Q. What first inspired your love of the written word and performance?
A. I was taken (very reluctantly) aged 11 to see Macbeth, my first Shakespeare (I already loved pantomime), and it changed my life in a single evening.
Q. Your career path to this point has been a rich and varied one – when you first started out, did you have a plan of how you wanted it to develop?
A. You can’t really make plans like that in such a crowded profession, though I always hoped to do some of the great Shakespearian works, such as the above. It depends what directors offer you, and things went well for me in that respect.
Q. A lot of people will remember you for Star Wars – is that something you look back on with a lot of pride, having been involved with such an icon of the big screen?
A. I have no pride in it at all. By the time I did three or four days on Star Wars in 1981 I had already played many leading parts at the RSC, toured in the us and elsewhere, done plenty of TV and been nominated for awards for my theatre work. I continued on that path after those few days on Star Wars. The film was a very unimportant part of my career and I don’t usually include it in my CV.
Q. How did you get from Star Wars to classical writers such as Shakespeare and now Chekhov, and what challenges has that posed you?
A.I have always a great admiration and affection for Chekhov, both for his plays, his fiction and for him as a man. That’s why I’ve now done two solo shows illustrating his life, including this reading I am doing in Plymouth about a part of his life that is very little known.
Q. In an age where people want things instantly at their fingertips and, in many cases briefly, why do you believe these classical authors still have a place in our society and culture?
A. They are an essential lifeline to understanding and celebrating human nature in all its depth and contradictoriness. As you say, in this soundbite culture it is very important to hold on to the values of original thought and the recognition of what complex beings we are.
Q. What can people expect at your performance at the Plymouth Festival of Words?
A. The performance deals with an extraordinary journey Chekhov undertook across Russia to investigate the injustices of their prison system and the difficult lives being led by people outside the capital cities. Being a great comic writer, his account is not only vivid, moving and entertaining, but in places very funny as well.
Q. What do you hope they take away from that performance?
A. A sense of well-being and of having learned something new about a great writer.
