Hall - Making an Exhibition of Myself

First published in the UK in 1993
by Sinclair-Stevenson an imprint of Reed Consumer Books Ltd

This edition first published in 2000 by Oberon Books Ltd
521 Caledonian Road, London N7 9RH
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7607 3637 / Fax: +44 (0) 20 7607 3629
e-mail:
www.oberonbooks.com

Copyright Petard Productions Ltd 1993, 2000

Epilogue copyright Petard Productions 2000

Copyright photographs the copyright holders

Peter Hall is hereby identified as author of this book in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The author has asserted his moral rights.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or binding or by any means (print, electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

PB ISBN: 978-1-84002-115-8
E ISBN: 978-1-8494-3686-1

Cover design: Jon Morgan

Cover photograph: Matthew Thomas

eBook conversion by Replika Press PVT Ltd, India.

Visit www.oberonbooks.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that youre always first to hear about our new releases.

FOR NICKI

AND FOR CHRISTOPHER
JENNIFER, EDWARD
LUCY, REBECCA
AND EMMA

Copyright holders are given in brackets

1. My mother in 1924

2. My father when he had just been appointed Stationmaster

3. At six years old

4. Albert Herring (Guy Gravett)

5. 3120201 Aircraftsman Hall

6. At Cambridge

7. Jill my first love affair

8. With Tom Bergner and my Austin Seven

9. As Hamlet at the Perse

10. As Petruchio at the Perse

11. As First Citizen in a Marlowe Societys Coriolanus at Cambridge

12. With Leslie on our wedding day (Tony Armstrong-Jones)[Lord Snowdon]

13. Sir Fordham Flower (Shakespeare Centre Library)

14. Charles Laughton as Bottom (Angus McBean Shakespeare Centre Library)

15. Mary Ure, Olivier and Edith Evans in Coriolanus (Angus McBean Shakespeare Centre Library)

16. A starry line-up in the gardens behind the Stratford theatre during the 100th season in 1959 (Roger Wood)

17. With Leslie, Christopher and Jenny on holiday in France (Camera Press)

18. Leslie and Christopher do the twist. Jenny is bored (Rex Features)

19. Avoncliffe, our Stratford home

20. With John Barton, rehearsing The Wars of the Roses (Times Newspapers)

21. Peggy Ashcroft as Margaret in the trilogy The Wars of the Roses (Reg Wilson)

22. Peter OToole as Shylock (David Sim Shakespeare Centre Library)

23. David Warner as Hamlet (Morris Newcombe)

24. Paul Scofield as Lear (Svoboda Shakespeare Centre Library)

25. Dorothy Tutin as Cressida in Troilus and Cressida (Angus McBean Shakespeare Centre Library)

26. Vanessa Redgrave as Rosalind in As You Like It (Shakespeare Centre Library)

27. The Homecoming (David Sim Shakespeare Centre Library)

28. The Government Inspector (Reg Wilson)

29. A theatre cricket match (Birmingham Post and Mail)

30. With Jacky, Lucy and Edward in our Barbican flat

31. With Edward

32. Paul Rogers, Paul Scofield, Ben Kingsley: Volpone (Reg Wilson)

33. Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud: No Mans Land (Anthony Crickmay)

34. Rehearsing the orgy round the Golden Calf in Moses and Aaron (Rex Features)

35. Ileana Cotrubas and Frederica von Stade: Figaro (Guy Gravett)

36. Technical rehearsal of Ulisse (Guy Gravett)

37. Cos fan tutte (Guy Gravett)

38. Michael Gough and Joan Hickson in Bedroom Farce (Anthony Crickmay)

39. Rehearsing Peggy Ashcroft in Happy Days

40. Rehearsing Pinters Other Places (Laurence Burns)

41. The Romans in Britain (Laurence Burns)

42. Judi Dench in The Importance of Being Earnest (Zo Dominic)

43. A rehearsal of Amadeus

44. Working on Jean Seberg (Nobby Clark)

45. Animal Farm (Nobby Clark)

46. A rehearsal of The Oresteia at Epidaurus in 1982 (Nobby Clark)

47. In the amphitheatre at Athens with Ian McKellen when he played Coriolanus there (John Haynes)

48. Moran Caplat by the lake at Glyndebourne (Guy Gravett)

49. Ileana Cotrubas and James Bowman in A Midsummer Nights Dream (Guy Gravett)

50. Rehearsing Janet Baker as Orfeo (Guy Gravett)

51. The death of Carmen: Maria Ewing with Barry McCauley (Guy Gravett)

52. Das Rheingold at Bayreuth (Roger Wood)

53. A cartoon by David Langdon that appeared when I returned to the NT from directing The Ring at Bayreuth

54. With Rebecca, Maria and Lucy at the opening of the Torville and Dean ice show (Camera Press)

55. Anthony Hopkins and Judi Dench in Antony and Cleopatra (John Haynes)

56. Steven Mackintosh as Ariel in The Tempest (John Haynes)

57. Akenfield (Peter Hall)

58. With David Warner and Cilla Black while making Work is a Four Letter Word (David Magnus, Rex Features)

59. Rebecca, aged nine, with Toby Stephens in The Camomile Lawn

60. Peggy Ashcroft, Geraldine James and James Fox in Shes Been Away (BBC Photograph Library)

61. Vanessa Redgrave in Orpheus Descending (John Haynes)

62. Dustin Hoffman in The Merchant of Venice (John Haynes)

63. Julie Walters in The Rose Tattoo (John Haynes)

64. My second production of The Homecoming, twenty-five years after the first (Ivan Kyncl)

65. John Sessions, Jennifer Ehle and Paul Eddington in Tartuffe (Ivan Kyncl)

66. Judi Dench in The Gift of the Gorgon (John Haynes)

67. Born Again (John Haynes)

68. With John Guare, author of Four Baboons Adoring the Sun

69. Nicki

70. All my children (Edina van der Wyck)

71. With Emma in Los Angeles (Eric Charbonneau at Berliner Studio)

Above all, I am grateful to John Goodwin. His help in the preparation of the manuscript was invaluable. He also encouraged me to be as candid as the law and reasonable courtesy allow.

My warm thanks as well to Maggie Sedwards for all her work in making this book happen, and for urging me on when I was flagging; and to Tim Goodwin who not only compiled the Index but searched out photographs as did the Shakespeare Centre at Stratford-upon-Avon, Helen ONeill at Glyndebourne, and Stephen Wood of the National Theatre.