PAUL: Hello and welcome to Regrets,
I've had a Few.

I'm Paul Hunter,

artistic director of Told by an Idiot and
this is a podcast where I talk to friends

and colleagues delving into what
made them the person they are today.

Hello and welcome.

My guest this month is a director,
a writer, a translator

and a theatremaker and he's worked all
over the place in lots of different

countries, lots of different theatres
and lots of different languages.

He was an associate director at the

Bush Theatre in London and was part
of the hugely successful show 'Misty'.

And recently, very recently,
he directed an utterly sublime version,

his own version of a translation
of Ionesco's 'The Chairs.' I think,

and I might ask him this,
I think that what links a lot of this is

a passionate love of the act of theatre
itself is what I think about.

But I'll grill him on that.

Welcome Omar Elerian.

OMAR: Hello, Paul.

PAUL: Very nice to meet you.

Thank you so much
for joining us from Milan.

OMAR: Yes, it's my pleasure.

I'm back in Milan now.

PAUL: Excellent. Having just been here in London.

Now,
I know we've been talking recently because

we at The Idiots are planning what is
in some ways a football show,

based around my team
and their greatest ever achievement,

Aston Villa, 40 years since
they won the European Cup.

And I wanted you to join me, unaware

that you were also a passionate Villa -
not Villa fan, obviously!

A passionate football fan,
following Inter that's, correct? Is it not?

OMAR: That's it yeah, I'm an Inter Milan fan,

which I suspect has some
similarities to being a Villa fan.

There's lots of suffering involved.

PAUL: I think that's a very universal theme,

isn't it, in football, unless you
follow very particular teams.

Now, I won't dwell on suffering too much,
but of course, as we speak,

it's the morning after,
sadly, your elimination against Liverpool

in the Champions League,
and I listened on the radio,

I just wondered, briefly,
without swearing too much,

what your thoughts are this morning
as you reflect on that game?

OMAR: Well, it was kind of expected,
to be honest.

I mean, Liverpool are a bit out of our
League at the moment, although Inter,

of course, has a wonderful
history of European football.

But I would say at the moment we're not

even close at the level of Premier League
football and Liverpool specifically.

And we lost 2-0 on the first leg,
although we played very well.

And yesterday we were about to edge it.

We had just scored and 1 minute later they
sent off one of our players, so I think -

PAUL: I wonder if it's that great footballing

cliche whether you're
in a period of transition.

OMAR: We are, we are!

We lost three very good players last year
because of money and budget.

I mean, the Italian League,
maybe 20-30 years ago,

was still kind of the top of the cream,
but now it feels like the money is drained

out because of many reasons, poor
management, lack of vision and whatnot.

So we tend to lose our best players

and then rebuild every year,
but we're doing very well in the League.

PAUL: That's good! And actually,
when you said you lost the first leg 2-0,

when we were talking a while ago,
you reminded me of your extraordinary

comeback against Aston Villa
in the UEFA Cup, when we beat you 2-0.

And then at the San Siro,
you scored three.

OMAR: Yeah, that's one of my earliest
football memories.

I think it was like 1994,
93 something like that?

Maybe even earlier? That was,
we had a wonderful team at the time,

and I remember listening
to that match on the radio.

And you know,

when you do have one of these historic
comebacks from 2-0, you go like,

you score the first goal and you're like,
"oh, is it going to happen?" And then you

go two nil and you go like, "oh, wow,
it's actually possible!" And yeah!

PAUL: Well, let's not dwell on that too much

Omar, let's move... As the host of this podcast, I'm going
to move things swiftly along to theatre.

OMAR: I think it was Roland Barthes who once

said, you know, like,
if there was the same level of engagement

in front of the theatre show
that there was in front of a football

match, things would be
a lot more exciting.

PAUL: Well, I think it's true.

And part of the desire to do this show,
'Would You Bet Against Us?' which is

a kind of mix of autobiography and as I
said, the football, is in a way to explore

that notion of how people
engage with live events.

And I know you're obviously very
interested in the nature of what makes

something live and spontaneity,
so I'm very interested in that.

But if I could take you further back now
to childhood, did you grow up in Milan?

OMAR: I grew up in many places, actually.

My father is Palestinian or of Palestinian

descent because he was born in Egypt
in 1950, because

my family, his parents had to leave
Palestine in 1948 when it became,

part of it became the state of Israel
and my mother is Italian,

so I was born in Milan,
but then we traveled quite a lot when I

was a child, we lived in the Middle East,
in Kuwait, we settled back in Italy

for a little while, we then went
to Egypt and to the United States.

And then my mom was fed up with moving
around and changing countries.

So we then settled back in Milan
when I was like eleven.

PAUL: Okay.
OMAR: And that's where I grew up.

My formative years, as they say, you know,

all the way into graduating
from University.

And then I started my own nomadic

PAUL: Journey!

OMAR: Later moving to Paris
first and then London.

And now I've come full circle.

I have kids of my own.

PAUL: And you're back in Milan.
If I can take you -

OMAR: I'm back in Milan, yeah!

PAUL: Take you back to that kind of 11-12
year old period, can you remember?

Was there much engagement
with theatre in the family?

Did you go to the theatre?

OMAR: No, not at all

we were living in the suburbs of Milan,
where my parents still live actually.

I live in the city now but we grew up

around, like, what,
40 minutes by train from Milan.

And no, my family was never particularly

interested in the arts
or theatre specifically.

My mom is a secretary.

My dad was, now he's a retired
business manager.

So yeah, the encounter with theatre

happened a bit later when I
was 17-18 in high school.

Completely by chance as many of the things
that happened to me in my life.

And it was, yeah, I was in high school,
I think the last year of high school.

And a friend of mine, I was much more
interested in basketball and sports.

And a friend of mine stole my backpack
on a Saturday afternoon and hid it

in the theatre class which was happening
after school hours in the afternoon.

And I had to kind of
knock at the door and sneak in and kind

of say, excuse me, excuse me, this idiot
has stolen my backpack and hit it here.

And the theatre teacher,

dear friend Otilio,
said, well, now that you've interrupted

us, it would be very
unpolite for you to leave.

You need to stay for the whole class.

I was like, no, I mean I
need to get to training.

And he said, no, absolutely,
you can't leave.

And so I was kidnapped for 2 hours.

PAUL: Kidnapped by the theatre.

OMAR: And then I went back the following
Saturday and yeah, I started that course.

And then with the people there, we then
went on to create our theatre company.

We took over a disused
cinema in the local town and started

making things you know, just
because we liked hanging around.

We all had different interests, there
were musicians, people wanted to do film.

We were all kind of learning by making it.

And then I started studying at University,
literature and philosophy and then kind

of took my Masters into
theatre studies and yeah!

PAUL: It's interesting.

I feel a connection there in the sense
that I was very into sports at school.

And then again, not quite the same way.

I wasn't held hostage.

But i was kind of,
my bluff was called when I said

to my English teacher and she said
the auditions of the school play were

happening, I said, oh, it's always the
same people who do that, get those parts.

She said, why don't you come along?

So somewhat reluctantly I did and ended up

being in this George Bernard Shaw play
and actually really enjoying it.

But I remember I felt I had
to keep it quite secretive.

I didn't tell the friends that I played

football or rugby with because
I thought that wasn't cool.

So I kept the notion
of theatre quite close.

Or was it different for you?

Was it something you could talk about?

OMAR: We could. I mean,

it was a really interesting
class because we were not doing theatre as

in, oh, let's do a Shakespeare or
a Pirandello being in Italy,

actually, the teacher was much more
interested in using theatre as a way

of kind of empowering us,
which felt quite radical.

It is too, I think about it,
quite radical at the time.

So we were making our own shows.

We were using that time to discuss
our politics, our sexuality,

our contrast with the institution
of school and education and parents.

It was a quite liberating moment. And yeah, I think, of course,

there was the usual things that maybe
20-30 years ago were associated

with making theatre,
that it was a bit girlish.

I remember we were all putting on these

kind of very tight black
mime suits. I know like, oh, my God!

But there was a playfulness to it
and a real sense of discovery.

PAUL: He sounds a very inspiring
teacher. Do you still?

OMAR: Absolutely.
PAUL: Do you still know him?

OMAR: Yes, yes, yes,
although we haven't spoken now for a year.

And I feel very ashamed not to have seen

him, but it was also because of Covid
and he's kind of getting older and I have

kids, so we couldn't really
see each other much.

But yeah, he's absolutely one

of the defining people in my life,
not only in regards to theatre, really.

He's a true teacher and somebody who

was there to really provoke us into not
falling into the moulds that are created

by school and society and what is
expected of you but to really question...

PAUL: He sounds a wonderful maverick or radical.

OMAR: Yes. Yes, absolutely.

PAUL: It's great when we encounter them.

Do you remember seeing any particular

performance that inspired
you when you saw something?

OMAR: Yes. I mean, many, of course.

But if I had to pinpoint one, I remember,

I think it was when I
had started University.

I remember seeing 'The Far Side

of the Moon' by Robert Lepage
completely baffled me.

Like, I was like, oh,
this is extraordinary.

The storytelling, the stagecraft,
the story itself.

I basically looked at that.

I was like, oh, wow, I want to do that.

I want to do that.

And I looked at the people around me.

I was like, I want to make
people feel like that.

I don't know if you've seen it. Oh my God.

PAUL: I did see it. Someone asked me to write

my, for Told by an Idiot, to write
my top ten formative pieces of theatre.

And it was in that I
totally agree with you. It was transformative.

OMAR: Yeah. The way in which I think
it was a one man show, really,

but it was so epic and the inventiveness
of it and the humanity of the story

PAUL: And also my memory of it is also
how brilliantly accessible it was.

I went with a friend who doesn't go

to the theatre, and this group of us went
and we were going in,

and she asked the usher at the
National Theatre, how long is this show?

And the usher said, 2 hours and 20
minutes without an interval.

And she went to leave.

And I put my hand on her arm and said,
honestly, if it's terrible,

I'll pay for your ticket,
but please stay and she so loved it.

The next night she came back

to the theatre with me to watch a Q and A,
and she never went to the theatre.

OMAR: Wow.
Yeah. Yeah.

PAUL: I think that's the amazing thing about

Lepage and that show in particular
for me was it was so open to anybody.

OMAR: Yeah. And I remember also
more or less at the same time,

I remember seeing a show by a Russian
director, Lev Dodin, great, great master.

I think he's still working now.

He must be like 150 years old.

And it was a seven hour show
in Russian with subtitles.

And I thought, like,
I'm never going to last that long.

And actually,
it was absolutely extraordinary.

I still have very vivid
memories of the show.

And you have to be sitting in a theatre
watching something for that long,

being immersed in a completely different
language, but trying to extract meaning

and seeing how as a community,
1000 people or where

PAUL: Connected

OMAR: Just kind of connected, it
was extraordinary.

PAUL: And you mentioned these two extraordinary

pieces of theatre and the very
international nature of them.

Was that what drew you to Lecoq?

How did you hear about Lecoq school?

OMAR: Okay. Yeah.
That's the other chance encounter because

I didn't know much about Lecoq,
and a dear friend of mine gave me as

the present his book
'Le Corps Poetique', is in French.

I think it's the poetic body,
the translation in English?

Which is basically his kind of pedagogy,
just kind of written down.

And at the time, I was working on

basically a site specific performance
of 'King Ubu' by Alfred Jerry.

And I read this book during the Christmas

break, and I was like, oh, wow,
this got so many interesting things.

And I was particularly interested
in the idea of the Bouffon because

of course, with Jerry,
there is a lot of that.

And it intrigued me.

And I thought, like, oh, this man has
really kind of created the system.

How fascinating.

It was really interesting because I think
a lot of Lecoq's work is pushing towards

finding this kind of common poetic
language, which kind of is beyond language

is beyond the boundaries of cultural
references and nationality.

And so I read the book,

and then I thought and then I knew a few
people who had studied either with Lecoq

or with people who had trained at Lecoq
in Milan, and

was working with a theatre company
that was doing workshops in schools.

And I said, what do you think?

Well, you should apply.

And I wrote them a letter.

I didn't speak a word of French at all.

And I wrote them a letter and said,
I love to come to your school.

And it was way beyond the deadline.

So I thought, it's never going to happen.

And they actually wrote me back and said,
somebody's dropped out at the last minute.

Do you want to come?

And so I hopped on the train,
went to Paris.

My best friend had just moved there before
to go to a film school so

basically I said, like, I'll crash
on your sofa and let's see how it goes.

I might just leave after three
months and I stayed seven years.

PAUL: Wow and did you,
it's interesting this because obviously

some of my previous guests
have studied there.

And I was talking
to Jos Houben about this.

OMAR: He was my teacher.

He's now a very dear friend,
but he was my teacher.

PAUL: And he was talking about when he went and,

of course, meeting Marcello and Simon
and that sense of finding connections.

Are there people that you still

collaborate with from those
days in shows and things.

OMAR: Not directly on shows,
but as always, you know, you kind of,

it's such an intense experience you go
through in two years

in which you're thrown into this
blender of art, emotion, humanity.

And so there is, like, quite profound
memories that stay with you.

And I ended up kind of working a bit

with a few people
after finishing the school,

a lot of them actually being based
in the UK because

they went back to Great Britain
and kind of set up their own companies.

But yeah, I think since I then started
working at the Bush Theatre,

which is a bit more kind of institutional
new writing, I feel sometimes like

those styles don't really meet
or they feel like it's separate.

PAUL: Well it's interesting, I want to talk
specifically about that point in a second.

But just on that moment of leaving Lecoq,
at that point, did you see yourself as

a performer or was it the directing
thing or writing what was your...

OMAR: I was always more interested in directing,

to be honest, directing,
writing, theatre making.

But then, of course, working at Lecoq,
you kind of go through that whole phase

of collaboration where you're
devising collectively.

And I don't know why
they wanted me to act.

It was never my thing.

But you end up on stage,

I guess, for some kind of work,
mainly the nonverbal work,

you kind of feel more at ease,
I think then when language started

entering the room, I kind of felt,
oh, is this really my thing?

And to be honest,
what I've always enjoyed,

the part of acting that I enjoy is the one
that happens in the rehearsal room when

you're trying out stuff,
when you're discovering things.

I really enjoy performing
there within that environment.

And then there is the moment where you

transition to like, oh,
we need to have the show and do it every

night in front of people,
and it needs consistency.

I always go like, oh, I'm not sure
I can find new things every night!

PAUL: Can I say, as a performer in my mid 50s,
it is something that me

and my contemporaries often talk about is
our continued passion and fascination

with process and sometimes the dread
of having to perform it every evening.

OMAR: Yeah, but I have always kind of envied

and admired the people who had
the fire, you know, to go on stage.

And I think that's a very peculiar thing.

And you see it immediately and I remember

in the school, you could tell the people
that really had that kind of fire inside

them where for me was I enjoyed a lot more
sitting watching people do things than

actually having to stand up
as a provocation that I can do something

so maybe somebody can
see how not to do it.

PAUL: That's a very useful tool, I think.

OMAR: Exactly, exactly!

PAUL: You touched on the Bush,

and I'd like us to come to the Bush
because it's when we met when you and

Madani were there, and it was exciting
times, I felt at that season.

And we had many conversations,
and for various reasons,

we never quite got over the line
with the project and those things happen.

But I always enjoyed those conversations.

And then ultimately,

I did do something there when you invited
me to do some crazy thing where I just

encountered the play and the audience
at the same time live on stage.

OMAR: Which one did you do?

Did you do 'Rabbit' or did you do 'Nassim'
or was it 'Blank'?

PAUL: Oh it might have been 'Blank'.
OMAR: 'Blank', the one with the blanks?

PAUL: Yes.

OMAR: Yes, yes, I remember.

PAUL: I enjoyed it immensely.
OMAR: Yeah

PAUL: And it kind of brings
me to my next question.

It's something that you just said, Omar,

in a way, is I always felt that some
of the stuff given now you're talking

about your background and your interest,
in a sense, didn't sit totally comfortably

within a more conventional
British theatre structure.

So I suppose the classic example
with my dear friend Caroline Horton's,

the show, the bouffon show
you made there, 'Islands'?

OMAR: 'Islands', yes.
PAUL: Which I enjoyed enormously.

And I was sadly not surprised when some

members of the establishment did not feel
this was an appropriate way to address

that material, whereas I felt
it was highly appropriate.

But I think you ran up against that thing,

which we sometimes get with Tol
d by an Idiot, where they don't feel our

form is appropriate
to address certain things.

Whereas I would argue what you did

with that show, which I should say was
a kind of satirical, for listeners,

a kind of satirical attack on tax evasion
and all that kind of,

I thought your vehicle of the bouffon
couldn't have been more appropriate!

But I think the establishment
don't want that.

They want it to be very considered
and presented in a particular way.

What's your thoughts?

OMAR: 'Islands' is such an interesting play.

It comes back in conversations

years afterwards, and I have very
good memories of it,

although, of course,
there was a bit of a backlash from,

I think mainly the press,
but also from people.

And I remember

I had been working a bit in Germany
lately, but I've always kind of had a few

friends coming from Europe
and Germany specifically.

And I was telling them, like I would say,

probably a third of the people
really really disliked it,

and a third of the people had no idea what
was going on and didn't have an opinion.

And a third of the people loved it.

And they said like, oh, yeah,
that's the perfect show, isn't it?

I said, like, well,
not by British standards.

So for me, that was a kind of revealing

moment, because in a way, I thought, well,
the show is doing what it needs to do.

It is provoking people.

PAUL: Yeah

OMAR: Provoking reactions.

And I think sometimes with certain
subjects, and it was very interesting

to me how that subject
specifically being money was,

they just felt it was
going a step too far.

And it was, I would say, trivialising,
maybe something that deserved a different

kind of lens or a different
kind of platform.

While actually we never
set out to do that.

If anything, we were very conscious about

the fact that we wanted to create
an equivalence between money and ****

as it were in that specific
show, cherries.

But there was a lot of

scatological references,
the ugliness of it.

And Caroline, you know,
when she started writing it and she shared

the idea with me at the beginning,
was really really adamant to not treat

the subject with you know,
kind of velvet gloves, but actually

wanting to expose the ugliness
and the real damage that these kind

of very far removed things bureaucracy,

accountancy and tax codes,

actually how they are reflected
in ordinary people's lives

through actual harm, you know, real harm
when you take it on a global scale.

So I think it was the only show that we

could have done about
the subject in a way.

And I still have people that stopped me

and go like, oh,
I remember seeing 'Islands'.

How amazing was that?

And I do feel now,

especially having worked a bit more
in the UK and trying to do the work that I

like and that I want to see on stage
at least, or that I feel I can do

on stage, is that, yeah,
you need to find the thing that you can do

and that is dear to you and eventually
find your audience for it.

And sometimes that audience will be very

wide and other times it might be very
small, but that doesn't mean that you need

to kind of bend your practice just to kind
of have a bigger reach or to kind

of appease what is
the expectation of the establishment.

PAUL: I think that's very perceptive, Omar,

and it's certainly something Hayley
and I and John hugely relate to.

I think there's often been times when
particularly critically,

people haven't liked our work and it's
kind of angered them in some way.

So it has provoked
a reaction quite strongly.

OMAR: But anger is a good reaction.

PAUL: I think so, it's
a wonderful. Very good reaction

OMAR: Better than indifference.

PAUL: Absolutely and I think sometimes they end
up writing about what they want the show

to be and they're annoyed that it's not
that thing that they wanted it to be.

Anyway, now let's talk about something
which reached a very big audience.

How did you get involved in 'Misty'
and how did that come about?

OMAR: Interestingly enough,
it involves Caroline Horton, because

I worked with Caroline on her first show
'You're Not Like the Other Girls,

Chrissy', which was
her first one woman show.

It was a beautiful, heartwarming story,
the story of her grandmother

Christiane and
her love story, and how she got engaged

to her grandfather during the second
world war, and this amazing character.

She was half blind and

living completely in her own world,
which would encapsulate everybody else.

And that show was hugely successful.

It started off at the fringe,

and when Madani and I started at the Bush,
we gave it a two week run

in a double bill with another play
by Sabrina Mahfouz

and Arinzé Kene, the writer and performer
in 'Misty', came to see it.

And Arinzé was a writer that was up

and coming and we knew his work as
a performer,

but he just had a couple of really good
plays on, and we were interested in him.

And he came to see the show,
and he says, like, oh, who did that?

And his agent said, like, oh, it's Omar.

It's like, oh, I want to work with him.

And we wanted to work
with him as well at the Bush.

So he was the first writer Madani and I

commissioned when we took
over the Bush in 2012.

And originally we
commissioned him for a play.

And he had this kind of big idea about

the Harlem Renaissance in New York
in the 20s and 30s, and he started writing

it, and then he fell out of love with it
and then he went AWOL for a year.

And then he said, like, oh,

I'm just going to return the commission
I don't think I can do that.

I said, like, no, keep the commission
and when you got something hit us back.

And so a couple of years later,
he came in, I remember in the kitchen

of the Bush,
we did a reading at 9:30 in the morning

with his agent and a producer
from The Bush, Madani and I.

And he had, like, this black notebook,

a Moleskine and he had written a few
skits of what would then become 'Misty'.

And we said, like, oh,
shall we do a couple of weeks?

R and D and then present
maybe a work in progress?

30, 40 minutes we had at the time was
the Radar festival,

where we were presenting kind of smaller
shows during the course of three weeks.

And so him and I went into a room

for three weeks,
and we kind of jammed you know,

a bit and tested the material
and explored it.

And we came out with half an hour.

We shared it in front of an audience.
They loved it.

Arinzé, of course, is an extraordinary
writer, but extraordinary performer.

And so we said, yeah, let's pursue this.

Let's see if there is a full show in it.

And then we continued collaborating on it,
and it became

a process of like five years in which we
constantly were building and dismantling

and rebuilding this play, which is kind
of very meta and kind of self reflective.

And to be honest, we had no idea
of what was going to happen with it.

If they told me when I started

at the Bush,
this is the show that the only show

that is going to transfer to the West End
and be nominated for massive awards.

I would have said, like,
no chance on Earth!

It's like this is too far out.

PAUL: But it's interesting, isn't it?

I 100% connect to that because we did

a show that Kathryn Hunter directed
called My Perfect Mind.

OMAR: Which I saw and loved.

It was one of the best shows
I've seen in my time in the UK.

PAUL: Well, thank you.

For similar reasons,

if someone had told me one of our most
successful recent shows would be a show

about an old actor having a stroke and not
playing King Lear,

I would have laughed at them,
which is why I suppose you can never

predict, can you, what people will go
for and what people will connect with?

If we could do that, we'd be rich men,
Omar, if we could do that.

OMAR: Absolutely. No.

PAUL: Now, I'm aware of the time.

So I need to bring you full circle to your
recent production of 'The Chairs',

which I saw only last week and I emailed
you and I spoke to my friends

in the show the cast
who were absolutely sublime.

My first question is a practical one,

because I loved your version of the show,
as you know,

and what you've done with the show
but I just, it's quite radical and I know

the play quite well, I've seen it a couple
of times, and I'm just curious,

did you have any issues
with the Ionesco estate or not?

OMAR: I don't know how much I can share.

PAUL: No no, you don't...

OMAR: No no, I will, I will, I will.

Let me tell you this story
because it's a fun story.

So I had, of course, cleared the rights
in 2019 when I started working on it.

I had first approached Kathryn
and Marcello and Toby about it because I

had a very specific idea of how I wanted
to do it and I wanted to do it with them.

I said, I can only do this thing with you
guys, and they kind of loved the idea.

I spoke about it with
Rupert at the Almeida.

He loved the idea and then we cleared

the rights for a new translation in which
I outlined already what I wanted to do.

I said, this is going to be a slightly
slapstick take on it,

and I want to subvert a bit the ending,
and it needs to have a Metaframe.

And I already had started the translation

so I gave them examples and I've sent this
two page letter to the estate and they

came back and said like,
yeah, that's fine.

You can have
the rights. Yadda yadda yadda,

you know, like the show gets programmed,
then it gets cancelled because of COVID.

We then find a date and so come November
of last year, when we are about to kind

of, literally the morning,
the show is about to go on sale.

I get an email from the literary manager

at the Almeida who is forwarding me
an email written in French by the agent

of the Ionesco estate in France, saying,
can you please get in touch

with Madame Ionesco,
who is the daughter of Eugène Ionesco

and the right holder, because she
wants to speak to you about this.

And I was like, well,

but we are announcing in half an hour,
what does she want to know?

Frantic set of phone calls.

I'm the only one who speaks French,
so I kind of called the agents and she

says, no no no, she just wants
to make sure that everything is fine.

You have to listen
to her and I was like, okay.

And then I called Madame Ionesco and she
was, I think, in her mid 80s now.

And, she was a literature
lecturer at the University.

She was a teacher, and I think also half
deaf because she started shouting

in my ear
without allowing me to put a word

in for the first ten minutes and basically
saying, So I've read your translation,

and I have no idea why we
need another translation.

There are perfectly viable
translation of this play available.

But anyway, whatever.

One thing that is very important I want

to know from you is who is
the Emperor for you?

And I'm like
The Emperor is a figure of authority.

No, no no no, the Emperor is God, Sir.

The Emperor is God.

And you must know that.

I was like, well, I mean, a figure
of authority is God as well you know?.

No no no no, and then she was very

adamant that I shouldn't
add anything to the play.

And I said, well,

I have the rights for the translation,
which I've done and then the directorial

stuff, these are just things I
need to try in the rehearsal.

And finally you know she gave me

the authorisation,
although not very enthusiastically,

I did invite her to see the show, knowing
that she would never make the trip.

And so, but of course,

I've cleared it with the Almeida,
with the producers and I think there is,

the Ionesco state is nowhere near as
protective as, say,

the Beckett
estate who won't allow you to change anything.

PAUL: Yes yes of course.

OMAR: And I think also
my background was

I've seen productions of 'The Chairs'
in Europe where

anything is done to the play,
to the text, to the stage direction.

That's just the way we do it in director's

theatre in Germany or
in Italy or even in France.

So I wasn't very concerned.

And at the end of the day, I thought,
well, let's try and see what happens.

PAUL: Also, I, because...
OMAR: Also, they're not going to shut us down.

PAUL: Exactly.
Because it's so fresh in my mind.

I think amongst the many brilliant things

it did, for me,
it captured the true spirit of the play,

which is what I think a really
good new version should do.

It had something that absolutely tapped
into that and made it feel fresh.

It was interesting sitting in an audience

at the Almeida, because in some ways
and I don't mean this rudely.

It sounds rude,
but it's one of the few theatres I go

where I still feel quite young
when I sit in the theatre!

What was glorious was seeing

an older audience really laughing,
really enjoying...

OMAR: That was quite surprising because

actually, I mean,
there was an interesting mix, I think.

Yes, of course.

Maybe the majority of the
audience at the Almeida is

PAUL: No, I'm being flippant.
OMAR: No, it is true.

But they also run these schemes,

so they give away quite a lot
of free tickets to under 25s.

And we had a lot, you know?

And I was really intrigued to see
how they were all laughing.

PAUL: Yes, exactly.
OMAR: There was something quite interesting

about that generational gap being bridged
by something very simple,

but also extremely complex,
as you know, as comedy you know?

And almost going back to the origins or
kind of a bit of a sweep of all

the history of comedy,
from commedia dell'arte

to slapstick and stand up. I was,
yeah, that was quite fascinating

to witness how they connected
immediately with that.

And I don't know if it has to do
with also, you know,

after two years of not really being
in a theatre and, you know,

not sharing that space,
like laughter is such a contagious.

PAUL: I couldn't agree more with our current
show about Charlie Chaplin

and Stan Laurel, which has had various
versions over the last a bit like 'Misty',

when we bought it back last summer I think
the joy of that collective laughter

was so much in some ways more, almost like
it was a kind of necessary thing I felt.

People needed to be able to share.

Are there plans for it to go
anywhere else or you don't know yet?

OMAR: We're working on it.

I think we'd love to take it

on an international tour just because,
of course, Kathryn and Marcello have

that kind of networking audience
from working abroad quite a lot.

It is quite a demanding show so...

PAUL: Oh, my word.

OMAR: When we finished the run, they
were exhausted.

PAUL: Well, when I saw them on the Monday

evening, the three of them in the bar,
and it was so nice to see them.

And in some ways it was very poignant

for me because the last time I saw
the three of them on stage together was

in that theatre 30 years ago
in a Complicite devised commedia piece

'Help, I'm Alive',
but they did look tired.

But I thank you for that because
it was such a joyous show.

Omar, we could chat for much longer,

but we've kind of reached
the end of our time.

I'd like to finish with eight very short

questions, and you just have to show
your first instinctive response.

Is that alright?
OMAR: Let's do it. Let's do it.

PAUL: And apologies for any
mispronunciations of names.

OMAR: Yes.
PAUL: Samuel Eto'o or Zlatan Ibrahimovic?

OMAR: Eto'o.

PAUL: Order or chaos?

OMAR: Ordered chaos.

PAUL: Fellini or Antonioni?

OMAR: Ahhh interesting, Fellini.
PAUL: Reggae or soul?

OMAR: Reggae.

PAUL: If you, we're talking about
the seven deadly sins here.

Which of these sins are you most prone to?

Gluttony or Sloth?

OMAR: Both.

PAUL: Pinocchio or Peter Pan?
OMAR: Pinocchio. Pinocchio.

PAUL: And this is where you prefer
to drive, in Milan or Paris?

OMAR: Terrible cities to drive in.

Both! I'd rather bike!

PAUL: Okay, you can have your bike!
Omar. It's been so lovely talking to you.

Thank you so much for joining us.

And I hope to see you in London soon.
Or indeed elsewhere.

OMAR: Yes, yes absolutely.
PAUL: Take care, Omar.

OMAR: Take care.
Thanks a lot.

PAUL: Dear listeners, if you've enjoyed this
Idiot podcast, please spread the word.