Almeida Theatre

Uh-

I saw her brilliant play at the Almeida, um, Under the Shadow?

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I read it quite slowly last year, truthfully, but I read it much more slowly in the sixth form.

And the production was at a place called the Almeida Theatre in North London.

It's still there.

It's, it's not deep.

And then she's literally gonna go straight onto Suddenly Last Summer.

And Arty Froushan has just wrapped up as, uh, well, quite a while ago now, he was in American Psycho at the Almeida, so-

Right.

Right, right, right, right

And then the other thing was I read Annie Ernaux, The Years, and that's a memoir.

And it was also staged as a play at the Almeida Theatre.

And that's a fantastic...

Because it's nonfiction, she feels quite able to put bits of...

One of the most interesting things about Danny Dyer is his relationship with the late Harold Pinter.

Danny worked with Pinter on stage, including Celebration, which opened at the Almeida Theatre in London in 2000, before transferring to the Lincoln Centre in New York.

And it's a massive part of Danny's story because it shows the respect that serious theatre people had for him before the public image took over.

Pinter did not see Danny as a geezer actor or as a joke.

Yeah

... um, which isn't that far off, but I, I, I mean, I'd love to play a sort of younger version of Lear, and I was reading it and going through it and thinking, making some choices about a year and a half ago, two years ago, and then I saw this beautiful actor, Danny Sapani, do it at the Almeida in London, and he's, he's even younger than me, and I just went, "Oh, damn it." [laughs]

[laughs]

But, you know, they are some of the most amazing, amazing lines.

I went to see his show when I got to London.

What did you see him in? I believe it's called Under the Shadow at the Almeida.

oh i didn't see that

yeah it was good and nick was great in it he's very good yeah he is class such a nice man dead funny um i my favorite thing was winding them up though because uh this is a great opportunity to spread a rumor that i've been working on certainly is let's go yeah douglas maxwell uses sock puppets to write his plays so is there any truth in that Well, I had heard that and I asked him, where have you heard that from? And I was like, I think you said that in like a writing course to my friend.

I'm thrilled to be able to meet Carrie because she is responsible for directing several of the most memorable theater productions I have ever seen, including her renditions of Medea and The Deep Blue Sea at the National Theatre, which were both graced by stunning performances by Helen McCrory, and which inspired this podcast's episodes on those plays.

Her other directing credits include The Grapes of Wrath, Julie, and Blurred Lines at the National Theatre, Portia Coughlan and Oil at the Almeida, Macbeth and A Doll's House at the Young Vic, and Birdland with Andrew Scott at the Royal Court.

She's also directed opera at the English National Opera and the Met in New York, as well as a feature film adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion.

Her most recent outing was a typically clear-sighted and moving production of Fran Kranz's unflinching look at restorative justice, Mass, at the Donmar Warehouse this spring.

But I think what we're most excited about beyond the story is the team we've managed to build.

So we've got Leila Madinat directing, who's worked at the RSC, the young Vic, the Almeida, she's an absolutely brilliant director.

And then Alex Hill from the Fringe Phenomenon, I would say, why I stuck a fly up my arse for England.

And Johnny Khan, who was most recently in the Olivier nominated, the shithead.