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 who has
forged a powerful creative identity in one

of the most exciting
spaces in the country.

Since becoming Artistic Director
of the New Vic Theatre

in Newcastle Under Lyme in 2007,
she has brought unconventional theatrical

forms to an audience who have
simply lapped them up.

Her work has been seen
in London's West End and on Broadway,

and I'm delighted to say she and her team
have collaborated with the Idiots on our

new version
of The Killing Of Sister George.

Welcome Theresa Heskins.
THERESA: Hello.

PAUL: It's very nice to be chatting to you

in Newcastle Under Lyme,
where I've been for the last five weeks,

working with your wonderful
team on Sister George.

More of that later.

And to get to chat more in general,

really, because we've talked a lot,
but often more specifically about things.

And this is a really lovely opportunity

for me to find out more about
what you've made in the past and stuff.

What I always do at the beginning is I

tend to take people back
to their beginnings in some way.

And as I was doing my research, Theresa,
I was struck by something you said when

you received your honorary doctorate
from the Staffordshire University.

And you said, I grew up
in a tough London council estate.

The education I received changed my life.

And this struck a chord with me as someone

who also grew up in a council
house not far away in Birmingham.

And I was intrigued by that,

the kind of impact, I suppose, on that
education that you kind of referenced.

But first of all,

early theatre experiences, can you
remember what that might have been?

THERESA: I can remember it really clearly
because it totally changed my life.

So it was the school taking us
to see Evita in the West End.

It was that time.

Do you remember?

Are you old enough to remember?
PAUL: Yes.

THERESA: When 'Don't Cry for Me Argentina' was

number one and it was on Top
of the Pops every Thursday night.

PAUL: Absolutely.
THERESA: And we saw that.

PAUL: Wow.
THERESA: And we went to see that live.

But you know what?
It wasn't, I don't know who it was

that was singing it at that point,
I don't think it was Elaine Paige or,

but that moment where Evita comes out
on the balcony and sings that song that we

all knew because we were watching it
on Top of the Pops every Thursday.

But it wasn't her in her amazing white
dress that struck me, it was the ensemble.

It seemed like the entire ensemble was

on the floor underneath the balcony,
looking up to her.

And as she started to sing,

they all froze and they were
statues for that whole verse.

That totally inspired me.

And I think I can see that in my work
ever since that experience.

PAUL: Well, that's the brilliant thing,

because I remember my brother
being a bit older than me.

He had a kind of cast album of Evita

with a white sleeve,
and I could see the black lettering and it

had Julie Covington singing Evita, but I
don't think she ever did it on stage.

I think it was just an album they released

because anyway, I remember that,
obviously that very vividly.

But what a great, who had
the vision to take you to see that?

Was that an English teacher?
Or a?

THERESA: Well, you know what?
I was so lucky.

I think growing up in London.

I mean, although there were lots

of downsides to it,
travelling anywhere was awful.

And growing up in a London council

of state, a time when gangs were starting
and people were running guns and drugs

and things, was not pleasant,
although enlightening.

But one of the great things about growing
up in London, even if you had no money,

was that there was lots
of things open to you.

There were the museums and stuff.

When got a free bus pass,

when I started doing my A Levels,
suddenly I could go anywhere.

And if you were really bored,

and you had nothing else to do,
you could at least stay on the bus

to the end of the line and then sit there
till it came all the way back again.

But there was all this theatre
and the school would ask mum and dad for,

I don't know what it was,
a fiver to go to cover bus fares.

And I'd usually throw
the letter away, actually.

I knew mum and dad couldn't afford it,
so rather than cause those arguments

at home or distress, I'd just
chuck the letter in the bin.

But this one time the teachers must have

got sick of me, because there'd always
have to be a teacher staying behind

from the trip themselves to look after
the kids who couldn't or wouldn't go.

So I was that kid who kept
the teacher behind.

The teachers must have got sick of me
and said, you're coming this time.

So I went that time.

I was about nine years old I think.

That was my first ever theatre experience.

And then I didn't really
go again with that school.

I think it was quite unusual
for them to do something like that.

But when I left school,
that free bus pass got me a lot of places,

and you could go and stand at the back
of the National Theatre for two pounds.

It's a long stand.

3 hours, two quid.
PAUL: Wow.

So as you moved on through school

and into secondary school,
had that left the mark in such a way

that you thought, oh, I'm quite
interested in this theatre thing?

Or was that later, when you were standing
at the National Theatre,

that became more of a kind of passion
or a beginning of a passion.

THERESA: Yeah, I really wouldn't have
thought of it as something to do.

It just wasn't something that I had any
knowledge about or, you know I was excited

about that one experience, but also
it's quite prohibitively expensive.

And also, from the age of about 13,
I had a part time job.

I did my O levels while working 20 hours
a week down at the sweet shop at the end

of the road, and did
that until I went to university.

So that and homework and stuff,
there wasn't really much time to do

things, but when I started doing A Levels,
I wanted to do English,

and I chose anything that was like
English to be the other A Levels.

And so I chose Theatre studies because
I looked a little bit like English.

And so that meant you had to go
to the theatre in order to do, you know

you'd have to do an essay
on something you'd seen.

And that's when I really started going

to the theatre and finding,
oh, it was fabulous.

It was such a lovely, amazing thing to do.

PAUL: What sort of things were you seeing

at The National when you were standing
at The National during your A levels?

What were you seeing?

THERESA: I would go to anything, whatever was
on for me, two quid, I'd go and see.

And also the young Vic was nearby.

I loved going to see David Thacker's
Shakespeare's at the Young Vic.

What else was there nearby?

There weren't all those fringe theatres
that are proliferated now,

but of course I never did,
because I couldn't afford that,

but I could have walked into the West End
from where I was living at the Elephant

and Castle, and then a bit later,
down further down the Old Kent Road.

PAUL: You mentioned David Thacker
at The Young Vic,

and was there any particular productions
there that stayed with you or

from The National at that time that made
you think, wow, this is exciting?

How have they done this?
THERESA: Yeah, there was one where

Romeo and Juliet,
that he did at the Young Vic,

he always did them in the thrust,
so they weren't quite in the round.

But that sense of something quite

immersive, where the audience is part
of the same space as the actors,

and I think it still is the front of house
of the Young Vic was a bombed out

butcher's shop that had been
wrecked in World War II.

And so there was a kind of a thing where

as you'd walk in, you'd feel
a connection with the place.

But even if, like me, you were a kid from

the world of non-culture,
you knew what a butcher's shop was like

and it felt quite domestic
in its architecture, weirdly.

And one night, this one night I went
to see Romeo and Juliet,

the actor playing the nurse was unwell,
so somebody was reading in with the book

on stage, not knowing the moves
and stuff just turned up earlier today.

And I guess that's really
stayed in my mind.

And I guess that was because that was
a bit of an insight into process.

And they used to have an artist

in rehearsal who would
draw rehearsal drawings.

And I remember really clearly

the exhibition in front of house
of the rehearsal drawings and being

fascinated by what is that thing
that goes on to make this thing, then?

PAUL: Yeah, that is interesting.
And you mentioned the young Vic.

I remember, obviously,
not growing up in London,

but growing up in Birmingham,
coming to study drama in London.

So sort of 18 and not really knowing,

only really getting a view of kind
of West End theatre and then going

somewhere like the Young Vic
felt a really cool place to go.

Seeing kind of and also seeing,
I think, seeing acting really close up.

I'd never experienced that.

I've been taken on school trips
to Stratford, but they seem miles away

when we sat up in the - but suddenly
seeing, I remember seeing a production of

Therese Raquin, I think Julia Bardsley did
at The Young Vic and this extraordinary

Zola story that played out right in front
of you and you felt a real part of it.

So when I ultimately, the years later,

got to act at The Young Vic,
that felt like a real journey for me

to go, oh, God, this is
this amazing theatre.

And now I'm stood here.
So, yeah, I can really relate to that.

So, obviously, extraordinarily obviously,

you must have worked really hard,
both at the sweet shop and at your

academic studies, because you made
your way to Oxford, is that right?

THERESA: Yeah, and I started directing a lot there

PAUL: in itself that sounds extraordinary.

THERESA: That was, I think, one of the reasons why
I was so grateful for the education I had.

I mean, you know, it was free.

It was a sink school for quite
a lot of it, it is true.

But they took me to the theatre
and the teachers did,

for some of the pupils who they felt
needed a bit more stretch,

they'd give up their lunch times
to do extra classes and things.

So the education I got there in this
school, that was, I think,

second to the bottom of the London league
tables, it was still really fantastic.

And you know what?
It all taught me graft as well.

And that sweet shop where Hansa and Shanti

had fled Idi Amin's Uganda and made
a life from nothing in this place.

And they'd get up at 05:00 in the morning
and run that place till 10:00 at night.

And that again, that sense of if you graft

at something, it might be possible
to achieve it, that was an eye opener.

But then I went off somewhere
else to do A Levels.

I went to a Central London College,
which was meet the middle classes.

PAUL: Can I just say before we before we meet
the middle classes,

I don't often play my podcast to my two
children, but what you just said about

working in the sweet shop,
I will be relaying this to them very

clearly, not just from my mouth,
but from yours.

Now, you mentioned meeting the middle

classes and I suppose I felt very similar
coming from a working class background.

My dad was an electrician slash
unemployed, and my mum was a dinner lady,

and part of the thing arriving at drama
school in London was everyone felt

incredibly exotic and cultured
compared to myself.

I can't begin to imagine what it must have

felt like for you to end up
in Oxford from Elephant and Castle.

That must have been
a huge change, wasn't it?

THERESA: Do you know what?

I think that maybe it's
the college I went to.

You could choose your college and in fact,

I'd chosen Balliol, which is
a very socialist college.

And I think everybody was pretending not

to be rich because it wasn't until I left
college,

I remember being invited to lunch once
after college to somebody's house,

and it was this split level
mezzanine house in Notting Hill.

And I remember just thinking, oh, my
goodness, this is who you were all along.

Whereas they were wearing secondhand
clothes from the charity shop

and supporting the miner strike and being
very militant when we were at college.

And I think also it was interesting

because the currency there,
I think, in a way, it's the most

equal society I've ever lived in,
because the currency there was academia

and also what contribution you
were making to the college.

So directing and making plays and things,
it wasn't in that particular place,

really about wealth, because, as I say,
everybody was desperately hiding it,

only to reveal it the second they left a
nd mum and dad bought them a house!

PAUL: That is very interesting and funnily

enough, a link to Oxford - when we first
started told by an Idiot 30 years ago this

very year, just before then,
a couple of years before,

Hayley and I had managed to get our idea
together for a show and we were scrambling

around trying to get
somewhere to put it on.

And someone, the woman who was in,
a young woman who was in it with us,

who had been at Oxford, said, I can get
us a slot at the Burton Taylor Theatre.

I remember meeting various people

and obviously the theatre scene was
very thriving around in the university.

Did you get involved quite heavily,
quite quickly in the theatre scene?

THERESA: I did, and sort of by accident, really,

because before going,
another amazing teacher during my A Levels

had handed out all these leaflets
for a playwriting competition.

And I just thought,
I'll have a go at that.

I like writing stories, I'll enter that.

And I went and won a playwriting

competition at the Royal Court to have
my play made in the theatre upstairs.

It ran for four weeks.

It was reviewed by all the national press.

I arrived at college in Freshers Week.

It was press night that week.

So on Sunday, all the Sunday papers
came out with my reviews in.

If only I'd realised at the time how
precious all that was, I didn't.

But what I did realise was something

that I didn't know was that there was
this job called a director.

Because I saw

the director, Hetty McDonald,
directing my play and Lindsay Posner was

directing another one side by side,
saw them at work and didn't like writing.

Thought this is a lonely thing

and everybody expects you to have all
the answers, but their job was great.

It was working with a group of people
and you didn't have to have any answers.

You could just say, let's explore
that a bit, or, what do you think?

And so when I got -

PAUL: Oh Theresa, that's amazing.

THERESA: It was totally stunning.

And I didn't realise at the time,

I just didn't, but it was so that was
a real professional environment.

Max Stafford Clark was running at the time
and Simon Curtis was there,

and they were all involved in this Young
Writers Festival that was really special.

And the amazing Elyse Dodgson,
who later ran the international programme

she was running at the time
and mentoring us.

So amazing.
And so I landed in Oxford

with all of that and suddenly started
directing shows and what a great

environment, because you
weren't responsible to anybody.

You just do it, do what you wanted to.
Yeah.

PAUL: But also, I imagine you having had

arriving and having a play upstairs
at the Royal Court gave you some sort

of cachet, I imagine,
amongst your peers at Oxford.

THERESA: Yeah, I think it did.

I think I did feel myself
taken seriously very quickly.

It took a lot of my life after that
to feel myself taken seriously again.

So felt in this amazing,
quite rarefied atmosphere where you go

and ask for a little bit of money from one
of the drama societies,

and there was OUDS which was
the conventional one, and there was ETC,

which was the experimental one,
and I joined ETC.

PAUL: That's right, yeah.

THERESA: Then there was this thriving
comedy scene, of course, as well.

And when I was thinking about meeting you

today, I was thinking,
what's my biggest regret?

And it was not being part of that,
because I was a very serious director.

It's taken me a lot in my life to realise
that what I like is comedy and humour.

PAUL: Well, that's an interesting
that's an interesting regret.

Interesting you bring that up.

And if I think of something about your
work, as I've encountered it later in your

life, I think it's full of comedy
and full of that warmth.

And I associate, I use that word warmth

very deliberately, very consciously,
which is something that I think is really

important, and I think it's
something your work really reflects.

So it's interesting,
the journey that we go on, isn't it?

As people making theatre,

it doesn't mean that if you start off
necessarily making one thing,

you end up doing that
or not drawn to something else.

Wow, that's fascinating.

Coming out of university by that stage,

were you thinking, right,
this is it, I want to be a director.

Was that forged then, in Oxford?

THERESA: Yeah, I was really keen to and I'd done

a lot at college and taking shows,
to Edinburgh, running Edinburgh season,

and won an award
at the National Student Drama Festival

and things, and felt that that was
definitely what I wanted to do.

The problem was how you come out
into a recession and theatre was

in recession and I was sleeping
on the floor of my nan's council flat.

That's where I was living.

And I was trying to pay off my debt
from college by working as PA

to Sunny Crouch at the London
Docklands Development Corporation.

I am a brilliant PA, Paul.

Really fast typist, good at filing.

Actually, the great thing about that was I

earned more than I've earned
most of my life since.

And I could afford to go to the theatre

a lot again and sit in seats this
time instead of stand at the back.

PAUL: So there is a benefit to being a fast
typist and a good filer, then.

THERESA: It was great.

They offered me a company car
and a pension and a job and everything,

and I turned it all down to go
into the RTYDS scheme in Birmingham.

PAUL: I assume that's not one of your
other regrets of turning that down?

THERESA: No.
I mean, sometimes I do think,

what would it be like to have a job
without loads of responsibility and to be

able to carry on going to the theatre
as a hobby in the evenings?

Because it was fantastic.

I used to go like four or five times

a week and I don't have
the energy to do that now.

PAUL: No, that's for sure.

So when you went into the regional

director scheme, you fetched up
at my hometown, my local theatre.

Who was running Birmingham Rep
there when you went?

THERESA: It was John Adams

and Tony Clark and Gwenda Hughes
were there as his associates.

But it was fantastic.

So exciting.

But there wasn't really a culture

of independent theatre
in Birmingham at that time.

The place was just recovering.

It was kind of this post industrial

landscape that was just benefiting
from lots of European money to do things

like get rid of, do you
remember the underpasses?

You couldn't walk anywhere at night -
PAUL: Yes I do

THERESA: because there's dangerous underpasses.

And it had an amazing landscaping

during that time, during the early 90s,
when I was there,

and it started to develop an independent
theatre scene, which is now burgeoning.

I mean, I think it's an amazing place now.
PAUL: Yeah.

THERESA: But then it was quite hard.
PAUL: Yeah.

I left Birmingham in '86,

so a bit before you arriving and I didn't
go back for a long time,

not out of choice or anything,
it's just I never happened to go there.

And when I returned,

probably properly returned,
it was when Roxana was running it and I

was in her first production
in the Molière, Tartuffe,

and I remember feeling what a change
my home city had gone through.

I thought it was extraordinary and I think

it's a great city and obviously I'm
from there, so it means a lot to me.

But I think the change culturally
has been extraordinary.

I agree.
Were there any productions that did you

get to direct sort of many shows while you
were on the scheme or how did it work?

THERESA: Yeah, I did a Turn of the Screw
in the studio that I really loved.

PAUL: Yeah, I love that book.

So you did an adaptation
of the Henry James?

THERESA: Yeah, I worked with a commissioned

a writer to adapt it, Eve Lewis,
who later went on to work for Shunt

and also started working I suppose then I
started working with the people that I

should have been working
with when I was at college.

People had done things like the Lecoq
and Gaulier courses and things like that.

And I suppose that's where I first started
to find that this very serious person,

I mean the Turn of the Screw is serious
but that kind of approach that's more

about complicity and playfulness and less
about rigorous literary analysis.

And that's where I think I started
to find out what kind of director I am.

It still took me another 20 years to get

there, but that was really
exciting to do that in the studio.

So, again, that sense of
it's quite accessible, isn't it?

Like you outlined earlier,

when you feel there's an audience member
up close and part of the action,

it is a very accessible way to see theatre
rather than observing it from a distance.

And we converted the studio,

so it was on two sides there and they did
quite a lot of community touring work

and did a lot, a lot with the education
team and really started to find a passion

for things like directing youth theatre,
which I carried on doing a lot of.

And, in fact, for a while,
that was my career,

working in community and education
settings, which was really inspiring.

PAUL: Yeah, definitely

THERESA: Get to work massive casts when you work

with youth theatres, which is
really exciting as a director.

PAUL: Yeah.

You can return back to your days
of Evita with the big chorus.

Exactly.
We come full circle.

So when did Pentabus come about?

Was that after Birmingham?

THERESA: Yeah,
so at Birmingham,

there was this thing going on of this
education work, but also I was working

with an independent company called Jade
that had been founded by one of those

actors in Turn of the Screw, who asked me
to come and direct their first project.

So again, we commissioned a writer,
Sarah Woods, to do this thing that was

called Grace, which was,
I mean, I'm 30 by now.

There was a lot of poverty over
the 20s over the recession in theatre.

And I carried on working as
a PA from time to time as well.

But about 30 we were doing this play
that was kind of about being 30,

about all your lists of things
that are still to be done.

And this TV programme called Ali McBeal

came out at the same time,
which was the same thing.

So suddenly we were right on the zeitgeist

and we went to the King's Head and we
extended and we went to Edinburgh and we

were nominated for the Total Theatre Award
and the Channel 4 Comedy Award,

if only the League of Gentlemen
hadn't been there that year.

We were second to the League of Gentlemen.

And again, that's where I started

to discover how much I like fun
and comedy and how it can be serious.

Comedy can, as you always say,

it can accommodate serious themes
and ideas and really important work.

Just because it's funny doesn't mean
that it's frivolous, necessarily.

PAUL: You know, I wholly concur with that view.

And partly why we're doing plays,

like doing versions of things like The
Killing of Sister George

at your wonderful theatre
is it deals with, just, as you say,

in some ways, it reveals things much
sharply than through the comedy.

Well, it's no bad thing coming second
to the brilliant League of Gentlemen.

So that in itself is a feat.

Before you went,
did you want to run a company or was it

beginning to think about
trying to run a building?

Where where was that coming?

THERESA: No, I wanted to make new work.

I wanted to work with writers specifically
and particularly a particular kind

of arena of work, which was about physical
visual theatre combining with new writing.

At that point, there was a real
passion for, across the theatre industry,

improvised and devised work which was
really exciting and often very physical

and very visual, but not always
with very strong narrative architecture.

And I was really excited by all of that,

but I wanted to bring what I'd learned
from new writing and the importance

of narrative architecture to that world
of physical visual theatre.

And with Grace that we were just talking

about, I remember Lyn Gardner
saying it was like improvised jazz.

It wasn't.
It was actually every moment of it was

scripted by a playwright who was
in the room all of the time.

But it did have that feel,
that very lively feel.

And that's what took me
to Pentabus, really.

That was my next step, that I could see.

There was a company that didn't think

of itself as a new writing company,
but was a new writing company,

was commissioning writers to do two plays
a year, and that there was an opportunity

there to make work and also shape a vision
and, I hoped, connect with audiences.

Although actually,

I learned with a touring company,
that's quite difficult because you don't

have a direct relationship
with those audiences.

You have it with a promoter
or a key holder of some kind.

But it was a really exciting time.

I went and lived out in the countryside.

I'd grown up with just a balcony outside
the door and suddenly there was all this.

I thought countryside was a bit scary.

Red in tooth and claw.

No one can hear you scream out there.

But I lived in the countryside
and Pentabus was based on a farmyard.

So you'd go into work in the morning,

pass the lambs and sit
in the meadow to read scripts.

PAUL: I think we are cut from similar cloth.
Because I grew up,

as
I

said
in Birmingham, then came to London and I

was always very suspicious, like you,
of the countryside, wary of it.

When I met my partner,
she was working at the Royal Exchange

and living in Hebden Bridge,
and we were very early on in our

relationship and I went up to stay
and she had to go to work.

So I woke up alone in this underdwelling
in Hebden Bridge and it literally felt

like that film Misery, where James Caan
gets his legs broken by the writer.

I thought, where am I?

But now I still live in London.

I love London, but I've grown to love

the countryside,
much to my family's amusement.

I always didn't see the point of going

for a walk unless you were walking
for a reason to get somewhere.

But now I just walk in the country,
which is obviously very good.

So when the New Vic job came up,
were you already looking to try and move

to a building or was this just something
you thought, I'm going to go for it?

THERESA: No, I was really happy
at Pentabas, actually.

We'd done a co-production
with the National Theatre and one

with Radio Four and one
with Soho Theatre in London.

And there was really exciting, and we were

just about to do our first
British Council tour as well.

So it was a really exciting time
having got the company to that.

But then I was asked to apply for this job

and to be honest, my first response was,
I don't really want to run a building.

That experience in Birmingham during

a recession was that
buildings are difficult.

It's challenging to keep staff happy,
it's challenging to make good work.

But I don't know,

as the recruitment process went on,
they did a very thorough,

very good recruitment process,
which was brilliant, really.

It wasn't just about blagging your way

charismatically into persuading people,
that you can persuade people to do things.

It was actually about demonstrating what

your vision is and what you might do
and chance to formulate that as well.

So it was great.

I came to see a lot here and of course,
the space is just amazing, isn't it?

The architecture of the whole
building is extraordinary.

The architect worked with the then
Artistic Director, Peter Cheeseman,

and also with the then resident
designer Alison Chitty.

And you can really see that the building

was created by people who know theatre
and know audiences and Know about process

PAUL: totally agree.
Totally agree.

And I think that's one of the many
things that makes it quite unique.

And as a theatre maker and as a first time

director here, it's unlike anywhere
that I've kind of worked for that reason.

So you get the job and now
you're running a building.

As someone who's never run a building,

running a company, as you say,
is very different thing.

Of course, there's responsibility,
but you're able to be very fleet of foot

in terms of where you can have
a small team, all of that.

So when you rock up on your first day

running a building,
is that not terribly nerve wracking when

you're suddenly, oh, my gosh,
I'm responsible for all of this?

Not solely, obviously, but, you know,

THERESA: Yeah, it was the Managing Director at
the time, Nick Jones, very experienced.

So that was that was brilliant.

Felt very secure there, really.

And because they'd done it all properly,

they made sure that there was
a really good what was it?

A four or five month handover period

with the previous Artistic Director,
Gwenda Hughes.

I kind of shadowed her for a bit
and then she kind of faded out.

Very tactfully.

So it felt like a really secure it was

a really brilliant process,
actually, to put that in place.

So, weirdly,

one thing did feel frightening,
which is suddenly the first play I was

doing was a play that had
come off the shelf.

It was in a published book.

It's the first time
I was doing a play that wasn't on A4

sheets of paper that would
change every day.

So for the very first time in my life,

doing something that somebody else had
already ironed all the wrinkles out

of and knew it could work, although
and carried on doing that for a bit.

But the two things,

apart from that striking gosh we are doing
plays that have been published,

that sense of a connection
with the audience was really powerful and

I learned that the reason I've been
appointed was because of my background.

I had a real natural connection
with an audience in what is

Mirror Group concluded as the most
working class city in the country.

I've a real sense of what
would appeal to people.

And also, I think, because the work I make

is,
I try to make it accessible and often non

literary, that it's serious
and sophisticated,

but that it is also very, very accessible
to a family, for example, all ages.

It really seemed to chime.

It was a really fantastic
first season, actually.

I did Jamaica Inn as part of it,

and a very, quite physical
and visual production of it.

And people were so inspired
and excited by that.

And I learned that they had never heard
of promenade theatre or immersive theatre,

because there wasn't at that time, a lot
of other theatre around here to see.

People weren't getting to see the kind

of new fashions in theatre
presentation and style.

So I sort of set about finding ways that I
could introduce people to that in this

unconventional but quite
large middle scale.

It's a 600 seater theatre in the round,
you can't do anything with it other than

have it in the round, so it's
got a very strong personality.

You can't do easily a piece of promenade
theatre or something immersive,

but you can find ways to and we also
started off a relationship with a circus

company, Upswing,
to put contemporary circus based theatre

in there, which has continued in a really,
really inspiring way.

PAUL: Well, it is inspiring to hear you,
and obviously I've heard it in some ways

when we chatted in the past,
but to hear you put it like

that and the journey that you've gone
on at the New Vic, it is inspiring.

And it's interesting.

A thread that's gone through all of this
conversation is writing from you,

having your play on upstairs
at the Royal Court,

and writing in general,
because obviously I also think of you as

someone who adapts a lot
of the work that you do as well.

So it's not just that you're directing it.

And I think some of the ways you've

managed to take, as you said,
stories that can have a very wide appeal,

but also adapt them and direct them
in such a way that they're still

exciting and unpredictable
and challenging for an audience.

So shows like I've seen

Around The World In 80 Days,
The Wicked Lady I have a question about

this because
we don't adapt in the same way,

but we're often inspired by something
that then brings us to something else.

When you're adapting stuff,

do you deliberately shy away
from seeing that in any other form?

So, for instance, with The Wicked Lady.

Did you watch the James Mason
Margaret Lockwood film?

THERESA: No.

So actually, Wicked Lady was
Bryony Lavery's adaptation

PAUL: of course it was Bryony.

THERESA: I loved working with her.

And Around The World in 80
Days was Laura Easton's.

PAUL:Sorry
THERESA: but I think,

PAUL: I was assuming they're yours no,
they're two brilliant writers as well.

THERESA: The productions,
I think that there's a lot of commonality

with those and with the other productions
of things that I have adapted.

So people often think that they're mine.

And I'm always at pains to credit

the writer because writers are so
valuable and important, aren't they?

But no, I'll always, directing or writing,
I'll always try to steer clear. Because

even if you're not influenced by it,
I just don't trust that that brilliant

idea I've had hasn't been influenced
subliminally in some way.

So I just really try hard not to.

And then afterwards, it takes me
a long time to get round to seeing it.

What was it I did last year?

Tom, Dick and Harry, which was
a story about the great escape.

I was literally the only person
on the team who hadn't seen

the Great Escape, which was really
valuable because I was the only person.

I think that's really crucial.

PAUL: I remember when we made Casanova a few
years ago, Carol Ann Duffy and Hayley,

we turned Casanova into a woman and Hayley
played it and Hayley knew Venice very well

and Carol Ann knew Venice very well,
where much of our story was set.

And I'd never been I only knew Venice
from one of my favourite movies

THERESA: Don't Look Now

PAUL: Nick Roeg, and I thought,
oh, should I go to Venice?

And I thought, Actually, no,

it's really good that one of us
only has Venice in our imagination.

So I have an imaginative view of Venice,
but the other two had and I think

sometimes that's really important,
that you don't know the material,

you don't know
when I directed Beauty Queen of Leenane,

I thought, I don't need to go
to this particular part of Ireland.

I should just respond imaginatively
to what Martin McDonagh's written.

It's interesting.

Is there one project still you think I

really need to do or want
to do this at the New Vic?

Is there some idea that's burning away
for years that you've not managed to do?

And you don't need to answer
that if it's under wraps.

THERESA: There is, and it's it's
sort of under wraps.

But for 20 years, I wanted to do
Angela Carter's, Company of Wolves.

I was, I tried so hard to and never found

the right, and finally,
at the New Vic in 2020,

we planned it and we had an international
cast because working with

Vicki Dela Amedume Circus co director
on the show to create this amazing,

vibrant, very physical, very circusy
circus theatre, spoken word fusion.

And the cast were all due to turn up next

week from Singapore and New York
and Australia and Denmark.

And then we heard that all international
flights were stopping during due to this

thing called COVID and then
so we had to postpone it.

And then a week later, Lockdown came.

It's one of the projects, we've done
all our post pre-pandemic projects now.

Tom Dick and Harry and Marvellous,
all the ones that were lined up before,

but that's the one that we haven't managed
to do partly because international travel

still seemed a little bit
unreliable for quite some time.

So that's the one I'm really hoping well,

we've got the set, we had it made,
it was all designed.

PAUL: Well, I have to say, knowing your work,
I'd love to see that.

I think the combination of you
and Angela Carter and that particular

again, strangely enough,
I remember the film,

Neil Jordan film in the early 90s,
I think, and also seeing that play out

in the amazing space of the New Vic,
the way you described it.

I really, really hope I'm sitting there
watching that at some point soon.

Theresa, it's been so lovely chatting

to you, hearing about your career,
it's extraordinary.

So thank you so much.

I always finish by asking seven
quick fire questions to my guests.

You just have to say the first
answer that comes in your head.

There's no pressure.

So I'm starting off with something
connected to the region of where we are.

If you had to choose between these two
writers Arnold Bennett or Robbie Williams?

THERESA: Robbie Williams.

PAUL: Canal boat or caravan?
THERESA: Canal boat.

I lived on one when I came here
for the first eight months.

PAUL: I'll have to find out more about that.

The Amalfi Coast or the Norwegian Fjords?

THERESA: Oh, gosh.

Both.

PAUL: Staffordshire oak cake or Cornish pasty?
THERESA: Oak cakes.

PAUL: Kate Bush or Joni Mitchell?

THERESA: Kate Bush.

PAUL: Directing or writing?

THERESA: Oh, I can't choose there,
no directing I would choose

PAUL: Retirement or never leave show business.
Oh, God.

THERESA: I'll never afford to retire, Paul.

So the only option is to carry on.

PAUL: I've heard that many times.

Theresa, thank you so much.

Thank you so much for joining us.
You've been a wonderful guest.

Have a good day.
THERESA: Thank you.

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