WEBVTT - Ruthie's Table 4: Nick Allott 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.840 Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:05.440 Adami's Studios. 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:14.680 For years, I've wanted to sit at his table and 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:17.720 talk to Nick Allett, one of our most favorite regulars 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.640 at the River Cafe, who when he walks in, absolutely 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:23.599 lights up the restaurant with his deep voice and his 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:26.920 deep warmth. I imagine we would talk about the musicals 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:31.319 he's produced, Lay Miss Katz, Carousel, Hamilton, but he's doing now, 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.879 his political battle to save theaters during the pandemic, and 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:37.159 the great love he had for his best friend, the 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:41.320 late brilliant restaurant critic Adrian gil and of course about 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:44.599 the food he's going to order. But then I remember 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:48.239 the line in the classic movie Casablanca when Ingrid Bergmann 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:51.639 asked the manager of the Cafe American for Rick, her 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:56.120 long ago lover Humphrey Bogart, to join her. Madam. He responds, 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:00.640 Rick never sits with the customers, never the same with me. 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:03.960 So I say hello and then leave to have whoever 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:06.520 it is, be with the person they're dining with. But 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:09.120 today Nick all it is not a guest in the 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:12.440 River Cafe, but a guest on Ruthie's Table four. And 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:14.880 we are here to talk. He's just come from the 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:17.680 kitchen where he baked a lemon tart with the pastry chefs. 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:19.800 He'll tell us how he made it, and then we 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:22.280 will discuss the food he grew up with when he 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:26.280 cooks at home, theater and food, food and friendship. I 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:29.280 think even Rick would approve and appreciate how lucky I 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:32.240 am to have Nick with me a man I adore 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:34.280 and for a while online. 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:38.039 Ruthie, what a joy to be here, thank you. So 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:41.199 I've just come from making the River Cafe lemon tart. 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:44.679 So this is how you do it. You take one 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:49.320 quantity of sweet pastry baked, then for the filling you 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:52.680 take a finely grated zest and juice of seven lemons. 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:54.600 And that is quite a sure in itself. If you've 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:56.400 got a soux chef in your kitchen, you can do 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:58.960 that work for you. That makes life much much better. 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:02.800 And indeed I once had Adrian Anthony Gill as my 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:05.800 shoe chef grating the lemons for me. Not very well. 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:10.240 I hastened to adding three fifty grams of caster sugar, 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:15.680 six whole eggs, nine egg yolks, three hundred grams of 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:20.520 unsalted butter, which are softened. You preheat the grill to high, 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:23.480 and then you make your filling. Put all of the 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:26.840 ingredients except the eggs in a large salcepan over a 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:32.520 very low heat, stirring until dissolved. Combine the mixture with 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:36.080 the eggs, return to the salcepan, and cook on a 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:40.360 low heat until thick. That getting it together so it 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:43.200 doesn't curdle is a real, real school. You have to 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:44.360 do it very, very slowly. 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:46.919 My name's got a tubs on the head, Pastry Chepherd 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:54.840 there of a cafe, so we're nearly there. So if 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:57.120 I had a spoon, it would definitely be coating the 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:58.959 back of a spoon. Right now, you can kind of 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:01.799 see it round the edge starting to tick again. 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:04.160 When it says that and you draw a line through it, 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:06.440 should it hold completely. 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:10.800 Orders well with this in particular, because we're about to 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:13.240 put it under the grill. If you think about it, 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:17.000 the grill's going to add a whole another layer of heat, 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:19.480 so you don't What you really want to do with 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:22.120 the lemon curd before it goes into the tart filling 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:25.560 is actually do it slightly under have it quite a 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:30.000 have be quite a thin curd, so that again we're 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:33.920 very particular about the spots that we get under the grill. Well, 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:37.960 you can really tell when something's been overcooked. The spots 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:43.040 are absolutely tiny. As with something that's been perfectly cooked. 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:46.560 It looks much more like a sort of giraffe print, 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:49.600 and you want that kind of beautiful mouffling over the 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:54.240 whole thing. We grate the pastry into the tartshell and 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:57.120 then we press it around the edges, and then we 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:00.800 go around with a knife, and then our trick is 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:02.440 we freeze. 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:03.160 The top shells. 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:09.120 We have a whole stack once it's made, and then 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:11.320 we can throw it in the oven without bacon beans 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:15.080 and it doesn't side stone shrink, so very much like 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:20.200 a pizza. We're just going to slowly rotate. It doesn't 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:22.919 matter if there's a slight wobble to it at this point, 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:25.920 because it will will eventually settle. 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:28.200 What ideally is the temperature you serve. 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:31.960 Then if you. 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.640 Put it in the fridge, the pastry goes sob You 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:38.760 want it to be lovely and Chris. 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:40.640 How beautiful will there? You go? 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:43.880 Choose to eat it for lunch, might be. 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:52.120 Or just in one slice. Yeah, I know, It's definitely 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:53.280 one of my favorite puddings. Here. 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:58.039 As you say that you choose a dessert, do you like. 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:01.640 I love cooking. I came to cooking quite late. 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:02.720 Well. 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:05.479 Growing up, food was never a big part of my life. 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:08.120 I come from an army background. My mother was a 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:11.360 very competent cook, but when living on army bases all 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:13.960 over the world, in Germany, in Hong Kong and Australia. 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:16.840 We didn't live in England until I was in my teens, 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.040 and really the ingredients that she had available to her 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:23.239 were those available from the NAFI, you know, the army store. 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:25.400 She wouldn't go into the local Germany. 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:29.360 No, you were discouraged basically from leaving the base. This 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:32.640 was sort of late fifties, early sixties, so post war 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:36.240 there wasn't that much integration still in the NATO bases, 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:39.800 more so when we moved to Australia. But again, we 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.880 had a year or two in Hong Kong when I 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:45.600 was quite young, and it tended to be what you 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:48.080 could get from the shop that was available. I mean, 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:50.000 we never left the bases. I went to school, went 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:53.839 to army schools or my friends were local. When I 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:56.640 told my friends I'd lived in Germany for I think 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:58.640 ten out of the first fifteen years of my life. 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:00.840 They said, do you speak fluent German? Not one word. 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:05.000 You just didn't integrate. So for her with a bit. 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:07.039 Of mature had she had a career at all. 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:10.640 She married quite young. She married my father quite young, 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:14.880 and actually being an army officer's wife is a career 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:19.000 because you're responsible for so much hr and looking after 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:23.680 the army officers wives and organizing charity drives and things 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:24.800 like that. That was pretty full on. 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:27.560 Was your father on the base he. 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:28.920 Was, No. He was away a lot of the time. 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:31.960 He was away on maneuvers. He was a cavalry officer, 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:33.800 which didn't mean he read a halls. It meant he 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:36.800 drove tanks and things like that, and he was away 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:38.880 a lot for exercises. 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:41.880 So did Jim, who cooked in the house. 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:44.320 My mother cooked. It never occurred to me to actually 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:48.880 offer to help. I wasn't that interested that family. Myself 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:52.720 and two sisters, and you are the I'm the eldest, 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.760 So our relationship with food was not one of It 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:58.839 was not indifference, but it wasn't a key part of 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:02.200 my life. I used to years and years and years later, 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:05.160 more recently, up until she died, I used to take 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:07.960 my mother to really lovely restaurants and she's going down 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:09.720 and it's really lovely, but I mean it's awful lot 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:12.320 of money. We could be doing better things like going 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:14.480 to the theater, and well we can do that as well. 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:19.040 Yeah, So would you sit down for family meals every 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:22.080 we did after school? You'd come home and sit down 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:23.320 to the family suffer. 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:26.160 We did by your mother and I would watch I'd 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:29.000 watch her, you know, prepare you have to do a 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:31.480 lot of entertaining as an army I do. You have 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:34.360 to do the other officers wives and visiting offices and 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.040 things like that. As you move up through the ranks, 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:40.760 you then start to get staff. And by the time 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:45.240 that my father died in ninety sixty nine, he was 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:48.280 a commanding officer at a large base in Dorset and 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:51.400 we had I think a permanent chef and two or 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:52.160 three other staff. 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:55.040 So and then what did that change the food in 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:55.440 the house? 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:00.640 Not really, it was sort of pretty simple. Staff. The 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:06.200 army didn't necessarily engage in Courdunbleau Andtyle sixties. This was 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:10.640 late sixties, mid to late sixties on my relationship with food, 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:14.160 As I say, it was one of not particular interest. 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:19.200 Unfortunately it changed quite radically because my father tragically died 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:22.800 in a helicopter crash when I was fifteen, and my 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:27.680 younger sister abroad. No he was He was killed in 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:32.000 a helicopter, was a passenger being flown to a conference 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:34.800 on the other side of England, and to this day 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:37.720 no one really knows what happens there was it was 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:41.160 raised in the house and there was an investigation, but 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:44.600 essentially a lot of helicopters were coming in and the 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.000 helicopter flying in in front of his when it took off, 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:50.960 instead of going out at an angle of forty five degrees, 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:53.920 went straight up into the air, straight into his helicopter 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:54.600 coming down. 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:57.280 And both helicopters were everybody, All. 0:08:57.200 --> 0:08:59.960 Three, the two pilots and my father were both killed 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.880 and there was an extraordinary There were two young soldiers 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.120 watching from a canteen and they saw these I saw 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.439 the helicopters come down. I was reading about it recently, 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:13.360 and they ran. They jumped through the windows of the 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:17.400 canteen and ran and tried to pull the bodies out 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:20.040 of the helicopters, and they both got very badly burned, 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.520 and they both got decorations for doing it, but sadly 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:24.560 it was too late. 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:26.720 It was too late, and you were fifteen. And that 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:28.920 did you then leave the military? 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:34.120 Well, yes, the army are the army a wonderful family 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:35.960 to be part of. It's rather like the theater. Actually 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:38.840 is a very close community. But they're also very very practical, 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.040 and if you lose the commanding officer of a base, 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:43.840 of a big base, then you have to replace him 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:47.200 quite quickly. So within a couple of weeks of his death, 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:51.480 we were dispatched as it were, and picked up and 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:53.880 my mother had to find somewhere else to live. They 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.520 didn't range alternative accommodation. We end up living in a 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:58.480 little cottage on a friend's farm nearby. 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:01.360 And also did you go to boarding school? 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:04.319 I did. I went to boarding school from a quite 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:07.520 a young age, and it was traditional to send boys 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:10.320 away at eight. But then I had a wonderful break 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:12.360 and that we were shipped to Australia. This is obviously 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:14.520 while he was still alive, and they gave me the 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:17.480 choice of staying in English boarding school or going to Australia. 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:21.360 Not our choice to make everything. So I had a 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:22.080 wonderful time. 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:23.679 In Australia to explore. Were you allowed? 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:27.680 Oh yeah, I was at a weekly boarding place where 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:29.760 you could either go home at weekends or stay. But 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:33.079 if you stayed, the boys that stayed and I chose 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:35.559 to would go on these incredible expeditions up into the 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:39.080 mountains and camping in the bush and learning to surf 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:41.520 and things like that. It was everything you would expect 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:44.439 the Australian outdoor life for a young person to be. 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:48.080 I wonder if the Australian boarding schools was any different 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:48.880 from British. 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:52.600 It was very neat, as you can imagine. We've made 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:54.760 a lot of friends there and one of our closest 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:59.040 friends was a sheep farmer. So my mother insisted on 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:02.680 rescuing a lamb that had lost its mother that they 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:04.040 were going to kill, and she said, no, you can't 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:06.040 do that. Let me take it home. And we lived 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:08.720 in the middle of a little town called Queenscliffe. And 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:10.720 the farmer said you can't, you can't die actually if 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:13.000 I'm with you. But she did, and we reared it 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:14.880 in our garden and it would and it behaved like 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.439 a dog. My mother would take it shopping with her 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:20.200 on the end of a lead and you could hear 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:22.720 the local star. Here she comes, here's Mary. He's marry 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.080 with a little lamb, even though he name is Shirley. 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:28.160 So no, no, that was a very joyful, very joyful 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:28.760 part of my life. 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:30.520 Did you were you fussy about food? 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:34.120 I wasn't. Later in life, after my father died, unfortunately, 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:39.560 both my sisters contracted anorexianaboza, which was an illness in 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:41.880 nineteen sixty nine that nobody. 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.160 Understood in nineteen ninety nine. 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:49.120 But then two girls, twelve and nine, they both they boasted. 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:51.320 They never they didn't know people that young who had 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:53.320 had it, and they didn't know any two people in 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.640 the same family. So that was really the only time 0:11:56.679 --> 0:12:01.400 in my life where food became a threat. Yeah, meal 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:06.480 times were a challenge, and I can't imagine it because 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:08.559 I'm very greedy and I love food. But my trying 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:10.559 to get my sisters to explain, they said, if you 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:12.839 imagine putting a bucket of slugs in front of you, 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:15.440 that's what it's like. It doesn't matter what it is, 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:18.160 whether it's sweet or savory. And of course they've become 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:21.480 incredibly cunning and they hide things and they drink lots 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:25.240 of water. And I mean how my mother coped. I 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:25.640 don't know. 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:29.120 That is a food trauma in our life with your 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:32.119 father's death, and then reacting with further, well. 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:35.600 She dealt with it. She eventually she was told we 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.480 eventually we find somebody who who had an idea about 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:40.439 how to cure it, because we tried everything from faith 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:43.920 healers to things called the box, and eventually she found 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:46.400 a man in Westminster who said, look, I think I 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:48.640 know how to do this, but you cannot have them together. 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:52.240 So one child was in one hospital and one was 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:55.040 in another, and my mother sort of drove between the two. 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:57.960 And her response to try and get me out of 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:01.080 that rather toxic atmosphere was basically to send me away 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:03.640 back to Australia, which is what I did by yourself. 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:07.760 Yeah wow, Oh I was seventeen, you know, I was 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.560 old enough. I just was just leaving school. I was 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:12.240 going on a gap here, but I'd never been away 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:15.880 on my own. And the lovely thing about Australia then, 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:19.559 and this is sixty nine seventy seventy one, they were 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:23.640 getting this sort of hippie genre. Two or three years 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:27.079 after the England so I was too young to really 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:30.280 book a hippie in the UK, but I was perfectly 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:34.040 so I hit the hippie trail Ruthie and I lived well. 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:36.640 I lived, I traveled all over, I went to I 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.280 was there at the creation of this extraordinary center in 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:42.079 Australia which is still there. It was a festival that's 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:44.040 supposed to start last a week and it's still there 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:47.560 forty years later. It's called Nimbin and it's the center 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:50.400 of Australia counterculture. It's quite near Barren Bay, which is 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:53.640 much more famous. And it was a beautiful, beautiful experience. 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.280 They painted the whole town in rainbow colors and the 0:13:56.360 --> 0:14:00.079 locals integrated, and an invasion of Australian hippies, and in 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:02.079 fact people from all over the world came. 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:03.480 And was music. 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:07.439 There was some music, people like Donovan turned up and 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.600 Dollar Brand, but it was more kind of gathering together 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.640 of faith. And I joined the Radha Krishna temple for 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.000 a while. Did you well, only because if you chanted 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:17.559 for them, they'd feed you at the end of the day. 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:19.240 What did they feed you back of food? 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:23.600 No, exactly. It was beautiful sort of sweet rice with 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:28.280 coconuts and sweet vegetables, all serving a banana leaf. Then 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:31.560 I temporarily joined the Divine Light Mission, which gets for 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:35.000 the food, No, not for the food that one, mainly 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:38.280 for the girls who were very very girls. But so 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:41.480 I tried those different things, and very sadly eventually moved on. 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:44.600 You know, I could have stayed there probably and remained 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:45.880 the rest of my life. 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:48.520 Yeah, so that was what was. 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:51.520 That was by now I sort of seventy one. But 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:55.400 then for a year I lived almost exclusively on brown 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:59.560 rice and vegetables because I was hitchhiking all over the 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.400 country and through the desert in particular. You had to 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:04.560 eat what you could carry because they weren't shops and 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:07.800 cafes along the way. And a hippie doctor told me 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:09.880 that brown rice was a cure all for everything. 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:13.720 Yeah, I remember the macrobiotics. Mac there was a place 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:14.600 in London when I came. 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:17.520 Yes, that's right, there's something in it. Because I cut 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:20.160 my foot on a coral reef, and coral, as you know, 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:23.240 is organic and it's very very toxic, and my foot 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:25.080 sold up like a balloon and it started to climb 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:27.400 up my leg and again we were miles. 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:28.840 From a proper doctor that's very dangerous. 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:32.560 Yeah, and he said, look live on brown rice for 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.080 a couple of weeks, which I mean didn't cure me, 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:38.200 but it seemed to stop spreading anyway. I then found 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:39.960 a doctor who gave me a large shot of penicillin 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.800 the regular food. But now I didn't really eat regularly 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:48.600 into a regular food as we would know it until 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:50.320 I came back, until I came back to England and 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:51.440 went to university. 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.400 And so you never did you become a vegetarian? 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:59.880 Well, I was vegetarian, not out of a choice, certainess, 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:04.840 and it didn't really bother me. Again, I wasn't really 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:10.080 focused on food, and it wasn't until I dropped out 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:12.280 of university with a loud report I shouldn't I shouldn't 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:14.240 have gone there in the first place. I went to 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:18.720 Exeter left after well, I left after it. I like 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:22.640 to say my letter to them resigning cross for theirs 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:25.520 in the post, saying I think you're better off elsewhere. 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:27.640 I think mine hopefully got there a beat before. But 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:30.520 they had a theatre on the campus there called the 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:33.480 North Theater, and we did a lot of very good 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:36.560 work there. I just knocked on the door. No, I 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:39.840 never did I acted a lot at school. I went 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:44.040 to Charterhouse in English standard public school, and I had 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:47.600 a very very inspirational teacher who I remember to this 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:51.680 day called David Summerscale, who loved the theater and he 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:53.960 directed plays. And I stopped doing anything else. I stopped 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:56.560 doing sport, I stopped playing musical instruments. I just wanted 0:16:56.560 --> 0:17:02.040 to thirteen to eighteen to say. And when I was leaving, 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:04.960 and to this day I can picture the conversation, he 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:07.199 said to me. Look, just before you go, I'm going 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:10.359 to ask you something. He said, you want to act, 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:12.560 don't you? And I said, yes, I do, and he said, 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:17.040 forgive me, but you're not good enough. Oh wow, bang 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:20.560 arrow to the heart. But he said, look, you're quite bright, 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:23.200 you get on with people. There are many other jobs 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:25.280 in the theater that you could probably do quite well, 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:28.679 and why don't you give it a go? And it 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:31.600 was the best piece of advice probably I've ever had. 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.000 I've got lots and lots and lots of actor friends. 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:36.960 And of course, no matter how good you are, it's 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:40.280 an insecure profession. And I've been very lucky in the 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:42.960 almost fifty years I've worked in the theater, never had 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:46.000 a day out of work and worked with the most 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.400 extraordinary people, had the most wonderful time. So it was good. 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:50.600 It was good and sound advice. 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:03.760 How do you see the parallel of restaurants in the theater. 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:08.800 First and foremost, I love restaurants because it's an extraordinary 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:12.439 convivial experience. It's about being in large groups of people. 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:16.240 I would be hopeless on my own on a desert island. 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:18.879 I love being in crowds I get at Glastonbury. I 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:22.000 love football, I love sitting in a theater more than anything, 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:24.320 and I love being in a big, crowded restaurant. There's 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:27.480 something chilling about going into a restaurant finding you're the 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:29.880 only person there. And it's the same in the theater. 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:32.600 You know, if you have anything less than the full house, 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:36.080 you feel that you haven't really succeeded. And the other 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:39.439 I would say the big similarity is that by and large, 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:44.360 with small variations, you're serving the same thing every night, 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:46.280 and we are doing the same thing in terms of 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.240 presenting a play or a musical, but the audience react 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.880 in different ways, and you'll get a night when it's 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:55.680 absolutely buzzing and jumping, and then for some reason you'll 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:57.760 get another night were you think they're not getting this, 0:18:58.040 --> 0:18:59.920 they're not. And it may be the same with the 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.119 crowd of people where you've got someone who's tired or 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:05.119 picky or didn't like this, or you know, was dragged 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:07.800 out to a restaurant by their other half who they 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:10.240 didn't really want to go, and you can sense the vibe, 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:13.600 which is why you know the difference between what you 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:17.000 do and what I do is you're there nearly every 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:19.879 night and you're working in the room. I mean, you know, 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:22.919 we are our great mutual friend Jeremy King. You know, 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:25.959 watching him work in his restaurants is an art, and 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:28.800 watching you, as you say, you can't spend too long 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:30.960 at each table, but you spend just enough time to 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:33.720 sprinkle a little bit of fairy dust. Whereas we can't 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.480 actually do that. I can't walk through my audience going 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:39.120 come on, cheer up, this is a really good bit 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:42.680 coming up. But what you can do is you can 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:45.639 go backstage at the mental and go, hey, guys, you 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:47.320 know you need some kick some butt here. You've got 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:48.680 to raise your game a little bit. 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:50.200 And you can and you do that. 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:52.760 All you have to do because I mean the very 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:56.439 very big difference between now and when I start in 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:59.200 the theater is the length of run for successful shows. 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:02.879 I mean I came into London. That's really when my 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:06.080 career properly started. I'd run small regional theaters in the 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:10.560 seventies in Liverpool and Northampton and places, but I happened 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.040 luckily enough to come to London in nineteen eighty one 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:15.840 when Kat started, and that was the beginning of the 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:20.480 extraordinary eighties decade where so much change was enacted. It was, 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:23.760 you know, love or hate Margaret Thatcher. There was massive 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:27.080 change that came out of that, and culturally it was 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:28.520 a really exciting time, you. 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:30.960 Know it was. And for restaurants, yeah, yeah, no, exact 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:34.239