WEBVTT - Sir David Hare 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.720 You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair. 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:08.039 Quite often people say to me, I couldn't possibly have 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:10.480 you to dinner. You're the chef of the River Cafe 0:00:10.560 --> 0:00:13.920 and cooking for you would be overwhelming. That's how I 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:17.320 feel about introducing Sir David Hare. How do you write 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:21.200 for one of the great playwrights of our generation? Skylight plenty, 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:25.560 stuff Happens, Beat the Devil, screenplays for movies, The Hours, Damage, 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:28.240 The White Crow, to name a few. But I do 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:31.319 think David and I do have much in common. We 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.720 both like being hosts, me in the River Cafe and 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:37.680 David in his home, where he understands the theater of 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:40.760 sitting at a table. We both know that if food 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:43.879 brings a table to life, so do the people around it. 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:47.639 And for David, apparently the ingredients for good night are 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:51.120 always carefully considered. We also share a love for what 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:54.160 we do, and I think we're both defined by our 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:58.000 commitment investment in social and political issues of the day. 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:00.760 In the past few days, I've been spoken to many 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:03.480 of the actors and directors who say that working for 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:07.160 him was an honor and a huge part of their career. 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:11.240 David's commitment to the written word on stage and screen 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:15.600 is only rivaled by his love for sculptor Nicole Fari, 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:20.000 his beautiful, brilliant wife of over thirty years. A commitment 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:23.399 to our partner's mind, to Richard Rodgers is yet another 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:26.200 thing we share today. We are here together in the 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:31.160 River Cafe to talk about food, memories, theater, travel and more. 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.240 It'd be natural to feel overwhelmed, but David makes it easy, 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:38.479 and I just feel delighted and lucky to have him here. 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:40.280 How kind of you, Thank you. 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:43.880 I have just come from the River Cafe kitchen and 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:46.880 you said that you wanted to do the recipe for 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:49.920 squid rocket and chili. And was that had that had 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:52.320 something to do with your memory of Rose? If we're 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:53.600 talking about memories. 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:55.960 I knew Rose that winter, which you can see. 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:58.600 So Rose Gray, the co founder with me of the 0:01:58.680 --> 0:01:59.760 River Cafe. 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:02.280 Will know more about this than I did. I knew 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:05.919 Rose Gray. And Rose went out to Tuscany one winter, 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:09.360 not to start a restaurant at all, but to start 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:11.880 a cook to write a cookbook. And she went for 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:14.160 six months to stay in the house of Henry Moore's 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:16.800 daughter Mary Moore, and so I knew her then, and 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:19.200 she came back with I can see the book in 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:22.880 my head with all this, all these sort of notebook 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:27.280 full of recipes, and somehow, which I've never understood, how 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:30.520 you managed to push her off course and to get 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:33.080 her to open a restaurant and not to write a cookbook. 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:34.480 You don't want to write a cookbook? Grow do you 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:36.680 want to come and open a little cafe in Harrismith? 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:37.639 Did you say that to her? 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:40.880 She'd always been a passionate cook when I first met her, 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:44.160 before she went tiddly, and then I think she took 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:47.760 that time to really get into the kind of cooking 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.640 of Tuscany, to learn the recipes. And she was a 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:54.400 beautiful draftsman. She draw everything. We would sit at a 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:56.240 table talking about it to mate them and she'd say 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:58.560 this is the one I want and draw it. Yeah, 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:01.720 And so I think she can buy the illustrations with 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:03.640 the recipes. And she came back and she went to 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:07.120 work with Anthony Carlucco. And so then when Richard had 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:09.720 this space here, you know, we were looking for people 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:11.959 to do it, and I called up Ros and said, 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:13.239 do you want to do this with me? Should we do 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:16.920 it together? And within the day we decided to Are 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.520 you saying eighty seven, Well yeah, talking to her in 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:23.120 eighty six probably, and then opening in eighty seven, but 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:26.480 it was teeny tiny and then the rest is history. 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:29.680 I chose this recipe because it's the first thing I 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.960 ever had here and I can remember. And I came 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:37.280 with Julie Christie, and Julie said to me, have the squid. 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:41.400 It's the best thing, because she'd been before and she 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:43.760 told me to have the squid. And I had the squid, 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.080 and I've never forgotten the taste, and I've just tasted 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:46.800 it in your kitchen. 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:48.680 It's exactly thirty seven years later. 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:52.040 It tastes exactly the same, which is an amazing achievement. 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:55.400 So would you like to read the recipe that you chose. 0:03:55.960 --> 0:04:01.680 Six medium squid, twelve red chilies, seated, chopped, two hundred 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:06.280 and twenty five grams of rocket, and three lemons. Clean 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:09.560 the squid, and, using a serrated knife, score the inner 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:12.760 side of the flattened squid body with parallel lines one 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:16.080 centimeter apart. Do the same the other way to make 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:19.800 cross hatching for the chili sauce. Put the chopped chili 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:24.080 in a bowl and cover with the oil. Place the 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:28.120 squid scored side down on a hot grill, season and 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:30.320 grill for one or two minutes. Yeah, but your grill's 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:32.920 much nicer than most home grills. 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:34.680 And even on any grill won't take very long time. 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:38.760 Turn the squid over, they will immediately curl up, by 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:41.040 which time they will be cooked. You toss the rocket 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:43.719 in olive oil and lemon. You plate with some of 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:47.040 the rocket. You spoon the chili sauce on the squid, 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:49.680 and you serve with lemon. And there is actually no 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:53.080 better lunch than that. It's sort of the best thing 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:59.760 to eat between noon and one o'clock on a weekday. 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:07.800 The River Cafe is excited. We're opening the River Cafe Cafe. 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:12.279 Come for a morning Briochian cappuccino, a plate of seasonal 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:15.919 antipasity on the terrace, or an ice cream or a 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:19.760 peratibo in the sun. We can't wait to open and 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:30.200 we cannot wait to welcome you. I want to talk 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:32.479 about your childhood and growing up and going to the 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:35.760 school where food was poisonous, but maybe we should just 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:38.760 start at the beginning of your time in London. For 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:42.200 now and then go back to that. Tell me about restaurants. 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.760 Well, I very much agree with Michael Winner. I can't 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:49.120 say that about many things, but I very much agree 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:51.800 with Michael Winner when you said everyone thinks there's been 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:54.440 a food revolution, but actually the food was better in 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.200 the nineteen fifties and sixties, And of course that's not 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:01.320 universally true, meaning buying large food was terrible. Of course 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:04.000 it was in Britain, it was absolutely awful. But maybe 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:07.600 because each restaurant was the first place that you tasted 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:11.120 wonderful things, they seemed more wonderful because of that. In 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.120 other words, when I first met Michael Winner, I was 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:17.240 running the Cambridge Film Society and I was inviting him 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:20.400 to show his film I'll Never Forget was his name, 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:24.000 and he took me to Cuovardist. Well, I mean, if 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:26.160 you've been a boy who'd been brought up in bex 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:30.279 Hill in the nineteen fifties, then Clovardist was just beyond 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:34.160 anything you could imagine. It was so delicious. And I 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:36.400 wrote down a few of the other places that we 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.839 used to go. Jimmy's, of course, Jimmy's a Greek. Jimmy's 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:42.600 the famous Greek Streep when you went downstairs, where you 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:45.520 went downstairs and you had beef steering chips for three 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:49.359 and six months and it was so delicious. The Amalfi, 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:51.400 which was the only place where you could get a pizza. 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:52.960 This is before Pizza Express. 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.280 Were we talking fifties, which I was sixties. 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:59.920 Sixties, that's early sixties. Young Friends. You had to drive 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.760 down towards Stratford East and there was a Chinese restaurant 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:06.880 down there called Young Friends that was so delicious. I 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.760 can still taste it. And we thought nothing of driving 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:11.640 for an hour down to the East Dend to go 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:13.560 to Young Friends because it was the only place you 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:18.040 could get really top right Chinese food. I'm hoping everyone's 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:21.400 salivating at the memory of this. The Ganges, of course, 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:25.560 the Indian restaurant in what is now Chinatown a Gerrard 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:31.240 Street and the Ganges was run by Calcutta Communists, and 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:34.440 the guy who ran it worked on a share of 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:36.680 the take for everybody who worked in the restaurant, so 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:40.040 that everybody was paid equally, regardless of whether they were 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:42.880 a cook or a waiter or the owner or whatever 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:46.840 your job was. Because they were Communists and they cooked 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.880 the best prawn partier I have ever tasted in my life. 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:51.920 I will never taste a porn partier as good as 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:54.320 that again. Or maybe it's just it's because it's the first. 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:59.000 But do you know, I think there are writers, actors, musicians, 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:03.520 Paul McCartney for one, footballers Dave Beckham, they really measure 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:06.840 their success in terms of where they were able to eat, 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:09.440 you know, so they remember the first time Beckham will 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:11.280 say that he went to a restaurant where he didn't 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:14.600 have to look at the prices first, or when Paul 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:16.960 McCartney toldly had a good bottle of wine, and that 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.920 it became kind of seeing their career through the trajectory 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:23.000 of where they were able to eat. 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:25.080 It's so true, isn't it. But what I loved was 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:27.760 all these places. You know, I'm going to remember Schmids. 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:33.120 You're too young to know. Schmidts was Eastern European food 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:37.680 in Charlotte Street where you could have Again, there was 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:41.760 a lot of berth Berg in Yon, sort of those 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:47.160 kind of stewy Eastern European food, very very very cheap 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:51.920 and absolutely delicious, and that there's less of. That's what 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:55.640 I think that there was that whole idea that the 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:57.400 best food might be really cheap. 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:00.320 Sometimes the best food was cheap, and sometimes it was 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:02.560 just such a great experience to go to a restaurant 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.280 where everybody was having fun. You know that you didn't 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.320 feel intimidated, you didn't feel that if you didn't know 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:10.840 the wine list, everybody'd be looking down on you, but 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:13.720 that restaurants were fun. Did you go to restaurants as 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.319 a child. Did your parents ever take you to restaurants? 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:21.240 My dad was a sailor, and so basically it was 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:24.600 austerity at home, and then one month of the year 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:29.240 he'd come in with a big roll of notes that 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.000 he you know, he would come with an elastic band 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:36.800 full of five pound notes. We lived in in austere, 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:42.000 cheerless Britain, and he'd roll in with, you know, all 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:45.599 this money, and he'd take us out to a steakhouse 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:49.480 in Hastings on the front, which of course was run 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:53.960 by Cypriots, as steakhouses then were, and we would have 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:57.880 what would seem to us and unimaginably luxurious. And also 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:00.800 because he was the purser on the ship, all this 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:03.800 stuff would come to the house like a whole lamb. 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.880 I mean you know, off the side from piano, and 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:11.800 so ridiculous quantities of things you couldn't deal with would 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:14.200 suddenly arrive in the house when there was no food 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.320 when he was away because he didn't leave much behind him. 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:19.800 And your mother cooked for you every day. My mother 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:22.120 cooked and she was so did she have to have 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:22.760 a directness? 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:25.000 And she was believe you were there? 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:25.679 How many of me? 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:28.720 And my sister too. And when I divorced from my 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:31.520 first wife, she said, but who's going to look after you? 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:35.319 And I said, well, I'm going to look after myself. 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:37.480 And she said, but the earning, the cleaning, the cooking, 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:38.880 Who's going to do that? And I said, well, I 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:41.080 probably have to do that myself, won't I And my 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:44.120 mother just couldn't understand. She just couldn't understand how a 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:47.400 man could live alone, because it's sort of if that 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:50.600 was possible. What was her life about, because her life 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:52.199 had been about caring about us. 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:54.160 Yeah, And what did she cook for you? 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:58.080 Stovey potatoes? Do you know that? Okay? Well, stovee But 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:00.160 I've looked it up since I said I was going 0:10:59.960 --> 0:11:05.080 to mention it. And apparently you can put anything you like. 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:07.720 For instance, you bowl the potatoes and then you pour 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:10.959 over the fat from Sunday's joint over it to make 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:14.199 them taste, or you put the shreds of the remains in. 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:20.720 But it's basically meat, vegetables and potatoes bald together. And 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:25.840 that was was good, absolutely delicious, very very good. How 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:30.400 can it's a peasant dick and Scottish food was very 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:35.800 basic like that. And the beloved things were stovey potatoes 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:41.160 hagish obviously, which is you know, a quiet taste, but 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:44.360 I love it, and mints, which I gather now is 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:45.320 on posh menus. 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:49.160 Just as your mother came from Scotland to tastings. 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:52.040 Yeah, she met my father during the war in Grinnock. 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:55.040 He was in the Royal Navy during the war and 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:57.600 so she was working in the Wrens and they met 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:03.280 in Grinnock, down the Estuary from Paisley. Paisley is a 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:07.840 suburb of Glasgow from which the famous Scottish playwright John 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:11.760 Byrne came from there, and John writes brilliantly about Paisley 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:15.880 and Paisley is one of the roughest towns in Scotland. 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:19.120 It is a really, really tough place and it made 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.960 my mother a very very timid woman. She spent her 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:26.320 whole life terrified and particularly terrified of men, because she 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:29.840 getting home at Saturday night over the rolling drunks in 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:32.360 Paisley had made her very very frightened. 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:35.720 And so growing up, then you went to boarding school. 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:37.120 I went to a school called Lancing. 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:38.360 Oh Lancing, yeah, I know that. 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:44.000 And my contemporaries were three of us, all entered show business. 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:46.680 Tim Rice, who was a little bit older than me, 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:50.480 and Christopher Hampton and me. So there's this extraordinary coincidence 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:52.760 that all three of us were at school together. I 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:55.040 have a friend who's a headmaster who says he's worked 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:58.480 in many, many schools, but he has never seen food 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:01.719 served to anybody as disgusting as the food that we 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:04.600 were served at Lancing in the nineteen sixties. I just 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:08.920 remember carried eggs with a skin over them. I remember 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:11.679 fish in white sauce with a skin over it. I 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:14.439 remember everything with a skin over it. And I particularly 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:20.400 remember that they put tea leaves in a sock and 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.439 lowered the sock into an urn and poured boiling water 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.960 into the urn and used a sock as a form 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:32.840 of tea bag, and it it was primeval. 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:35.560 Yeah, and no wonder why, because it must have been 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:38.320 a school that encouraged Did it encourage you, three of 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.680 you to be involved in drama the arts at all? 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:45.240 We were lucky enough to be at an old fashioned 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:50.439 public school which was going through a period of humanist revival, 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:52.680 and we were encouraged. You know, we had an art 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:55.679 film society in which we were looking at Bergmann films 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:58.600 and Fellini films and Antonioni films, and these were being 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:00.840 shown to us at the age of sixty. We had 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:04.120 a couple, I had a couple of brilliant, enlightened teachers 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:08.320 who did the classic thing of infusing you with love 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:11.640 of French and German literature and English literature and the 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:15.080 arts and drama and film. And we were just very 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.920 very lucky. But not food, so not food at all. 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:19.200 Food. 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:21.560 So for food you had to go into and you 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:25.600 go into Brighton. I couldn't afford to go to English Is, 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:28.560 which was the fish restaurant. Do you know that one? 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:30.640 You know nothing? 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:32.640 I know nothing, You know nothing. 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:35.440 Teach me you know nothing. 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:37.800 That's soul to be you educated of. 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:41.480 You have no idea how difficult it was to eat well, 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:45.600 and then how satisfying. It was to manage to eat well, 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:50.040 because the basic diet of the British was disgusting. 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:53.680 I always say they came out of a war, you know, 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:56.440 they came out of rational and cut them some slack. 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.680 I've just read a novel by Margonite Alaski, which who 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:03.640 was a sort of forties intellectual, called The Lost Child, 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:06.280 and it's about a man who goes from England to 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:09.520 try and find his child. In France in nineteen forty 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:13.520 five and France in ninety forty five, everyone's eating absolutely 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:16.800 wonderfully and the first thing he says is, oh my god. 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:21.560 France was an occupied country under the Nazi rule, which 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:24.800 you know, suffered terribly during the Second World War, and 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:28.640 yet there's all this gorgeous food, whereas in London by 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:31.040 the end of the war there was absolutely nothing left 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:34.280 at all, the people reaching cabbages and turnips and busps. 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:37.240 Would you eat when when you're writing I. 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:38.720 Can't eat before the theater, You. 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:42.120 Can't before I play. Nobody I haven't met. I've only 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:45.520 met one person who could eat before, during, and after, 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:48.280 and that was Emily Blunt. Otherwise everybody says. 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:50.440 They can you I mean when she's actually performed, she has. 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:52.440 A hamburger like before she goes on and then she 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.320 has a hamburger sometimes in the middle of the between eggs. Yeah, 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:56.320 she's an eider. 0:15:56.480 --> 0:16:00.880 That is absolutely extraordinary, isn't it. The advantage of running 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:03.680 a traveling theater, which we did from nineteen sixty eight 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:07.200 to nineteen seventy one, was you go to a regional city, 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.760 you do the show that by nine point thirty there 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:14.960 was nowhere to eat, absolutely nowhere. So we always ended 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:18.160 up in the gay club because every single city I 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:20.480 can remember the gay club in York, I can remember 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:23.080 the gay club in Gloucester. You know, every city you 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:25.000 went to there would be a gay club. 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:26.240 Was it quite closeted? 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:29.840 Yeah, it was pretty closeted. It was usually downstairs. You'd 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:33.680 usually go downstairs and then they'd usually be red velvet 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:36.720 and sort of you know, a bit of decor and 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:39.000 then down it of course would be the liveliest and 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:42.000 most fun and most interesting place in the town. And 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:43.880 it was the place where people who didn't go to 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:47.280 bed at ten o'clock wiled away the hours till one 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:47.920 or two. 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:49.800 What was the food like at a gay club? 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:53.480 They were okay, it was okay. Yeah, there's usually be 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:55.920 something you could eat that was decent, decent to eat. 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:58.280 And it was the same in London. There were actors 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:01.200 clubs in London that were are gay ish, they were 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:05.040 predominantly gay or a couple in London where you were, 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:08.840 and they were very They were basically places where actors 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:12.760 went to after the show and they were very, very nice, 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:14.960 and it made you feel you were part of a 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:16.760 community and that you were part of a way of 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.560 life and that you were you were all in it together. 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:23.240 I can understand why an actor might not eat for 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:26.520 the performances. As the writer, why wouldn't you eat, you 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:33.399 just to with nerves and then after you were able 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:35.280 to go out, because that's the thing is that you 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:36.040 go out, you go. 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:41.520 Yeah. And probably the career of Jeremy King is entirely based, 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:45.600 isn't it. I mean a parice and all those restaurants 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:49.919 Schiky's in that they're entirely based on their reputation for 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:53.199 being places where actors go. Because Jeremy always had that 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:56.640 very simple philosophy that people go as much to stare 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:58.919 at the other diners as they do to eat the food. 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:02.639 Erby King again, who I probably knew right at the 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:07.680 very beginning of when he first started. You know, he 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:11.719 just worked out that if you could see actors, and 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:14.399 in fact, you know, at the National Theater, we always 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:16.960 had the problem that nobody would go to that restaurant. 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:20.560 The restaurant was always a disaster, and I remember Jeremy 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:23.960 was asked, what do you do about it? He said, 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:27.320 let the actors eat their half price, and if the 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.440 audience believes they will see the actors after the show, 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:33.399 then they will go to that restaurant. If you know, 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.280 if you go to the show and afterwards you see 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:40.080 I don't know, Tony Hopkins or Judy Dench, then of 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:43.000 course it seems like a good restaurant. But if you 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:45.280 go and it's just you and the wind whistling ground, 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:47.240 it's not very cheerful. 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:49.479 There's actually they say, there's a good restaurant there, now 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:52.640 have you as it's very touchingly named the lastin which 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:54.119 is named after Dennis Lasten. 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:56.880 I have to be very careful about this because actually 0:18:56.920 --> 0:18:59.080 that restaurant, believe it or not, is when I first 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:00.399 saw my wife, see. 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:02.439 Her across the crowded room, I did, did. 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:07.080 You I'd written a play called murmuring joges yes, and 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:12.800 the technical rehearsal. The leading lady's clothes were very poor, 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:15.800 and I said to Bob Crowley, who was the designer, 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.760 I don't think very much of what she's wearing. And 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.440 Bob said, don't worry, I'm seeing Nickel Farrey tomorrow. And 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:26.960 I didn't know what that meant. I remember, I'm seeing 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:30.919 Nicole far what that means? Then, of course the leading lady, 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:34.600 Alfonsia Emmanuel, turned up the next day in the most 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:37.920 dazzling clothes and I said, oh my goodness me, this 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:41.760 Nickel Farrey must be something. And Bob said, well, you'll 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:44.040 meet her because we'll give her tickets for the first night. 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:50.399 And so this is, i'm afraid, a humble brag that 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:53.720 she wasn't going to come. But fortunately I went on 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:55.280 late night Lineup the night. 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:56.480 Late night Lineup. 0:19:56.600 --> 0:20:00.639 Yeah, and she saw me on television night before and 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:02.160 she went, oh maybe I will. 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:03.840 Go, yeah, yeah, And. 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:06.520 So she went, and there she was on the first night. 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:08.800 And do you go to restaurants of that now? 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:13.760 Hermets? You are well, because Nicole was a fashion designer, 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:16.480 and so when she was a fashion designer, she was 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:20.040 out and about a lot. Now she's a sculptor. She 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:22.240 just wants to stay at home all the time, and 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:24.200 I'm very very happy watching television. 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:34.240 If you like listening to Ruthie's Table four, would you 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:38.359 please make sure to rape and review the podcast on 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:43.440 the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:54.879 your podcasts. Thank you. There are movies about meals that 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:59.160 people have, and there's wonderful plays about the kitchen and 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:02.800 the whole the plays that took place in restaurants. 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:04.560 But in Skylight it's central. 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:08.200 It's central. Carrie describes making spaghetti bolonnaise, and then there's 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:10.000 the scene of the parmesan. 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:13.600 I'd just like to say that Carrie Mulligan's spaghetti bolinais, 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:16.600 which she had to make on stage every night, was 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:17.760 very very good. 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:21.360 Because she said that Stephen director, right, Stephen Stephen directed it, 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:24.560 and that he and you brought a chef from North 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:29.600 London who made a fantastic spaghetti boloneis with sausage. 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:34.639 She came from Bologna and she said that the bolognaise 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:37.280 what like sausage in it? Do you think that's true? 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:39.760 I would not be surprised, but. 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:42.760