Interview

Tim Luscombe

By Phil Wilmott

9th February 2006

Tim Luscombe is a multi talented theatre man. He's best known as a director and during the mid nineties it felt like he was directing a new starry West End revival every month. Then he found a new passion for playwriting and he's back in the spotlight as the author of the The Schuman Plan, the latest new play at the prestigious and rather beautiful Hampstead theatre in Swiss Cottage. I began by asking him about his days directing celebrities.

Q. You've directed some very big stars. What was it like directing Joan Collins in Private Lives?

A: Oh she's all right; camp and clever and funny. Though to my mind she spent too long in wig and costume fittings and not enough time with me working the scenes. Then she had the nerve to slag me off in her autobiography. Once she'd learned the lines and the moves she thought that was all you needed to do, she had no notion of exploring the play and refining her performance. I don't miss those days of directing stars to be honest, though I've had wonderful times with people like Judi Dench and Joanna Lumley. I'm very glad I'm now working with my own texts in ways that I feel my own voice can come through more strongly and not get hijacked to the needs of other people's egos.

Q: We haven't seen a show you've directed in London for a while. What have you been up to?

A: If you haven't seen a show I've directed in London for a while that's because you didn't bother to come to my hit show at the Drill Hall last year, The Death of Gogol and the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest. It was a comedy about agoraphobia, and people who did bother to come loved it.

Q: Ok, that's told me. Do you prefer writing or directing?

A: At the moment writing is what I do, but I don't discount directing again in the future, perhaps my own stuff once I've properly established myself as a writer, or interesting work by other people in London theatres. The industry is very slow to cope with how one changes as an artist. You have to take it slowly so they don't get freaked out. They like to be able to pigeonhole you. So for now I'm a writer.

Q: Your brother is a director too. Was there rivalry between you?

A: When he was acting I was directing, and about three years ago, weirdly, we both switched over, he from acting to directing and me from directing to writing. Look out, in about 10 year's time he'll move onto writing and I'll become a florist or something. So, he continues to do completely different stuff from me. He's directing a commercial revival of The Rocky Horror Show at the moment, having just done Arms And The Man by George Bernard Shaw at Salisbury Playhouse. If we were doing the same thing there might be trouble, but I don't think we see each other as rivals, and although we are completely the same in many ways I think our style of work is very different.

Q: Would you like him to direct something you've written?

A: Sure, I think he'd totally get my work, yes. That would be great fun. Maybe something like my adaptation of Northanger Abbey or one of my comedies. He'd be brilliant at that.

Q: Ok, let's talk about your new play The Shuman Plan. How would you describe it?

A: It's about a guy called Bill Bretherton and his rollicking adventure of personal ambition and federal idealism set in a world of backstabbing politicians, volatile Suffolk fishermen, fraudulent Sicilian Mafiosi, Bill's pal Ted Heath and the girl from the Ministry that he loves to the end. It will entertain, surprise and shock you.

Q: "Federal idealism". If I'm honest I don't know much about European politics. Will I still have an enjoyable evening?

A: Yes, absolutely, Phil. It's a real romp across the continent of Europe over several decades. Bill's relationships and encounters are at the centre of the play rather than the politics but it's his rise to the heights of political power in Europe and then his dramatic fall that's so funny and moving.

Q: What got you thinking about Europe?

A: Terry Wogan. He is my enemy. The Eurovision Song Contest is my idea of heaven, always has been, always will be but for me Terry's commentary typifies a little Englander kind of 'just because they're foreign they're intrinsically funny' thinking. "So, this is the Macedonian entry" cue Terry chuckling. England is horribly ignorant about things European and what is worse revels in its ignorance. I wanted to write a play that challenged all that. And then around that time, ten mostly ex-Soviet countries joined the European Union. This was May 2004. It was a huge event across Europe. However, there was nobody on the streets in London so I turned on the television to try and find our coverage of it and, as midnight struck and the EU expanded from 15 members to 25, BBC1 was showing a rerun of an old Jim Davidson gig, and I just thought that typified things. That says it all doesn't it? The anger about that kept me going and helped me complete the writing of the play.

Q: Why did you write a play rather then a film?

A: Because, I work in the theatre not the film industry. Nevertheless some friends who came to see the performance on Saturday said I should now write the film version, as it has such a visual sweep, and the director's use of music is so filmic. And indeed the play does range about Europe and over time in such a way that would lend it to shooting in some lovely places. I'm tempted to do it just for the two weeks in Italy on location.

Q: Do you have a set working day as a writer?

A: Yes i get up (8 ish) and I write (9 ish), lunch (1 ish), write more (2 ish), stop (6 ish) and do something else, then I go to bed (12 ish). I take the weekend off.

Q: As a former director is it odd having someone else direct your work?

A: Yes really, really odd and really, really challenging and really, really a gift to learn by. I am blessed with Tony (Anthony Clark, the director) because he's so open and democratic and inclusive. He has made a wonderfully visceral, visually spectacular production of my play.

Q: Do his directing methods differ very much from your own?

A: Yes, in some ways. But in the most important aspects we are the same, i.e. I think we both think our primary job is to be guardians of the text. So we harry and hassle the actors till they've got the understanding and the accuracy that we think each line deserves. And then I think it's fair to say that we both also rely on the talent of others to back us up. The design team Tony has chosen for The Schuman Plan are beautifully talented and skilful and he trusts them, so they blossom, and he coordinates them in the most clever way. I have learned a lot from him as a director, which will come in useful if I ever do it again.

Q: Did you get a say in the casting? What do you look for in an actor?

A: Yes I did. I was there in all the auditions, and Tony and I shared the decision making process, though he had the final say. We have ended up with a stellar cast. Five of them acting eighteen parts between them, and they have to pull off many difficult accents and languages. Sean (Baker)'s practically had to learn Sicilian Italian. Simon (Robson) does a hilarious, wickedly accurate Ted Heath impression.

What do I look for in an actor? Appropriateness, talent and likeability (after all we're going to spend two very intense months together) and then there's ineffable intangible things, things I'm not even aware I'm looking for. For instance I think I carry their voices in my head so that I can orchestrate them; I mean if we've already got a piccolo I need a double bass, and if we've got too many trumpets I won't hear the violins, kind of thing.

Q: Who would your dream cast be? Living or dead.

A: Paola Dionisotti, Sara Crow, Meryl Streep, Allison Janney, Ryan Philippe.

Q: What type of theatre do you enjoy?

A: Big political theatre (recently Pillars Of The Community at the National Theatre). Small musical theatre (recently Sunday In The Park with George at the Menier Chocolate Factory round the corner from where I live in Southwark)

Q: How can we get a younger audience into theatre?

A: I don't know much about this. I'm not an expert. Perhaps do better plays and do them better. Get them in early so they begin to learn how to appreciate it, and develop their own taste, but don't take them to dull worthy productions.

Q: Does theatre ever change anything?

A: Yes, all the time. Otherwise political dictators wouldn't be so quick to suppress it.

Q: Do you have any playwright heroes?

A: I love Richard Bean and Nell Leyshon, particularly for their subject matter. Richard Bean's Under The Whaleback at the Royal Court really helped me shape my ideas about The Schuman Plan. I love George Bernard Shaw for the heights to which he takes his ravishing political and philosophical adventures while remaining true to character. I love David Edgar for his great debate plays like Maydays and Destiny. Maydays was the initial influence for The Schuman Plan, i.e. taking one man and spinning him through history and flipping him over vast expanses of geography. I love Michael Frayn for his mischievous plundering of political reality to make truly theatrical sexy confections. Clouds and Democracy, for example. I love Alan Ayckbourn for his technical skills, ambition, pragmatism and comedy genius. I love Noel Coward too. And Sondheim and Strindberg and Ibsen. Enough Tim, shut up now.

Q: What are you working on next?

A: My next play's gong to be about the Baltic and Chernobyl and Revolution. It's about a girl finding her political voice. It's like 'What Schuman did next'. There are four other European-related plays I've got in my head, and I just need the money to create the time to write them down.