At the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival in May, CATHERINE BISLEY drilled Toa Fraser on the rapport between theatre and film, adapting his play No 2 for the screen, and the riches of collaboration.

SAM GASKIN recalls his American sojourn this year as go-between Victoria University’s Creative Writing Programme and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he visited the midwestern state to meet fellowship recipient and poet Alice Miller.

By Alexander Bisley
Image by Catherine Bisley

“IT’S HAPPENING just for us, like an old story retold,” Ian McKellen explains the power of theatre over film to me. The number one reason to see the RSC’s productions of King Lear and The Seagull is McKellen. As Lear and Sorin, he delivers hilarious, majestic and moving moments. In person, as on stage and screen, McKellen mixes geniality with gravitas. Sporting a Maori greenstone, he is reflective and sometimes enigmatic.

“Where does one go after King Lear?” I ask him. He pauses dramatically. “That sounds like a philosophical question,” before enthusing about having a good break. Lear, he says, is about “important matters of life and death...how to love people.”

“I’m generally an optimistic person,” McKellen is hopeful a Peter Jackson directed film of The Hobbit will happen. He tempers his optimism with a belief that the world is a stage of fools.

“Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts?” Lear exclaims. McKellen has a killer anecdote about performing to an insane asylum alongside Brian Cox’s Lear. He talks fondly about Nick Cuthell’s paintings, the Zen of Gervais (but adds he wouldn’t do a series with Ricky) and fuller biography via McKellen.com.

He muses on fans: “The Japanese are the most enthusiastic...I’ve been to a couple of conventions and I won’t be doing that again. They’re overwhelming.”

ALEXANDER BISLEY’s interview with Ian McKellen can be heard [here] (16 min, MP3, 6.4 MB). At the end he passionately recites a Lear line to note: “I’ve taken too little care of this.”

By Alexander Bisley
Image by Catherine Bisley

Romola Garai has big blue eyes and is tall and willowy. Impressive in Amazing Grace as abolitionist Barbara Wilberforce, she has also won acclaim for I Capture the Castle and her contemporary roles in Angel and Atonement. Angel director Francois Ozon describes her as his muse.

Romola Garai is fiery, with a cool edge. Less keen to talk about her 2000 breakthrough, ingénue role with David Walliams on TV show Attachments, she ardently explains to me why she thinks The Seagull’s Nina is the greatest role there is for a young actress.

Like Ian McKellen, there’s a glint in her eye when she discusses King Lear. “I have two sisters,” she laughs, this Cordelia can relate to Goneril and Regan: “The intimacy, the closeness, how they use it against each other.”

The Bacchanals’ recent production of Lear emphasised Goneril’s sex-violence nexus. Romola believes this relationship is notable throughout Shakespeare.

Romola enthuses about the power of theatre: “It’s about intimacy... you build a relationship very specific to the audience you’re having.” And Scar Jo, who she worked alongside on Woody Allen’s Scoop: “Absolutely charming”.

ALEXANDER BISLEY’s full interview with Romola Garai can be heard [here] (MP3, 13 min, 5.4 MB).

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM talks to Pitch Black’s Paddy Free on the eve of embarking on a nationwide tour along with Module and Tom COSM, followed by a global tour incorporating Europe, Japan and the United States.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM talks to Jonathan Bree, one half of The Brunettes, about the band, science fiction movies, the American experiences, and the problem of being pigeonholed as twee pop.