National Theatre Live: No Man's Land

No Man's Land is dark, make no mistake. The land that is for no man has a darkness to it

But often in the moments of darkness comes a greater honesty about human nature

I first encountered Pinter as a member of the audience

I remember that night as I remember the three times I sat in this theatre...

...watching Sir John and Sir Ralph, simply being thrilled by what I heard

The idea wasn't to tour it. The idea was to do it in London

The tour came very quickly after that because my colleague and dear friend here...

...loves touring and he has infected me with the same bug

There's an enjoyment of the moment that comes across when you're playing to a full house...

...in Cardiff, in Sheffield, Brighton, that we experienced that made it very special

You felt deeply appreciated

I like the homogeneity of a local audience and I'm grateful. As a child...

...because if I hadn't seen John Gielgud play King Lear in Manchester...

...and many other distinguished actors, I probably wouldn't have caught the theatre bug as quickly as I did

So I think, if we don't have a duty, we have a sort of responsibility...

...to think of touring as being what we do for a living

We were also fortunate in a way that regional audiences no longer are

Because there were scores of permanent repertory theatres...

...like the first one I began in, in Lincoln, which was a weekly rep

I became a regular theatre goer before I became any kind of actor

For a play that is so about the words, and the words are so perfectly chosen...

...one misplaced word, and it seems wrong

It's beautifully put together by Harold Pinter and so I feel I have a duty visually...

...to balance that and find a kind of an accord with that

If I was trying to be too loud with it, for example, visually loud, it would somehow distort the play

The room is a kind of a prison in the play, the home is a prison

And once you step inside the room you do feel rather trapped

Stephen very cleverly came up with a room that was real, and also had a very stylised quality to it

He made it circular, which was a serious coup, a very very brilliant move

It then allowed an encasement to the acting, and this room and the circular motion of it...

...became very very useful to the choreography of the play...

...and the fact that the characters are doing a kind of strange dance with each other

It's a very small set but it's a very beautiful set

Because it's an intimate show, every little piece counts, so every little crease, every little, you know...

We put a lot more effort into a small intimate than a bigger musical.

I think sometimes smaller shows can be a little bit more difficult because the attention to detail has to be there

For example I make butter curls for the butter that goes on stage...

...because they were very, very common in the seventies, and I have to decorate it with parsley

And everything has to be pristine and look beautiful...

...because those are the types of things that the audience will be looking out for

The role of video in the show is to set the action and frame it within the bounds of Hampstead Heath

It's one very strong state that stays and presides over the action

But it evolves according to the passage of time and to support the narrative

So it's very interesting having a single stage picture...