Joseph Millson
© BET T Y BHANDARI
THEATRE
Nancy Carroll
CURTAIN CALL
Live theatre returns to Bath this month with Betrayal, the first of three plays in the Theatre Royal’s autumn season. We sat down with stars Nancy Carroll and Joseph Millson to learn more By Lydia Tewkesbury What have you missed most about live performance? Nancy: I’ve really relished coming back the
words, ideas and things that, in the mundanity of lockdown – although we were doing what everybody needed to do in order to get on top of the pandemic – felt lost. As creative people when you don’t use that creative energy it doesn’t go anywhere, it sort of turns in on itself. It’s great having a vent for it again. Joseph: I found myself doing quite dangerous
sport activities in the whole of lockdown – only after a while did my wife point out it was all so I was still doing something scary, because I didn’t have theatre. For a lot of people in this multi-faith world we’re in, theatre is a kind of all-purpose church. There’s communion and a sense of togetherness that you can’t get anywhere else.
Were you ever scared theatre was gone for good? Nancy: No, never. Theatre has survived wars,
other pandemics, plagues and revolutions. People need stories. It’s why everyone went
“Sometimes we’ll keep stirring the coffee as we end our marriage” 32 I BATH LIFE I www.mediaclash.co.uk
nuts for Netflix and Amazon Prime during lockdown – they needed some sense of human contact, human story. Joseph: Theatre’s been happening for
thousands of years – it’ll survive this handsomely. Danny Moar has said he’s not going to make any money out of this season at all, but that doesn’t matter because it is an exercise in making sure people remember what the experience is like, making sure that they don’t lose the habit.
Have you ever performed at Theatre Royal before? Nancy: Not for years! I did a Peter Hall season,
I think in about 2005. Other than that, though, I was last in Bath last year, filming Agatha Raisin nearby. Joseph: I’ve done one Peter Hall season at the
Theatre Royal in 2003, and I’ve toured to Bath in The Rivals, The Dramatist, Loot, Salad Days – I’ve visited a lot. I filmed a whole TV series for Channel 4, Campus, at University of Bath too.
What should we know about Betrayal? Nancy: Harold Pinter famously had an affair
with the broadcaster and writer Joan Bakewell. She was married to Michael Bakewell from 1955-72, but from 1962-69 she was involved with Pinter. He was with Vivian Merchant at that time. He basically wrote this play about those relationships. I think, reading between
the lines, the betrayal really refers to the relationship between the two men, but not necessarily the cuckolding that the physical affair created. It was to do with the fact that for four years Michael Bakewell knew that the affair had carried on, without his best friend Pinter knowing that he knew. The story is told in reverse, and by putting the getting together at the end of the play you actually finish at a point of hope, potential and love, not with the despair and difficulty that you start the play with. Joseph: It’s bittersweet and weirdly funny.
Pinter is all about characters casually saying things like, ‘Oh I was going to stab you in your sleep last night but you woke up.’ It feels very realistic. We don’t all actually go in for Greek melodrama, sometimes we’ll keep stirring the coffee as we end our marriage.
Nancy: Because of Covid guidelines, Danny has put together a season of two- and three-hander plays which invariably entirely concentrate on intimate relationships. They are ultimately about the human condition and that’s what people want at the moment. Although Betrayal is very specifically about Pinter’s affair with Bakewell, it’s also just about marriage and love and the difficulties of friendship.
Betrayal runs from 14-31 October at Theatre Royal; www.theatreroyal.org.uk
