‘I’ve been re-reading Peter Hall’s Diaries. Suddenly they start to make sense. They’re a catalogue of misery.’ Richard Eyre
It would be easy to dislike the late Peter Hall. Indeed, many people did. After all, he set up the Royal Shakespeare Company in his twenties, was knighted while running the National Theatre in his forties. Penthouse flat in the Barbican. House near the Thames in Oxfordshire. What’s not to dislike? His Diaries cover 1972-80 and are full of disappointment: plays don’t work, funding is tough, people are shits – and the National is crippled by strike action. The book is excellent (as you would hope) on the business of drama. It is also good on labour relations in the 1970s, a useful reminder of why Thatcherism was able to flourish from 1979. Even Hall voted for her. His successor Richard Eyre points to ‘so much fear and corrosion and self-doubt’ in the Diaries. He’s right. But Hall, although constantly under pressure (some of it self-inflicted), is also very funny, often about himself and his failings. He was criticised (occasionally to his face) about greed. On this the Diaries are revealing: the amount of time Hall spends away from his day job (directing operas at Glyndebourne, appearing in German films, overseeing plays transferred to Broadway, presenting an ITV arts show) is staggering. But he needed the extra readies to ‘keep my huge family afloat. I am responsible for eight people if I include, as I must, my parents and aunt’. Detractors felt he was a megalomaniac empire builder. Michael Blakemore’s memoir about the National, Stage Blood, tends this way. So where’s the truth? Diaries, in general, are probably not the place to find all of it. Laurence Olivier feels betrayed by Hall, who succeeded/ousted him. John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and Albert Finney are warm and supportive. Hall ran a virtually unrunnable institution, enjoyed the trappings (‘A really excellent flight: Concorde at its best’) and was extremely successful. He was a station master’s son, no silver spoon in sight. Envy, envy. I can’t remember when I enjoyed reading a book quite this much. And for fun, below is a rude story about Donald Wolfit, which made me laugh out loud…
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