Whipping up a storm

Mary Wakefield talks to Angus Jackson about directing David Hare’s latest play

If I’m never quite content with a glass of water in an interview again, it’s Angus Jackson’s fault. There we were in a soundproofed meeting room on Friday evening, the National Theatre a whirl around us: jazz in the foyer, gossip in the restaurant, Bertolt Brecht in the Olivier. Jackson and I in our box of calm, a black-and-white still of John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson for company.

PR enters stage right: ‘Anything to drink?’ I think: if I’m lucky, there might be tea. Jackson says, ‘A large glass of white? Perhaps…’ — he cocks his head — ‘a Sancerre?’ And it’s suddenly clear, before we’ve even begun, what a rare talent Jackson is. If, a few seconds ago, it seemed brave of Nicholas Hytner to choose such a young director for this winter’s ‘it’ play (David Hare’s The Power of Yes), it now seems inspired.

Two great balloons of wine arrive, and we start with a portrait of the director as a young boy. Here’s this angular, articulate, slightly saturnine figure, an upcoming British director of the sort usually described as ‘exciting’. What sort of a child was he? A slightly alarming one, I think. He grew up in Birmingham, the son of a factory worker and a physiotherapist, but he was never one to slouch about in front of Countdown. Physics and double maths A-level, then physics and philosophy at Balliol, all the while directing and producing plays, playing percussion, editing the Cherwell and entering debating competitions. What made you choose directing as a profession? I ask.