'Just write it, I'll make it work'

to be Prince of Wales is not a position it is a predicament so laments the Prince of Wales in the madness of King George cry from the heart and it seems the statement of a self-evident truth well it's my predicament to be Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Kings and it's my great pleasure and privilege to welcome you all here this evening and to help introduce the two great geniuses behind the madness of King George Alan Bennett and Nicholas Hytner tonight's event is an important moment in our Georgian papers research program in partnership with the Royal Library and Archives Kings which was of course founded by George the fourth for some time Prince of Wales I've just mentioned Kings is undertaking a major project to digitize and interpret all the manuscripts from the Georgian period held at Windsor Castle totals more than 350,000 pages of which only about 15% have previously been published so I'm really grateful to everybody involved in that collaborative project it's fantastic to have colleagues from the royal household with us here this evening I'm also very grateful to Patricia Methvin who coordinates the program here at Kings and - Jonah Newman our vice president and vice principal international tonight's event is also very important for us because it inaugurates this year's arts and humanities festival it's organized by our Arts and Humanities Research Institute so to tell you more about the festival and get a hand over to the director of that institute my colleague professor madness Saunders thank you thank you very much Russell and very warm welcome to you all this evening the arts and humanities research institute is here to foster interdisciplinary research it brings together 12 research centers which cover all periods from classical antiquity to the contemporary and which study the cultures languages media histories the minds and bodies of many different areas the Institute has its own programme of events and is just launched a project called world service responding to the college's acquisition of Bush house to think about the public service ethos in broadcasting as well as in universities the annual arts and humanities festivals are a major part of what we do they showcase the vibrant work going on across the faculty like the Georgia - the third project and they let us invite people into the college to come in hear more about our research and about the ideas that excite us the festivals include a diverse range of events are about 70 all together this year including exhibitions performances concerts projections lectures comedy readings roundtables life drawing classes debates film screenings question-and-answer sessions guided tours and even a playground that's because our theme as you'll have seen for this year is play why play well I'm sure you're not a staid enough lot to feel such a question really needs asking so I just say that we take play extremely seriously here it's an essential aspect of creativity and inventiveness that free play of mind that allows for the imagination of possibilities and of course we particularly had theater in mind while marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death this year but 2016 marks another anniversary which is the subject for tonight's event since the premiere of the madness of King George I'm sorry of Georgia the third was in 1991 making this year not just the year of Shakespeare 400 but also Benison height another 25 so no pressure on tonight's guest speakers I'm absolutely delighted to welcome them both to King both sir Nicholas Hytner one of the leading directors of theater in Opera musicals and films of our age and also recently director of the Royal National Theatre and Alan Bennett as an undergraduate I thought his first play 40 years on was one of the funniest things I've ever heard and 40 or more years on from that he still got that knack of deadpan hilarity but also an amazing list of works for stage television and radio as well as books I'd wondered about inviting him to last year's festival to talk about his work but I've worried that given the theme he might feel it was a bit rude to get a letter saying dear mr. Bennet please come and talk about your memoirs for our festival about a fabrication so much better that he and Sir Nicholas have come to play this year so let me hand over to my colleague professor Alan Reed will be chairing the discussion thank you very much thank you you're all very welcome and I'm particularly delighted to welcome Nick and Alan this evening thanks so much for coming well as Mac says it's almost 25 years of the opening night a violent men exclaim madness to George the third at the National Theatre as the 28th November 1991 so that means exactly a quarter century ago Nick and Alan would have been working on the rehearsal process I presume for the play which I think was dovetailing with performances of Alan's version of wind and the Willows at Richard Ayers National Theatre I know especially grateful to Alan and the Corps willing to indulge our invitations take them back those years those 25 years to reflect upon the production and the film of course the madness of King George that will be screened at 8 o'clock and you're all very welcome to stay to see that then of course follow to further acclaimed four years later in 1994 so I'm going to start by kicking off by asking Alan to indulge me even further by asking him to take us back to some territory that I think some of you will be familiar with if you know his wonderful work also with Nick the History Boys that is preparation for some entrance examinations in history that Alan was working on for Cambridge and then offered entrance exam nations so in your lovely introduction Alan to the published play of the madness in there about your recollections your feelings as a schoolboy and you described something quite extraordinary that I picked up straightaway that was what you described as your soft spot for George the third so you don't start with a historical fact in your introduction you start with a feeling and I just wondered if you would take us back to that soft spot for George the third and share with us something about that early interest at that time of preparation free University because I got a place at Cambridge and then everybody did national service and I I did a service on the Russian course where you you think of the course went to Cambridge so I ended up going to came because as a student but being at Cambridge was then began the thing well maybe I can be okay because I do think it's the most wonderful place I mean our protectively and far better than ours anyway I then had to sit the scholarship examinee at Oxford I work in the evenings we did rockem during the day and worked at history I worked with history in the evening and I in the course of that I brought a book a date and Bell in Cambridge by historian I'd never heard of or Richard pears it was George the third and the politicians and I somehow I quite canny I knew that it's better to know one book well rather than a smattering of lots of books I did know this book very well and so it stood me in good stead in the examination and then still on the map of Georgia third cut - just before I took my finals at all but I saw that Richard pairs who I'd never heard of thin with lecturing so I went along to hear his lecture and the first thing that struck me was that the the audience was made mo Mende John's were very few undergraduate them and and then when he came in it was very obvious that he was very very ill he was on the podium and with a rug over his knees and then a board is note in front of him and he could scarcely move but you could still speak and you could hear him and he was talking about a subject which it's quite relevant to history these days about the sugar interest in the House of Commons and in the time of George the third and the influence of the planters another slave owners and so on and in the course of the eight weeks that the the Nexus talk he got weaker and weaker so that they then had to be somebody sat by me turning over his pages and helping and this made an enormous impression on me as a young man because it seemed to me that the the 18th century is not an inspiring period it's really it's not like the 17th century there were great ideas and [Music] it's it's about people being mean and grasping and about Commerce and yet he was somebody who quite plainly wish it was about to die and yet he still thought it was worthwhile to go on with the work that he was doing and to to try and finish a book that he was writing become the same subject and so when I say I'm the soft spot for Goethe then that's really rather complicated where we complaining I'm delighted Alan that we're hearing your voice tonight thank you before we turn to Nick I wonder if you could get as far as the manuscript of the play that goes through Nick's letterbox in the same introduction to this work you described more move actually I think in the Medieval Studies book prithi read in the postgraduate business with the success of Beyond the Fringe and you write in this introduction following I'm just gonna quote the rest one would like to say is history but of course what it had been was history what it wants to be was not history at all and when I began to read for this present play the madness has George the third a couple of years ago twenty-seven years ago now it was it was the first systematic historical work I've done in 20 years that's the end of you Alan so that historians here for those interested in the Georgian papers project who was so grateful to this evening I wondered he would say something about that historical work you did in preparation for the writing of play and I'd like to hear this partly before we bring Nick in because I think we could get some other kinds of emphases in Nick's discussion about the imperatives of the performance that start to cut in with regards redrafting of the play once it's gone through his letterbox so Alan what kinds of thing then will you work or more specifically to prepare the play well things Charles in a big trench called the regency crisis i think i don't know the royalty royal malady on earth he published in 1964 and and i'd already got this book it was never ready to but I'm not supportive about Nancy hoops before and I'm thinking about your design I knew that it was a self-contained episode I knew that the king had become ill and that this had precipitated a crisis in the government and then he suddenly recovered so I knew it was a self-contained episode and that was a gift to me cuz I and the thing that I'm really weak on his plot he was a ready-made cloth with a more dramatic flop on that and more perfect law and so that's what made me think about you just a play but that must have been working on it for a year or so at least before I have to put it through next letterbox and I don't think we we talked about it when we were doing Wind in the Willows it's probably I superstition on my part I tend to think if you do talk too much about it it's about the race and it's best thing to keep it to yourself so having it were revised Georgia third I then wrote the play and then because you've got a manuscript and we recognize thus far it's unfinished you make that clear that you were aware of something next door miss its function I presume is to be Nick's house I'm imagining this play so landing or Nick's always somewhere and Alan you described it certainly not me as a pile of slurry or like sort of going there leaving a pile of slurry there and I'm imagining me picking up the work and going up getting a cup of tea and coming back and some sitting down and really working his way through this this is of course a great tradition of directors taking the work of writers who they love and I'm thinking he retains McDonald's who talks a lot about receiving a new Caryl Churchill play with huge anticipation when it arrives and the excitement of he feels when he has it so I wonder Nick if you could share what that first reading you know what what struck you doing that first read before we move on to how you work together yeah this was only the our second collaboration the first was wizard Allen's adaptation of The Wind in the Willows so I'd never directed a new play by Alan and you're absolutely right I went got a cup of tea and and read it what I remember it as first drafts are quite hard to read because piped on a variety of old manual typewriters in literally cut the panes the cut cut basically cut and sellotape some of the some of the in-between bits are scribbled in in in in invite in black ink so they take a bit of the sidebar it was very long I remember most vividly the end of the first half and you can kind of tell you even watching the movie when again the first half yeah yeah dr. Willis the mad doctor arrives from Lincolnshire and has his first confrontation with the king and then he's heavy as his father's bring on the restraining chair and George the third is strapped into the restraining chair and he's completely helpless and howl I am The King of England and dr. Willis says damn no saying you want the patient code and I thought okay I get that's that that is that is as good a first half curtain as you can imagine so we'll do this that's before and after I'm showing Neil we we what else I remember I remember my eye but I tried my 18th century English history is really rusty 17th century also the day they the terrible dangers of a bead of early specialization I did history a level but did 17th century history and therefore you nothing like love about 18th century history so I knew there was a Regency I'm I vaguely remember that that week as he started around 1810 because I knew the 1810 I think I remember knowing that maybe that decade was the Regency that it was before he came to threaten 1820 this place used to be taking place in 1788 89 so my wires were crossed and I really didn't know how it how it was going to end up I didn't know about this brief Regency crisis I didn't know about this malady so one of the first things I remembered suggesting to Allan was that was that if we stripped back a bit on there were there was a law impeccably research very wittily with political machinations if we spit back on that a bit and structured it more like a thriller with an uncertain ending then we might be able to play to an audience that I assumed would be complimented to me did the question of the historical veracity come up at all or were you drink that do you think you know quite a lot this can go the detail or the actual historical accuracy can can effectively be I please decide I didn't really know now I didn't realize how accurate it was I mean taking it doesn't matter whether it's the magnitude or the third or the lady in the van a away from the historical record he's really quite tricky he is he is a true story so it took it to the wilds the planning to draw that even those doctors are based on the historical record in fact based oracle record to a large extent was written by the doctors so so i i was always more Cavalier in my approach to historical truths in Arlen but as historical movies go they rarely come more accurate Lizzie and Alan do you have some reflections on when the king has recovered but the MP in Parliament of ceased to believe these reports that the King has recovered because the Peters been telling them he's been recovered for ages and any threat what then they have to be so so they Nick said well why can't the King be brought to Parliament and shown to the MP well my my historical as a historian my reaction to that was the last king who came to Parliament anyway I gave in and did work and the he was shown to the DMV doesn't he doesn't come into the chamber no but but he actually is brought and yeah and of course indeed work and I think I'm more flexible now than I used to be a but well in the lady in the man you split yourself in two and have yourself telling yourself how much you're making don't worry Alan for a moment because some people here haven't seen the film don't worry about recovering us all to do with it now I've come a very first read-through of the play with I think the actor Nigel Hawthorne in the earliest read-through you'd have seen the transformation of the process of these words and particularly in the part of Nigel plays and of course that goes right through the Academy Award nomination that nitrogen seed for his part in that film Keeling civically lost out to Tom Hanks I think in 1994 of Philadelphia but I have to say as a committed socialist I was quite surprised by the soft spot I began to feel at the National Theatre about this person on the stage I didn't think I just didn't feel particularly sympathetic amongst all possible targets my simple sympathy with this particular King but the way Nigel played that part was so extraordinary it's so memorable both on the stage and on screen I wondered Nick if you could start opening up some questions about how it got onto its feet as a performance and the rehearsal process play is I'm sure Alan would agree with this to some extent the text is only have a half the story the play is made a play by those who embody the first people the first car so many players enormously influential in the way even the text developed so what I remember about reading it through at the National Theatre studio several months before we went into rehearsal with Nigel was how effortlessly the center of gravity of the play shifted once he was playing the King and it felt that well I'll give you one clear very clear example in Alan's first draft the final scene pulled the MSS back to the politicians and the doctors the consequences the ramifications of the reducer crisis were were discussed very wittily and at length but it became clear once larger was playing the king but actually once he was better that's what you were interested in it was about the Kings illness and his recovery it was totally startling to see never mind whether you have a soft spot for him or not even if you haven't had a soft spot for Georgia Byrd it was totally something to see how much he went in when he saw Nigel was so open so raw so truthful in the way he allowed himself to collapse in the way he allowed himself to took all apart but that was winning no alternative but to pity him you pity him in in in the old grand the old pattern grand tragic way you pick you pitted him so the combination of Nigel's we probably knew about because he was nationally famous for he Yes Minister and so on but also this extraordinary raw openness which I had seen once I'm very fortunate we see him only once before in a play called shadow man's which he which he did two or three years before I wrote the play I'm not sure if I miss that play that I would have been smart enough to realize that it had to be Nigel Nigel but the combination of those two things I'm really brought the sure about the plan to focus I think that and I do though he were involved in that process of what are your reflections at that time now well I remember about this not liking the speech really about the doctors No and I could understand that because he thought the spotlight would shift from him and I just thought that well that's an ass that was convincing was that as soon as he recovered the last 15 minutes of the play goes by our game to black oh yeah the audience is so relieved and so much on his side and that convinced me but also the the I brought the speech in love the the it was never we never have we have out for a lobe or anything really and I just put things away and hope I can use them later on but Patricia sit now this is just if you don't looking bear with it yes this is a speech that was with with going to end with I'll go right at the end the plea was going to end with this figure you're about to be I think and after after the King had that been a thanksgiving service and great row bureau of scene then Nigel comes out of character and and the Queen and they sit down at the front of the stage and the King says the real lesson if I may say so is that what makes illness perilous is celebrity or in my case royalty in the ordinary course of things doctors want their patients to recover their reputations depend on it but if the patient is rich or royal powerful or famous other considerations enter in there are many parties interested apart from the interested party so more doctors are called in and none but the best will do but the best aren't always very good and they argue they disagree they have to because they are after all the best and the world is what and who is in the middle the patient it's happened to me it's happened to Napoleon it's happened to Anthony he's happened to the Shah the doctors even killed off George the fifth to make the first edition of The Times I tell you dear people if you're poorly it's safer to be poor and ordinary than the Queen said but not too poor mr. King no no no not too poor I [Applause] just I put that in the introduction I think not Nigel Nigel took two I mean he was the most extraordinary and and wonderful man and totally passionately committed and he took to writing long letters on the train and the way at work I don't want to bother you with this no sir and would I was digging through some old papers recently these letters from Nidal furious about this speech I don't want to submit it was gonna be interested in this speech it's Emma's gonna be much more interested in celebrating with me and he was what he was right but he never told me about the but not you didn't cross yeah I mean he was he was the most wonderful company and the but his he again not remembered how how much he was involved with for instance Theatre Workshop with Joan Littlewood his theater workshop in its early days she was incredibly nimble quick-witted could improvise his way out of everything but there was one and you really really didn't want to mess with him there was one you'll see the seniors in there in the film the very first thing he has with his sit minister the weekly audience and the Prime Minister present himself to the king and the king always starts it's very plain enough he's a big teens the king he starts by going married yes mr. and miss figures no your majesty got your eye on anybody what your majesty motor point anybody got their eye on you and then that see we're developing the king would wind picked up about being a bachelor and Julian Warren played pig wonderful actor she be I see reserved exactly dubbing but you exactly like piglet nor the portrait and this scene was ran on well-oiled wheels and towards the end of the one they've been doing it for two years he did an excuse Julian for not being wholly engaged in a completely routine exchange and Nigel went married yet that's a bit what what and Jenny wait yes your majesty Cillian pleat panic said the daughter of the Duchess of Huddersfield neither said what she liked the pit was famously never he was never planned except when he was drunk which he open was indeed he he was so drunk 1 - he threw up behind the suitcase chair before a debate but that was the only time in the play and the only time in the entire run that Julian was remotely plummets that's because you did not allow for any cookie he was rather country house weekends very much ok with the social world so he wasn't fazed by it he could come up with the name I'd like just as well from the moment before we come out to questions from the floor on the question for the film because everyone's gonna have a look at the film later and of course that's completely different beast of the stage the minute the film starts the 1994 film we're out on location and we're just in a completely different world and we know that we've lost all the beautiful banality of the stage for something really far more potentially sophisticated but could potentially lose the spirit of the play but of course the brilliance of the film is it retains that spirit partly through of course Nigel's presence but an incredible cast as well Rupert Everett as the Prince of Wales extraordinary performance Helen Mirren as Queen Charlotte and the best eye acting I've ever seen for me in home a really extraordinary performance as dr. Willis the mad doctor and I think Alan who's the second MP in the film yeah it's a Hitchcock use overlap cameo but I wonder if he could just say briefly something about the transition to the film and your experience of that well I would I would I mean it was Nick's first film and I was far far more nervous than he was [Music] and I know if I've been in his shoes I would have been paralyzed with nerves or you know when you when you go to a shoot today I mean they it's like a circus I mean an enormous number of bands and people who you don't know what they're doing and then it's just a huge deal but I pretended the very first day I I couldn't bring myself even to say action I got the first assistant director to say action I've got no right to say act but I got used to that the bull was produced by Samuel Goldwyn jr. the son of the famous sound go away she was the one who stepped forward and said he wanted Nigel to do it he wanted he wanted me to do it you have to fight for Nigel to be want some no one Sam would notice that though there was a lot of it I think a lot of interest in in making the film but Sam was a huge anger file immensely cultured cultivated man the kind of polar opposite of what the name Sam Goldwyn evokes and he said to me I really said to me he said it's not a problem you just get the best director photography you will find and tell them how you see it it'll be easy and I only knew one director photography and who done who I'd met socially and sons yeah yeah he's very good yeah just tell him what you want and then Sam said this was a huge lesson for me for the next 25 years he said who do want to designers I said why do you know like them I don't know any I'd go through any production designers movie production designers he said what which one you wanted to look like so I said Barry Lyndon for a lame huh and Sam said well can I have designed that McKenna Adam was truly the greatest production designer or since since I'm the last of the century he was Kubrick's production designer he was he was he was not just Barry Lyndon he what he was what Strangelove he was the first horrified Bond movies he what he was the designer who designed you know the inside of the volcano for the Goldfinger with that is it Goldfinger the inside a volcano or promotionally glass what okay baby so anyway so Sam said what's the worst he can say no so I tracked ten atom that the most extraordinary man born in Berlin saw the Reichstag fire escaped with his family Jewish and I think 37 or 38 as a teenager know he must have been a little older than that I learned a little older than that because when war broke out he was working as a draftsman at the mov and they were about to intern him as an enemy alien he somehow somehow blagged his way out of that and blue with the RAF he was he was a fighter pilot and did I think one of the very very few German born fighter pilots during the war he and there was this great mainstay of the British film industry and I went and I've tracked him down I found him and he said all yes I very much like to do an island Bennett film and I knew nothing I swear to God I knew nothing about making a film I said I'm really sorry Kent but if you do this you should know I don't know how to make a film maybe server I think I probably not enough to get us started then and read I'm told said to me you will only make your birth for once exploit your ignorance just ask for everything because next time you make a film you'll be worrying where they're gonna put all the trailers and the honey wagons I didn't even know what a honey wagon was the honey wagon is what they call the toilet trailers and he's absolutely right as soon as you start worrying about where the hell are we gonna put the toilets you know you've your son so we went on these long wonderfully enjoyable Ricky's through the South of England looking at castles cathedrals stately homes can for some reason knew all their owners and the reason it looks so good is because that was the best eye in the British movie industry and every time the producers said we can't come to Broughton house just for one day can buckets to go in his mouth and said I in six and so that and next time around I knew that I wasn't allowed to ask for everything but this time I did so that's how that's that's why I look so good and Alan INRI you seen the film the other evening in preparation tonight I was really struck by how intact so much of your text wars in the film which struck me as being quite unusual probably in that transition so you went to set presumably you were watching the process underway do you have reflections about that know that you do film I go through thing gets me out of that house and I like it I like you know like I'm more gregarious and I'd like to think and and so the a lot of it was shot at tame bark in Oxfordshire now you could go along there and and marvel at what can happen John really could I mean that's one scene there's a snow scene and he actually you actually feel cold I mean we're shopping temperatures of 80 degrees I just have a nice time you know I'm occasionally occasionally your ass for Dad I'll get me some of the actors not a bit lazy really they they one actor they have to improvise a bit I'm fine I'm fine you're really the bottom of the pecking or because they do look at movie just count no Jeannie can ask him and that's good but I think you know if we weren't so close a good work together so often I think it would be much harder I do remember the that you're his cooking cameo as an MP in the big it did we spend a couple of days shooting the big scenes in the house comments we've with about 150 extras or in the heat of the summer with nights we normally powerful lights coming in through the windows it was so hot and rented costumes and rented wigs that had the sweat of seventy-five years of being warned and reward they were honestly was they were they were many days but I think I remember you saying that so there's 150 barring extras artists they call them now and the old guy said sitting next to you in his big said you do this kind of thing off well I promised we'd open up to the floor and we've got about 10 minutes for questions so if you could just indicate with a hand won't try I think it's a mic around maybe not if not we'll just call out for questions as loud as you can yes thank you very much there thank you and there is a microphone let's try and get the mic as quickly as we can to people otherwise it will take a while so the theme of this festival is play and we've already heard that players great creativity and imagination could you just just a summary yes how do we defend play and theater for its own sake rather than as a vector for its own sake how do we really protect play for its own sake rather than as a kind of consumption a gift shop at the edge by telling by telling people how enjoyable it is so I mean I mean a play place for me our play I mean that writing isn't play all very very seldom is but actually doing the play is it sheer joy I mean and that was true well it's more true in a way of history boys and then of that was but you're looking for you're looking I did this for 12 years how do we how do we justify some the support of I mean you play art speaks for itself how do we justify some form of state support for it if that is that is that what you're after is it is it a social good well yeah but there are any number of ways of defending it as a social good and over 12 years running and after theatre I knew every single Arden always being told we don't we didn't how many arguments the economic arguments are indisputable the educational arguments indisputable as an instrument of social cohesion sure but in the end it is what it is and the reason the Germans spend five times as much every year on supporting we arts as the coalition government spent during its entire five-year term is because the Germans don't need to question now I could give you the idiot the Germans just accept and it's not just it's not just the German federal government all the always regions elendor get involved in it as well but there is a downside to that and this is why I think we should probably celebrate the way we get involved in it German art is very high-minded it exists as it did specifically the theater when it was first invented for an elite when the Duke of beaumart invited Goethe to be to start a theater in Verma Goethe made German theater for the German elite our theater started the other side of the river that we are currently that we're currently on as a kind of alternative entertainment to the Bears and the brothels and you won't get instead of going to see the Bears fight each other or instead of getting drunk because it was going to be more entertaining so I think there is something inherently playful inherently appealing inherently popular and inherently attractive about the we the way we at our base make the kinds of things that lots of people like to come see that doesn't mean that there isn't a place for high art but playful art which is I think what Alan always writes is very much central to our traditions Thank You Nick we have a question in the cheap seats right at the top shout out really well Howard if I say how do you feel about leaving a piece of work unfinished if you have a piece of work left after you're dead how do you feel about that I'm not too worried about posterity if it is going to be there may be no posterity I mean the main babe my I've been very lucky as a playwright in the sense of - I've you know I've not lost public support playwright hurry up now very short lives and I've been knocking the time - I'm still doing it and people are still coming to see my stuff but once I've gone I don't care my partner will care and let's take another question with somebody yes would you have any advice for somebody who wants would I have any advice of somebody wanting to become a blow out yes well just doing that's also try I mean one my first play brought here is on I put it together just try it from two page sketches you know I wanted to play it was a I'd be my craft had been in review and I would I started off doing what nowadays it be called stand-up so I knew I could write two or three minutes stretches have stopped and forties on really with finding a theme but actually just writing it in in these little bursts and then putting in citizen paste and sticking it together and looking on the plot report is on it's so complex I would never dare do it now and that's it that's the nice thing about when you're starting you don't you your bolder because you don't know what the form is really but all I can say is to do it and try to do it and then see what comes I don't know I I mean I still feel daunted by it even now I mean I I have you've been trying to do something courageous and can't get anywhere with it and and people think oh well you've done all the stuff and you should you know you look back on that being courage right it isn't like that you look back and think of I couldn't do that anymore [Music] lovely let's take another question from somebody yes at the back there thank you very much to cool out as loud as you can [Music] we play where I think about the life about an American encounter between things when Britain and WH I'd written this and gave it to Nick who was encouraging me on with Nick has a very good way of mixing encouragement and criticism there's no I'm not too much of one or not from what could be other because enough to get me going again but anyway after this he there was a bit of a Cylon and I realize that it was probably could you miss not probably not very happy with it or I can do better but didn't time to say so but anyway fortunately at that time I then I had to go into a hospital that was quite ill and when I came out I look at the play again and saw what I could do with it didn't say keeping her in a rehearsal for Marcus I showed that the Nathan II was instantly and you have to think about it though he had been a new bit about how different it did never come out into the oh it was it was too short it was it would there would be fine now people love 50-minute players and they can go up and out but I just felt that I don't sort of work with I mean I always think there must be something wrong with us because there's never really conflict I never a thought comes out of it's not what we do there's something right at the top could you call right out do you have any favorite moments or plays that you've collaborated on and do you have any plans to work together on anything anytime soon do you have any favorite favorite plays or moments and you have any plans to work together on anything else anytime soon I'm almost wept away by Martin McDonagh play we can't really a life-enhancing in a way but never balletto I find they they galvanize me really make me go home I wanted to write more myself which not many plays do but do we do we have any plans to work together sometime soon is did you notice them [Music] you you are you know are you gonna write a play for the my new theater well you know you've never asked them before I would if I could but I don't know that I think that that possibly that is a good moment to wrap up before I thank our guests Alan that resisted including a line in the play in which the publicity character furlough what's gonna turn to the right to Sheridan I believe and say the words that Alan says all right has read anything in the pipeline Sheridan so I'll refrain from asking Alan and Nick if they have anything in the pipeline beyond this display that might come out but simply to say that Alan's new collection of Diaries are being published by Faber in the coming days keeping on keeping on will be in the book shops in the next few days and I know you'll be wanting to lock that out so it just takes me now to thank the doorjamb papers project so much for their supporters have entered into this evening terrific support this evening looks very grateful to them indeed and I'd like to thank our guest Nick Hytner and Alan Bennett their general you you

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Keywords: king's college london, arts, humanities, play, king george III, professor alan read, georgian papers programme

Id: MB8G3jD3kZM

Length: 54min 45sec (3285 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 12 2016