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 one of the rising
stars of his generation,

equally at home directing Shakespeare,
new writing or Christmas shows,

he also runs buildings as
Artistic Director of the Unicorn Theatre,

he led the organisation through
the pandemic and continued to redefine

what theatre for young people
and families could be.

Now new Artistic Director of Chichester,

I, for one, can't wait to see
what he's going to do.

Welcome, Justin Audibert.
JUSTIN: Hi, Paul.

Thank you so much.
Great to be invited.

PAUL: Well, it's lovely to have you here.

And obviously we've worked together

on several occasions, so I'm sure
we'll touch on that at some point.

But I will kick off, as I always do,

by taking guests back to the very
beginnings of things and asking when or

how or where was your first kind
of engagement with theatre or live

performance, whether that's through
family or school or did it come later?

JUSTIN: Yeah, so I've got quite
a good one of these.

Well, the first that I can remember,

I'm pretty sure it would be the first,
was on my fifth birthday,

being taken to the Kenneth Moore Theatre
in Ilford to see the Sooty and Sweep

show live by my grandma,
and she had told them it was my birthday.

So when it came to the bit where you go,

and they picked people up
from the audience, I got to go up on stage

and go, "Izzy wizzy,
let's get busy and wave the wand.

And then a birthday cake appeared
and then everyone sang me Happy Birthday.

So I'm pretty sure that's probably
whay I ended up being a theatre director.

Does life ever get better than saying,

"Izzy wizzy let's get busy'
and magic your own birthday cake?

PAUL: That's quite an extraordinary first
show to see and kind of interacting

with, an immersive
performance that you were part of.

It kind of will lead to a question later

about performing I have for you,
but you've kind of touched on it already.

Extraordinary.

So were you born and raised
in Ilford, Justin?

JUSTIN: I was, yeah, I was born
yeah, that's right.

I lived there until I until, actually,
probably not long after that.

So I think I was about I'd done my first

year of primary school
and then we moved to Croydon.

So then I grew up like Hayley Carmichael,
as we've talked about before, in Croydon.

So I think I'm a Croydonian, really,

because I was there from six
to eighteen, really.

But, yeah, no, that's where
I was born, in Ilford.

PAUL: And it's interesting you talk about the
Sooty and Sweep extravaganza experience.

Was that an isolated theatre trip or did
you go more with school or anything?

JUSTIN: So, basically my family would,

I would say I think it probably
worked out as twice a year.

So pretty much we always went
to a pantomime at Christmas and then we

pretty much always went to a musical
at some point in the year.

And the pantomime often my mum would
arrange, but sometimes, like,

my grandma took me to the Palladium, I
remember seeing Frank Bruno

PAUL: Wow.
JUSTIN: In a pantomime at the Palladium.

Yeah, I remember doing that.

And then the musical,
it would tend to be like a classic

musical, but we tend to go and see it -
my auntie and uncle lived in the Midlands,

in Redditch, and we'd tend to go
and see it at the Hippodrome.

It would tend to be like, you know,

I remember seeing My Fair Lady,
I remember seeing Oliver.

I remember seeing
the Canterville Ghost with Ron Moody.

PAUL: Wow.
JUSTIN: Yeah yeah.

So those would tend to be
the experiences I kind of had.

And then I would be in the you know,

often I'd be in the school,
like primary school play.

And then when I was eleven,

for my 11th birthday, my auntie,
who would often book the musical,

she loved going to Stratford upon Avon,
to watch shows there.

She was from Ilford as well,

but she went to university in Aston and
trained to be an optician.

She started going to Stratford then

to watch plays,
get cheap student tickets,

and often they were in the Other Place,
she would go, but she took me at eleven

to see a production of - so strange now - Loves Labour's Lost,

which I'm pretty I've looked this up
and I think it's Ian Judge directed it.

Couldn't tell you who was in it,

but it was all set in like, kind
of Cambridge or Oxford, I'm not sure.

It was like punting,
the kind of theme of it.

Everyone was punting around left, right.

I didn't even know what punting was,

obviously, why would
you when you're eleven?

I just remember it was in the RSC,
the old RSC, the massive barn thing.

But we must have had okay seats, I think.

But it was huge.

And I just remember,

strangely, that was the thing that I just
remember the spectacle of it and these

mechanised live boats going backwards
and forwards and just loved it.

I remember really vividly loving that I

always liked the musicals,
but I remember that.

And I remember the challenge
of the Shakespeare.

And I remember that was a really I would

say that was a really
formative experience.

And then after that, my auntie would often

take me to, she'd book tickets for like,
one Shakespeare thing a year as well.

So I started going
to Shakespeare because of that.

PAUL: That's very interesting.

And also the fact that, as you said,

you're similar to me,
your experience was - I didn't really see

musicals, but certainly in Birmingham used
to go

to
the

Hippodrome to see pantomimes and stuff,
and then slightly older than you had

that thing,
because I was born

in Birmingham, eventually there
would be a school trip to Stratford.

And it's funny,

when you mentioned that particular production, which I didn't see but I

remember being at the Barbican
in the 90s and they had lots of

posters and I can see a poster
that looked like Brideshead Revisited.

JUSTIN: Yeah, it looked exactly like that -

PAUL: That vibe, which I'm sure must be
that show, so that's quite,

I suppose, a fairly early introduction
to - and also,

it wasn't like A Midsummer Nights Dream,
complex plot were dealing with.

And then so you go to secondary school and
at what point does it kind of -

often when I talk to guests,
there is some kind of turning point.

It might be a teacher or
something that ignites the idea that, oh,

maybe there's something,
did that happen for you in some way?

JUSTIN: Yeah, so I think that's really true.

I went to a state school, but it
was a really academic state school.

It was really, it was called Wilson's
really good school, slightly strange - all

boys school, which
you know is different.

And we had a teacher who actually
taught classics is what he taught.

Through the classics, you would do like,
Sophocles and Euripides and Aeschylus.

We only did one

Aeschylus, I think mostly it was Sophocles
and Euripides.

And he would then do the school play
as well, and direct the school plays.

His name was Jeff Shaw, and he

yeah, basically, so he did like,
Hiawatha, but a staged version of Hiawatha

we did when I was 16, we did
John Ford's Tis Pity She's a Whore.

PAUL: Wow.
JUSTIN: Which is a mad play to do at 16,

and then we did a play called Ghetto,
which was by Joshua Sobol.

PAUL: Yes.

JUSTIN: Which Nick Hytner,
directed at the National.

So we did these really heavy

plays for kids to do and I suppose
on some level, I just loved doing that.

And what I look back on now is,
so I'd be in them,

but what I look back on now is
he would often say, like, oh,

why don't you go and take those
guys off and rehearse a bit?

So I suppose I wasn't the Assistant

Director, but I was a kind of unofficial
Assistant Director, if that makes sense.

And I guess that was the thing.

I would go off and do little practise,

little bits with people
and I just like doing that.

And so I suppose that was that.

But, I mean, full disclosure, like,
even at that point, I would have,

I would have had no idea whatsoever
that I would work in the theatre.

Like, I mean, I don't know if I
knew there were jobs in theatre.

Do you know what I mean?
I would have known there were actors,

but I'm like, well,
I'm not even sure yeah,

I suppose I would have known
that there were stage managers.

I don't think I would have known

there were directors, for example, or even
- someone did the lights,

but you don't know that's a job,
do you know what I mean?

PAUL: It's an interesting thing when
you begin to have a really strong feeling

about performance or theatre,
but as you say, you don't really know

what people do or what roles are,
or someone is directing something

and thinking that theatre
just kind of happens somehow.

What was your feelings around performing?

Because I'm always interested when I speak

to directors, at what point do you start
to go, well, I'm not sure about this

performance business,
or did that carry on for a while.

JUSTIN: So I went to
university, Sheffield University, again,

everything is a mixture of an interest
and then the luck and the circumstances.

So it just happened that in the same time
as I was at university in Sheffield,

there was James Grieve and George Perrin,
who later went on to run Paines Plough,

There was Lucy Prebble,
obviously very famous playwright now,

DC Moore,
an actor, Simon Darwin,

another producer called Paul Jellis,
and Alan Lane, who runs -

PAUL: Yes.

JUSTIN: And Alan was a couple of years above,

and probably really important I later
lived with Alan,

probably really important in that
he was in his third year when I was

in my first year,
and he kind of left and worked, you know,

in a whole range of odd
jobs in theatre, I think.

Yeah.
and found his company.

So I...and I still at university
to start with, acted, and we all did.

And I think the brilliant,

the thing that we were so lucky about
and the thing that I get,

you don't know it at the time, of course,
but the way it worked in Sheffield was

the drama society ran,
there was a theatre that was an old

converted church and there was
a theatre manager, a guy called Ruben.

But essentially the drama society
you programmed and ran the theatre.

But with that, it meant that you had

to rig the lights and put things back and
coil the cables and do all that stuff.

And actually so even if you were acting,

you had to turn up for the get
in and the get out on a Sunday.

And it wasn't like a choice.

You weren't in the society
if you didn't do that.

And you realise

and then basically it was just if you were
in a play, then the next play maybe you

wouldn't be in it, but you'd
be expected to do something.

So, like, you might,

in inverted commas,
I'm doing air quotes here - "

Sound designer" putting like a mini
disc in the, or taking a mini out.

Or you do a lighting design.

I remember doing one where LEDs had just

happened, become a thing and doing
this whole lighting design.

Now I'm like, that must be the worst
thing for the audience watch.

Just like colour changing
a sign, the whole show.

You're like, that must have been the most
annoying thing to watch in the history.

But, you know, so you learn to do or stage

manage or or produce, you know,
or put the posters up or whatever,

and you realise now that that was the kind
of formative, you know, that thing of,

like, actually, you just
got to try and do it.

That was so important.

But I know when I first thought, oh,
I would quite like directing,

I was in a play,
a version of Sisterly Feelings,

an Alan Ayckbourn play, where the second
half is determined by the toss of a coin.

And I was playing the grandad in it.

And we came off stage on the last night
and I was like, oh,

that scene where we all post passed around
sandwiches, that was meant to be funny.

Like, we'd done like,

a whole run of this play and none of us
had realised this whole scene was funny.

And at that point, I was like, well,
if I've worked that out,

maybe I should have been directing
the play rather than being in the play.

And I remember that being the thing of me
being, like, I'm going to direct play,

because I was like, I don't want to be,
if something is meant to be funny

and you're directing and it's
not funny, it's just death.

PAUL: Yeah, tell me about it, Justin.

Very aware of that.

That's very interesting.

Also, Sheffield has a very rich
University, a very rich history of I mean,

Stephen Daldry went there,
I think, Eddie Izzard.

And there's obviously a culture
there over the years.

But interesting,
what you kind of described might sound

weird because obviously you're about
to run one of the most prestigious

theatres in the country and you've
already run one of the most.

But what you described, in a sense,

is maybe a slightly scaled down
version of what running a building is.

You say about putting the posters up.

Hopefully in Chichester you won't
have to go and put the posters up.

I don't know, but it feels like a scaled

down version of what it
needs to run a building.

JUSTIN: I'd never thought of that before,
but yes, that is exactly what it is.

Right.
Whereas actually,

if you say you just yeah,
if you went to a different place,

say you did drama as your degree,
you'd probably just spend all your time

acting in the plays, and then you might go
to drama school or you work or whatever.

Yeah, I hadn't really
thought about that, but yes.

And it was like, yeah,
you kind of had to campaign and get votes

to put the play on and yeah,
there's loads, I'd never thought that.

PAUL: But it's also an interesting thing,

I think, because I never
thought about directing at all.

I was just desperate to be an actor
and I trained to be an actor.

And it was only by chance,

when we set Told by an Idiot up,
that Hayley, John and I spoke at the very

early days about saying, well, we should
also be fluid around what our roles are.

And we used to badger John to return
to the stage, who hadn't been on stage

for 20 years, and he'd always
laugh and say, I'm not doing it.

And then at one point, 3 or 4 shows in I

thought, actually,
I'd quite like to direct this idea,

rather than being in it. I'm very
fortunate that the company allowed me

the opportunity to ultimately
do something that I love.

So once you leave Sheffield,

you then decide you want
to train specifically and that took you to Birkbeck?

kind of, I took shows to
Edinburgh Festival and stuff like that,

and then I just didn't have a clue
because you just don't, do you?

JUSTIN: So I was a teacher for a couple of years.

PAUL: Okay.

JUSTIN: And then while I was there,

a friend of mine did the Birkbeck
course, which was very new.

I was the fourth year.

He was, like, the third year.

And he said, you would love this.

And so while I was doing teaching,
I applied to do the course then,

and that's what took me,
and that's obviously how I then so

the first year of that course
is like, the taught classes.

And then, obviously,
that's how I met you and how I went,

because I was thrust upon
you guys up in Leeds

PAUL: brilliantly

JUSTIN: in that slightly strange school that we
were in, rehearsing it,

which was a very strange place
to rehearse, but really fun.

And obviously,

I talked about this before,
I think but you know and obviously,

most of the directing I have done, most
of it is a text, and then you direct it.

But

it was so vital to my development
and changed the way I think about things,

to work with you and to see you start
with, not with that,

with an idea and with performers
and putting the performers at the centre

of everything and collectively working
out how you're going to stage it.

You very much directed it,

but you took all the kind of views
of everybody in the room into that.

Iain Johnstone, obviously,

Hayley or all these people,
everybody would be like, what about this?

What about that?
What about that?

Obviously, you were the arbiter of those

ideas, but you did it
in that kind of collaboration.

And that was for me, that was
just the most vital thing to see.

And I think that's how I do things.

And obviously, I've done little bits

of devising and I've done,
that's been so seminal to me.

And I suppose the other thing where I felt

really lucky to work with you guys as well
was because it was was on, like,

how much emphasis you guys placed
on the transitions between stories,

which is really you know,
it's a funny thing to say, but actually,

that does so much
of the work for the show.

And it's amazing.

Even now, I still go and see shows and I'm
like, oh, you've done this brilliant

scene, but your transition has killed
that scene or killed the leap

into the next scene, and you're like,
how can that still be going on?

PAUL: Well, it's well, thank you for that.

I look back on that time with real
pleasure of being up there.

And I also always like a room that has
hopefully, a real range of experience

and different people in that room,
which is great.

I thought of my memories of that and you
were brilliantly positive around the whole

situation, which is not
always easy to do that.

But I remember a very nerve wracked a very
nerve wracking rehearsal where we did have

a writer attached, a great
poet called Carol Ann Duffy.

JUSTIN: Of course, yeah.

PAUL: She didn't seem very interested in coming
in to see what we were doing,

until one morning I was chatting to you
and then someone scurried over

from marketing and said,
Carol Ann Duffy is coming into rehearsal.

And I remember thinking, oh, my, because
she's quite formidable when I'd met her.

JUSTIN: Yeah, yeah.

PAUL: And you talk about
the actors centre stage.

I remember when you were running a bit.

I think there's a scene when Casanova this
is a production of Casanova in which we

reinvent the character Casanova as
a woman, Hayley played rather

marvellously, and she goes to London
and gets tricked by this young man and his

father and she loses all her money,
and we were working on this scene.

And I couldn't really, it was you
and me and Carol Ann Duffy sitting.

And I thought, I can't really look,
I've just got to carry on.

And then brilliantly,

the power of what Hayley was doing,
and all the other performers,

she lent over and said to me
about Hayley, she's very good.

And I just thought thank God for Hayley

because sometimes as the director,
it's nerve wracking, isn't it?

Like when you're in the rehearsal room and

you first have to share
something to other people.

It's exposing, and it's
exposing to the actors.

But I always feel with my acting hat on,
I've got something to do.

JUSTIN: You can do it.
With directing you're sat there going -

PAUL: You're like the football coach,
the manager who sets stuff up and can't do

anything about it and then
the players have to go on and do it.

It's interesting in the Birkbeck thing,

because I've worked with quite a few
directors who have come off that training.

And I suppose this is the question I had,

is there's obviously a kind of a way
of looking at directing that comes from

Birkbeck, how do you think you retain
what is you and your way of looking

at stuff and how do you apply a lot of
the things that you're learning I suppose

JUSTIN: Yeah, really good question.

I would say to Rob Swain, who, you know,
founded the course along

with Peter Cheeseman and has run
the course since its inception.

Rob is very good, being like look,

I'm going to teach you,
I'm going to give you a set of tools.

But how you apply them and the way
in which you apply them is up to you.

And it has to be up to you.

So he's very clear about that.

I'm not saying that everyone always takes

that and people do get into these things
where, like, no, this is the right way.

But he sets that out,
I think, very clearly.

I think the thing that you get
from Birkbeck that is the really

incredibly valuable is vernacular, like,
learning the different ways that you talk

to the other collaborators,
the lighting designer, the sound designer,

the video designer,
the set designer, the actors.

I think that's the thing that I,

above anything else,
took from it that was just so useful.

Because actually,
and I suppose also going that just I know

this sounds so basic now I say it,
but the idea that, yeah,

unless you communicate clearly with
all those departments, well,

whatever's in your brain is not going
to happen in three dimensions because

nobody can look inside
your brain very clearly.

PAUL: I don't think that's basic at all, Justin.

I think that communication is so central.
I'm so surprised.

Sometimes in a world that is about

communicating, people are
very poor at communicating.

JUSTIN: I was talking to an assistant, an
emerging artist - I hate that term,

you know what I mean, someone who's
making their way in the industry.

And I said,
and I'm sure you would have had it

even worse, like, I would have
had it a little bit better.

But Artistic Directors used to be, like,

they would not talk to you,
would they, Paul?

I mean, like, they would you would,
you know, you would just be like you know,

like, they wouldn't communicate or like
or, you know, they kind of there was

an element of fear or like, you know,
intimidation or they'd be whisked away or,

you know, they were really,
it used to be such a strange thing.

I can't say that, you know I can't meet everybody

that approaches me, but I try
to communicate with most people.

It's so strange.

I think that culture has shifted a lot.

Shifted an awful lot.

But it was at that point,

it really was this kind of madly
hierarchical thing where yeah.

And because of that,
those Artistic Directors didn't feel

the need to communicate
and spell stuff to people.

And it was very odd.
PAUL: I mean, that's very true.

Before we go on to talk a little bit about
your professional career,

we're always looking to develop our work,
and the podcast is no exception.

So we're creating a new element for it
called Ask An Idiot, where we have

opened out to the public who have
a question for our guests.

So, without further ado,
Justin, here's our question.

CALLER: Hello, my name is Ben Haslam and I'd like

to ask Justin, given the rich history
of Told by an Idiot shows inspired by real

people, which person do you think would
make a good subject for a show and why?

JUSTIN: This is such a great question.

And my answer is, because,
Told by an Idiot have always been centred

on the performer, and that's the starting
point of how they make shows.

And I've looked,

I was thinking about this, the shows that
all the shows I - full disclosure,

by the way, as well as so
I was Paul's Assistant and his Associate

and I also was on the board
of Told by an Idiot as well.

So I've seen quite a bit
of Told by an Idiot's work.

But because they are always focused on,

and the real people they've done range
from Casanova to Boris Vian to

Mrs. Slocombe - not a real person
a fictional person, but a range of people.

But the person that I think they should
think about tackling is

Quintus Roscius Gallus,
who was the most famous kind of was -

the kind of first acting
superstar in ancient Rome.

(PAUL laughs)

JUSTIN: I mean, I was desperately hoping to find

a woman in this, but I couldn't
find a female famous Roman actor.

But basically, Quintus Roscius Gallus was
this mega, mega, mega star like people

would pay thousands
of sestertii to watch Gallus.

And I imagine that Told by an Idiot would

do a very, very funny version of
his biography.

I mean, probably Hayley playing
it amazingly, probably.

So that's the one I'm going to chuck
in your way. Because also,

Told by an Idiot have never done
anything in the Greco classical world.

Not that I know.
Maybe I'm wrong.

PAUL: No, I don't think
we've dipped our toe there.

You've already started my research.

I've written the name down incorrectly,
but I will be looking into that.

That's extraordinary.

It's funny what you say about women.

The one thing

a good friend of mine a while ago,
Mike Shepherd, said,

because we were talking about
the play Tanika Gupta's play about

Queen Victoria, and he said,
I'd like to see you play Queen Victoria.

I sort of laughed.

Then I thought, actually,
yeah.

JUSTIN: That'd be great.

PAUL: I wouldn't mind having a go at her. Obviously I think I'm late Queen Victoria

but I'm now obviously moving from
Queen Victoria to Quintus Roscius Gallus.

That's a brilliant answer
and very inspiring.

So you leave Birkbeck,
you assist in whatever and then,

of course, you very quickly
start to make your own way.

I suppose it's an interesting thing where

I'm thinking of two productions,
I'll take two that I really enjoyed,

one of which is The Jew of Malta
that you did at the RSC, Jasper Britton.

And I thought it was terrific,
of a play that I barely knew.

I think I'd seen one reading of it
at the Globe and, you know,

it's very rarely done,
but obviously it was terrific.

And I thought the theatre
of the evening was wonderful.

And I think too often,

I think I remember Simon McBurney saying
this, that you can see a play you don't

know very well, a Shakespeare, perhaps,
whatever, and you don't know whether it's

a very good play because the theatre
isn't very good, if that makes sense.

And sometimes I'm too quick to say,
someone says was that good play?

And I go, oh, no, not really.

And I think, well, I don't know,
actually, as I think about

if the theatre had been somehow
of the evening and all the elements.

And I thought you did
an amazing kind of job on that.

And then also The Box of Delights

at Wilton's, which is a wonderful
adaptation of a children's story.

And I suppose my question is,

which I think is something maybe directors
always are considering,

what would you say are the elements
that you retain production to production?

Things that you go,
I'm always going to do this.

And what changes dependent
on the piece your dealing with?

JUSTIN: That's a great question.

The thing, like everyone,
when you first get the opportunity to make

your own shows,
sometimes well, no, not sometimes.

I made a decision I would try most things

because I was like,
I don't know what I like.

And I feel like it's iterative so you kind

of try different genres and different
things, and then after a while,

I kind of did that for a bit and some
of those went well and some of those

didn't go so well because you're working
out where your strengths and talents lie.

And then after a while,

I kind of settled on, I suppose,
two kind of principles to date to making

work, taking on one was do I think
with this show I can -

this show can express something
about the way I feel.

And I do things about feel,
not about what I think,

but what I feel about the world
in the moment that we're in.

So The Jew of Malta is
a really good example of that.

Obviously, it's a play
very much about religious tension

and interreligious rivalry
and all that kind of stuff.

And then the other thing well

the other thing
is, you know, is there something theatrically inherent in the piece that is like which is more than just like watching a slice of everyday life. So they're the two things, I guess, I'm interested in. And I suppose Box of Delights has literally, like Phoenix is appeared from everywhere. It's absolutely bonkers. So those are the two things that I really try and look for. And I would say that's in most of the work I've done, most of. The work I've done at the Unicorn as well.

One of the things that I love about being

a theatre director is
kind of adding to the kind of layer

of different layers
of skills that there are.

So Boxes of Delights,

one of the things I loved about
that was actually getting to work.

I'd never really liked the show with video

and actually, I'd always been quite
sceptical of theatre shows in video.

But getting to work with Nina Dunn

and kind of her really understanding
that I didn't want it to be literal,

I wanted to do something expressive
with it, that was just brilliant.

And that thing of just continually -

you know I think about
that a lot - we're really lucky.

We get to work with just such talented
people who bring it, who take, again,

take the idea from your head and do
a better version of it, right.

So that is a really big thing.

So the new thing would be
trying to add a new skill.

And that might be

like in the past that's been street dance
or whatever layer to the thing that I'm

doing is I always feel like
but it would always go back to

do I genuinely think this says something
about how I feel about the world.

I would say that.

And that might be with Box
of Delights, actually.

I think the power of imagination
is the greatest gift.

It's not got to be something new
each time, if you know what I mean.

But it's just, like,
that has to have that in it.

And when I haven't done shows that have
been maybe as good as maybe because

there's a slight disconnect
between those two things.

I think

that even with really brilliant actors
who are, you know, giving it their all,

if you're not quite able to, like,
give that kind of spark of real

inspiration, maybe that's not the right word,
but you know that they know what it is

they're working towards,
then it kind of falls flat.

I mean, that's how I've
always found it anyway.

Does that make sense?

PAUL: Yeah, that does make sense.

I think also you touch on there,

where you're talking about the world
of video and the person you work with.

You touch on, for me,

something that is so crucial when I'm
directing, which is, say, with acting.

But I often think people say,

how do you find, as one of the few people
who still do both to act and direct?

Until someone tells me, I don't
want to see you on stage anymore,

I don't want to see one of your plays you directed, I'll continue doing both.

JUSTIN: Queen Victoria.

is your career ender, Paul

PAUL: Exactly, yeah.

Career defining role.

I think it's also about responsibility
because I genuinely think as a performer,

you shouldn't carry too
much responsibility.

I'm being a bit flippant now, but

I think your responsibility is to turn up
on time, to be open,

to learn lines if there are some,
although I think that can be overrated.

And as a director, you inevitably
carry more responsibility.

Of course you do.

People are looking to you.

But I think that sense of collaboration
becomes even more crucial, I think,

for me, as a director. Who is around me,
who am I working with?

And like you say, when it's not just about
people, you return to, the new people

for me, come into the mix where I go,
I'm suddenly working with

this choreographer who
I didn't know at all.

And I totally get what you're saying.

I've got a couple of more
things I want to ask.

Some of them are ludicrous in one way,
but if you could start rehearsals us tomorrow

on any play to direct,
what would you want to do?

Wow, that is an absolutely
brilliant question.

Okay, so at this moment in time
so I've got this really fun idea for A

Midsummer Night's Dream that's set in the
set in the kind of 1989 Summer of Love,

second Summer of Love
in the free rave era.

But I mean,
everybody's doing

A Midsummer Night's Dream,
so I don't know if I could do it,

but it would be a great setting
for A Midsummer Night's Dream.

So that has been ticking around my head
with me going, oh, it would be perfect.

And obviously,

because it's warm at the moment and it's
fun, but everybody's doing

A Midsummer Night's Dream, so I probably
wouldn't do that.

I think ... What would I love to do?

Oh there's a really great play that

I've long thought

should have another life and I don't have
quite the right idea for it,

but it's Barry Reckord's play
Skyvers, Do you know it?

No.

Barry Reckord was a -

he was a Jamaican playwright
who came to the UK in the Fifties.

He was a teacher for a bit while he was
here and it's set in a classroom

with these kids that just basically, you know they
don't want to learn,

they don't want to like, you know they've basically
been let down by the system and they're

really like, they're running wild
and I've always wanted to tackle that.

Don't think it's been
done for a long time.

But there's something about
where we're at at the moment.

PAUL: Yeah Yeah
JUSTIN: Public service is all in a bad place

and this sense a real anger
and a real fire to it.

But the kids are funny.

They're like funny. So maybe that.

PAUL: That sounds timely.

I often ask actors, if there's one role
they could play, what would it be?

And you can have the choice
of spotlight and all of that.

If you could pick one actor
at the moment, who would it be?

JUSTIN: Oh, that is amazing.

PAUL: And we get that it can be Hollywood,
it can be Bollywood -

JUSTIN: On stage, right?
PAUL: On stage.

On stage.

JUSTIN: Who would be my one actor on stage?

I would like to do well,
so I have heard...

I think you'd have to do this because
it would just be fascinating to do...

I have heard that Tom Hanks is
hankering to do some stage acting.

PAUL: Justin.

JUSTIN: You'd have to want

to do it, because you'd be like
...And obviously I'm sure he's absolutely

amazing, but I don't know and he hasn't
been on stage for a very long time.

PAUL: Well, if you get that phone call, then...

As an actor, I suppose someone that I find
very fascinating,

I've only seen him on screen,
but I think he started his life as

a dancer, so I think he's performed
on stage, who I adore, is Mads Mickelson.

JUSTIN: Oh, wow.

PAUL: He's kind of one of my favourite actors
and I kind of thought,

even if I could just be a small part in
something with him, I think he's amazing.

Justin it's been so brilliant
as ever to chat with you.

We haven't had a chance for a while,

so part of this, selfishly,
I've really enjoyed the last 40 minutes.

And actually, obviously,
there's other stuff I didn't know at all.

I think you've done a brilliant job at
the Unicorn and I think it's so exciting

that you move to Chichester,
so I wish you all the best for that.

I always finish with seven random

questions, which my guests
answer to see what goes into their head.

So here we go.
James Brown or Miles Davis?

JUSTIN: Miles.
Just. That's very hard.

Very hard.

PAUL: The North or the South?
JUSTIN: Oh I like both.

Sorry for saying both.

I'm very Yorkshire.

PAUL: Well, I've got Ilford and Sheffield.
JUSTIN: I'm very Yorkshire.

and I'm very London.
Croydon.

PAUL: That's fine. That's fine.

To choose between these two things,

cancelling a Press Night or going
on stage as the director with the book.

JUSTIN: Oh, Paul.
I went on stage as Marmalade the Cat

in Pinocchio, so I've never
cancelled a Press Night.

PAUL: No worries.

I'm glad you're not a director
who likes to cancel the show.

That's very good.

Taxi Driver or Do the Right Thing.

JUSTIN: Do the Right Thing. Probably.

PAUL: Carol Churchill or Sarah Kane.

JUSTIN: Carol Churchill.
Yeah.

PAUL: If you had to choose another job within

the world of sport, would you go
for boxing referee or cricket umpire?

JUSTIN: I mean, no comparison.

Cricket
umpire would be my dream. It would probably be my dream job.

PAUL: Much safer as well.

And finally, leap before you look.

Or look before you leap.

JUSTIN: Oh, I think I'm leap before you look.
Yeah.

I got through life like
saying yes to stuff so yeah.

PAUL: I think you're leap
before you look as well, Justin.

Thanks ever so much.
Have a great day, Justin.

JUSTIN:Thanks, Paul.
You too.

PAUL: Take care.
JUSTIN: See you soon.

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