Stephen Daldry

So it was definitely one play.

And it's directed by Stephen Daldry, who also directed The Jungle.

So that was the other.

This is the moment Stephen Daldry, who had been lost to us for a little while with The Crown and so on, comes back into the theatre and shows just what an amazing director he is.

He made The Jungle, which was a play set in the migrant camps in Calais and was an extraordinary piece of theatre that I would argue perhaps not that significant as a play was an amazing experience.

The Inheritance is definitely a play and a play that needed to be seen.

Today, we're going to review The Hours from 2002.

Stephen Daldry's film, The Hours, is a poignant exploration of the lives of three women across different eras, each connected by the novel Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.

The film, based on Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, weaves together the stories of Virginia Woolf, played by Nicole Kidman; Laura Brown, portrayed by Julianne Moore; and Clarissa Vaughan, played by Meryl Streep, creating a tapestry of emotions that resonate deeply with the audience.

Set in 1923, 1951, and 2001, the film delves into the inner lives of these women, each grappling with their own struggles and desires.

[laughs]

And we were kind of prepared for it because Stephen Daldry was the, um...

He was the, uh, director of the theater at the time, and he came in on press night, after press night, came into our dressing room, and he brought us, uh, you know, two big glasses of wine.

He went, "It might not be the play the world needs, but it's the play we have."

[laughs]

You know? So cruel.

Fun to look back and reflect on, and obviously, uh, you, Matthew, Stephen Daldry, all have had, um, uh, numerous successes since then, but how gutting was it at the time? Like, do you remember that? At that night, was it really dreadful?

Yeah, because you...

Since Alan Rusbridger, former editor of The Guardian, moved out, I would say no.

Although Stephen Daldry and his husband have just moved in.

There's quite a lot of media poshos.

There's, there's the BBC's Katie Razzall around the corner.

It's a gripping tale of civic responsibility, mob mentality, and human fallibility.

And it's somewhat of a full circle moment for Mattie, who starred in Stephen Daldry's 1989 staging of the play, translated by Christopher Hampton, at the same theater, the Old Red Lion in Islington.

She's directing this time, with her daughter Faye in the role that she herself played 37 years ago.

We sat down in Agni's sunny South London kitchen just before the play opened.

Interested to...

We'll leave it at that.

Yes, and also we're gonna be asking the audience to take some of that responsibility because, you know, we, uh, with expressionism you can do, and one of the things I learned from Stephen Daldry is that- You know, you've just got to push your idea and n- never apologize [laughs] and just do it.

Impose slightly, you could say, you can impose things on the narrative as long as it, it remains, you know, part of the servicing of the play.

It's a terrific, atmospheric, compact show.

And it's adapted by Simon Reid, who used to be Stephen Daldry's literary manager at the Gate Theatre when he ran it.

And we have sad news about the Gate this week.

We do.