" theatre with a series of different sets. Cutting between different environments. That's if he'd even imagined i
t that specifically. He was very surprised when I said I think we should do it like this. He "reeled" a bit, thinking "what?" I've never seen anything like that before. Then he immediately understood that it was going to be incredibly helpful to his drama. I don't think there has been a moment of tension actually. No arguments or fall-outs. That's very rare because you often have those. Quite right too. It's a bit like bringing up a child with somebody. There are moments of tension in that exper
ience. I can tell you that! It's important to you and the stakes are really high and collaborating on the play brings a similar level of need. But James is super cool. i think he was very confident. He's a very gentle man isn't he? Yes. He's very smart. If he does have a problem with something I imagine he's got a gentle diplomacy about him. He would manage to shepherd you away from a course of action that would upset him without you feeling terrible about it. So yes, it was a really pretty bril
liant collaboration. I love to work like that. I can deal with conflicts and I can deal with all of that stuff but I don't find it particularly creative. I like an atmosphere where everybody's really valued and looked after and they can express themselves to be the most creative territory. James seemed to be on board with that. Next question? How much did you try to match the physical characteristics of those MPs and others? For example, Audrey Wise was clearly Audrey Wise. The one person I did
know was Fred Sylvester. I was at school with him in Walthamstow. He was always stooping. He always had those heavy glasses. I told my wife, even before he spoke, that's Fred Sylvester. He's not a major figure in it but he is absolutely superb. That's great! We have a whole load of jokes about his terrible posture. Heseltine's hair was another winner. We tried to do a gesture towards the people who will remember them but also to make them vivid enough to people who wouldn't. This is why, for tho
se who haven't seen it and this is based in the Whip's office where various members come in with their various issues and their problems and the members were always referred to by their constituency name. This is a way of slightly taking away from their politics and their personality and inserting the idea that that's what these people are doing here. They're representing a community. They're representing a part of the country. It feels like a very national play. It also gives us a little bit of
leeway when it comes to having to cast the large number of characters in the play, Yes, there's a lot of wig-work back stage. It's crazy back there. I mean, you may think it's chaotic and busy out here in terms of these little areas where we have quick change. But it's like racing teams at a formula one pit-stop where people are just radically altered into someone else and sent back on. When they come back on they are doing a different accent. They're being someone else. Someone said something
nice. It's a thing I've heard today. They couldn't believe there are only 2 actresses in it. They feel their must be 20 actresses. They are outnumbered! It's interesting to engage with the feminism of the piece while representing actually what it was like in those days. Edwina Curry came to see it! She thought we'd completely over-represented the women! She would say that, I suppose. Sarah Woodward does an incredible job by being far more people than you think is possible. Next question? In the
National and here it's open plan. The Garrick has a more traditional layout of the theatre. How will you do the set? It's going to be different. It's going to be really exciting. We're going to do it with the two offices behind the proscenium arch. The actors are going to come in through the auditorium. Some of the Angels that you can't see that you might be able to see later will go into the auditorium. So we'll slightly invade their territory. Instead of a central lobby we'll have a lobby do
wnstage. It will be the same sort of rooms but in a skewed configuration. The benches with the audience on will be on the stage. We've got two layers so this will all be on the stage. There will be a couple of rows. It should feel much the same. I feel it's very possible to "re-form" this play, depending on the room that it's in. This is the third room that we've done. I think the Garrick will be the biggest challenge. This theatre lends itself so well. It feels right in here. The advantage of t
he Garrick is we'll be able to play to a huge group of people. As I was saying before that might just sharpen the comedy little bit. We'll find ways when we're in there to just settle in and to make it feel great. The complicated thing about any evening of theatre is the relationship of the actor and the text and the audience. So long as that is uncluttered and can tell the story we'll be absolutely fine. That's the hard work that we've spent in rehearsals. The rest is just detail. and a little
tinkering. I think it was the most incredible evening in the theatre. Everybody has a an extraordinary treat to come. You have put a beautiful company together. I have no doubt it's going to be even more successful than its already been. So, Ladies and Gentlemen, Jeremy Herrin! (Applause)
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