Back to Earth After Mary Poppins ; After a Hit Musical, Richard Eyre Is About to Open an Ibsen Classic. His Choice, He Says, Was Inspired by Hello!

Summary

---

TO GO from a singing nanny to the snobbish, brattish daughter of a Norwegian general is quite a leap, but one that Richard Eyre has made in a little less than 12 months. Last year, the 62-year-old former director of the National Theatre marshalled a workforce of more than 100, backed by Cameron Mackintosh and Disney, to make Mary Poppins fly triumphantly from the cinema screen into the Prince Edward Theatre. Today Eyre has a considerably smaller cast - and budget - to bring Henrik Ibsen's "acerbic, impossible, cruel, selfdestructive but endlessly fascinating" Hedda Gabler to life at the Almeida.

"Mary Poppins was like the D-Day landings," says Eyre, "so I can't express to you the pleasure of being in a room with just seven first-rate actors and a stage manager."

See the full content of this document

Extract

---

Back to Earth After Mary Poppins ; After a Hit Musical, Richard Eyre Is About to Open an Ibsen Classic. His Choice, He Says, Was Inspired by Hello!

Inspiration for the production, came, strangely, in a dentist's waiting room in 2003. "I was reading Hello," Eyre says, "and came across an interview with one of those vaguely posh, tormented women who said, 'I only have a talent for boredom'. It set me thinking about Hedda. Then that night I saw Eve Best play the youn...

See the full content of this document

---