Following in the footsteps of a famous parent is difficult enough but when your dad is Sir Peter Hall, that’s a different challenge altogether. But Edward Hall is making his name with his innovative approach to Shakespeare productions as LESLEY FINLAY found out…
When Edward Hall answers the telephone, he sounds somewhat flustered. ‘Yes, yes, I’m all right to talk. I’m just parked up in the Homebase car park.’ Now there is an image to savour – for Mr Hall is slap bang in the heart of British theatre royalty. He’ll probably hate that tag – with his slight estuary accent and utterly down-to-earth attitude both to life and to his approach to theatre.
Edward is the son of Sir Peter Hall and his second wife Jacqueline Taylor, the half-brother of actress Rebecca Hall, husband to Issy Van Randwyck (ex Fascinating Aida), father of an eight-year-old, founder of the Propeller theatre company and artistic director of the Hampstead Theatre.
Not bad for a lad who still feels guilty about his privileged school days – he boarded at Bedales. He says: ‘I have very happy memories of school. I was very, very lucky to go to a liberal, open-minded, artistically centred school. I loved it. I loved growing up in a creative atmosphere and I always feel slightly guilty about having such an experience. We’d make music, we would write, we would do plays – this was all part of school life.
‘I grew up largely with my mother. [Sir Peter left Jacqueline in 1982 for Maria Ewing, mother of Rebecca.] The house was relaxed, it had a good feel. In the 1970s, you weren’t so closely in touch with your parents as children are now.’
With a father who has such theatre pedigree – Sir Peter founded the Royal Shakespeare Company and was director of the National Theatre – drama and English were always going to be important in the young Edward’s life. But he also developed an enduring interest in history.
He recalls: ‘I remember two teachers at school in particular. There was a history teacher called Ruth Whiting, who was brilliant at awakening your questions. She would inspire us to ask our own questions about people, events and the narratives and not to take second-hand information. She was a wonderful teacher who inspired an interest in history that has stayed with me.
‘My English teacher, John Batstone, was just so inspiring whether he was teaching Shakespeare sonnets or whether we were looking at Jane Austen.’
After school, Edward went to Leeds University and, despite achieving great results in his first year exams in his chosen subject History and the Philosophy of Science, he dropped out to attend Mountview Theatre School. Why? ‘I loved the subject. The human sciences and natural sciences are closely connected with writers and how we view the world. It’s a fascinating area of debate and I felt it was something I could do wherever I was. When I directed Two Men of Florence [about the trial of Galileo], I felt I knew a lot about the subject.
‘I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was a pretty handy cricketer at one point and half thought I might do that. Then I dropped out because I couldn’t face the idea of just playing cricket for a year. I thought for quite a long time I might be an actor as I enjoyed being on stage and I enjoyed the process of acting – I felt I had an ability for it. That’s why I went to drama school.’
It was at Mountview that Edward found his calling – ‘that side of my brain woke up’ but it was towards directing that the call came. Edward admits: ‘I’m not a very good actor and I started directing as soon as I left drama school.’
His first production was Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Edward recalls: ‘I didn’t understand it but I knew it was brilliant and the action only happened in one room, with not much furniture so I thought we had a chance to put it on!’ This worked, of course, and he began his directing career which led to the formation of Propeller, his all-male Shakespeare company. Edward says: ‘The first Shakespeare play I directed was Othello – it was a wonderful cast and I enjoyed the experience. It was very, very hard. But I thought it was not quite right, I wanted to expand it more. I wanted to find contemporary touchstones that I thought were right for the story I was telling. I wanted to find a few more traditional ways of approaching Shakespeare – to have an all-male cast and take away some of the technological toys. So there would be no sound effects – we’d do some lighting but, for example, if there was a television it would be an actor holding up a frame. The actors would make the whole story. And this just worked. It was so thrilling and exciting, and the audience woke up to it all.’
Edward shies away from drama ‘aimed at’ certain audiences – although the company is touring its Pocket Dream for younger theatregoers or for those seeing Shakespeare for the first time. He says: ‘We don’t ‘go for’ audiences because my memories of theatre include sitting alongside adults. This is the point of good theatre – you have an 18-year-old sitting next to a 60-year-old city slicker, and they are both getting the same thing out of a play.
‘Our Pocket Dream comes from taking selected scenes from a full production – it has toured, it’s been researched, we are working on something we know very well. Then it’s a question of choice – which scenes do we leave in, which do we take out? With Dream it has four clear story lines so it might be easier to do it with this than other plays.’
However, simplified versions have their place, Edward concurs: ‘Anything that encourages people to open a play is good, although you need to play it. I don’t really understand what’s going on in a play until I’ve heard it spoken. Studying in a classroom is very difficult and anything that encourages students to go to productions is a good thing.’
He adds: ‘Theatre is absolutely part of our culture. It’s in our bones.’ And with that, the thoughtful, intelligent and innovative theatre director, who is bringing Shakespeare to a new generation, signs off and dashes into Homebase for his one-amp fuse.
And you are..?
Name: Edward Hall
Born: 1967
Work : Artistic director, Propeller theatre company and the Hampstead Theatre.
Home: Married to actress Issy Van Randwyck, with whom he has a daughter.
Current tour: Pocket Dream, Richard III and A Comedy of Errors
Further information: www.propeller.org.uk
A few of my favourite things
Work I admire: Katie Mitchell’s work because her thoroughness is extraordinary.
Book: I don’t know! If I have to choose it would be Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy.
Film: The Shining.
Music: I love Jimi Hendrix – anything with strong flavours. I’m happy at a punk concert or with Wagner.
Shakespeare: The one I’m working on always! It’s the one that occupies me most!