The serious business of theatre

Even at 78 and from a distance, Sir Peter Hall has the look of an alpha male. There he is about 100 or so feet away, advancing towards me across the polished boards of his rehearsal room; head forward, bear-like, with the lonely charisma of a boxing champ. As he passes, the younger members of the Peter Hall Company fall back smiling, deferring. He’s king here, a Lear (act one). He pauses to pat a gamine young beauty on the arm, stroke his beard, pull his plump lips into a roguish grin — then moves on to the table where his lunch and I are waiting. One small sandwich, one large pile of lettuce. The great director sits, examines first me, then his lunch, then gives both of us a look of terrible, bored disappointment.

Sir Peter Hall is a great connoisseur of life, a sensualist. He loves beautiful women, extravagant cars and fine food. He’s been married four times, first to the French actress Leslie Caron and most recently to Nicola, 30 years his junior. ‘Making love to a woman is the closest most men will get to being an artist,’ he says. He’s owned an E-type Jag, a Rolls-Royce Phantom; he wears cashmere and dines at The Ivy. Sir Peter is not a salad and sarnie man.

Nor, at first, does he seem much like an interview man. I start with his childhood, trying to understand where his unstoppable energy comes from. How did the son of a Suffolk stationmaster end up discovering Waiting for Godot at 24, founding the RSC at 29 and directing the National Theatre at 33? What drives him? ‘Well, I don’t know. I am who I am,’ he says with a shrug. What was your father like? ‘A peaceful, generous man.’ What was your mother like? ‘Ambitious.’