Sir Trevor Nunn

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2003

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the theatre director Trevor Nunn. At the age of five Trevor had decided, to the great surprise of his parents, that he wanted to be an actor. He won his first part at the age of 13 when a local company needed a child actor. But his plans to act fell by the wayside when he realised there was such a job as directing after he directed a school revue at age 16, a role he took initially because he "had the loudest voice". After winning a scholarship to attend Cambridge University, Trevor took up an English degree and involved himself in various drama groups. In 1962 he won an ABC director's scholarship to the Belgrade Theatre Coventry. After two years his old Cambridge acquaintance Peter Hall had come and seen one of his performances and asked him to join him at Royal Shakespeare Company. Trevor worked alongside Peter Hall for four years until he took over as Artistic Director. He was the youngest person ever to do so at the tender age of 27. He has said "It was paralyzing, I reckoned I had just about learned how to run a rehearsal at the point where I took over the company". But he stayed there for a successful 18 years. In 1996 Trevor joined the National Theatre as artistic director and by February 2000 he had won 9 Olivier awards for the National, including best director. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: The Ode to Joy (Symphony No 9) by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: The complete works by Charles Dickens Luxury: A photo of his wife and all of his children

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, I'm Kesti Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive for rights reasons
0:06.0	We've had to shorten the music
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 2003 and the presenter was Sue Lawley
0:23.0	My guest away this week is a man of the theatre
0:25.0	He's been at the top of the British drama tree for 35 years
0:29.0	Ever since he was asked to become the artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company at the age of 28
0:34.0	His productions of the classics are legendary, but he's enjoyed huge success in the commercial world too
0:40.0	He's equally at home with cats, lemus, arable and anything goes as he is with a fellow and the winter's tail
0:46.0	There may be theatre in every fibre of his body, but there's none in his family background
0:51.0	He's the son of a working-class cabinet-maker from Ipswich who was first set on his career path by a schoolteacher
0:57.0	who encouraged his ambitions
0:59.0	To be a director he says is to be a jack-of-all-trades-part teacher, parts of cartridge, surrogate father, friend and dictator
1:07.0	because it's hopeless to compromise
1:09.0	Currently the boss of the National Theatre, he is Sir Trevor Nun
1:13.0	You're also a jack-of-all-style Trevor because of course as well as doing theatre and musical theatre
1:19.0	you've directed opera as well so it's kind of moats up to Lloyd Weber and co-ported a check-off
1:24.0	It's a great mix if you can mix it and you obviously have
1:27.0	You don't hang up on this high-brow, low-brow argument, are you?
1:32.0	I've never seen the problem, I've never seen any distinction
1:36.0	They're all different strands of the same rope
1:39.0	I don't have any problem about saying a classical theatre company should be working on a Shakespeare text and then the following week
1:46.0	working on one of the great works of the American musical theatre
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.