Smash hit

From Bristol onwards, Doran seemed to be heading in the direction of acting. But, since school, he had always been the one organising the shows, and as he progressed from university to Nottingham Playhouse and then the RSC, it steadily became clearer that he was a natural director.

“My ego enjoyed acting, but I knew I was much happier when I was directing. And I remember reading something Flaubert said about most people ending up in life doing what they do second best, and the trick is to find what you do first best and do it. And I realised that I never thought of myself as an actor. When I cast plays in my head, I never cast myself.”

He joined the RSC in 1987, and has been there ever since. With the departure of Noble, he became one of the two contenders for the artistic directorship. They were, said Boyd, the two green bottles left hanging on the wall. In the event, it was Doran who fell and Boyd who got the job. Either way, they both faced the same problem: an RSC without a London home and without any apparent prospect of persuading the commercial theatres to take its shows.

Furthermore, the deficit meant that they couldn’t take any risks on their own London adventures.

In fact, it was Doran who, at least temporarily, seemed to solve this. He produced a Jacobean series at Stratford, which he managed, at the last minute, to get into the West End. And his combination of The Taming of the Shrew and Fletcher’s follow-up, The Tamer Tamed, will also make it to London. As a result, the RSC’s London profile is now at last climbing back to where it should be — at the top. Negotiations for a full-time venue continue, however, with one startling possibility being the Commonwealth Institute building, on Kensington High Street.

“The whole crisis was brought about by an overreaction to the problem of the Barbican. You had this sense of being trapped, and people got ill at the Barbican, but the plan was not fully agreed by everybody... It turned into a horrendous financial mistake. It was a mistake based on the old arts- company idea that if you close one door, another is bound to open. It didn’t.”

The obvious question to ask is: was the whole company now in danger of being compromised by its need to get into the West End? Would they start casting movie stars just to massage the box office? “That would have been the obvious implication of the policy. We could have gone after Ralph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow for The Taming of the Shrew. They are bums-on-seats names. But that’s not what the company’s based upon. Okay, we’ve got Judi Dench in All’s Well, but she’s a home girl. Terry Hands used to say that the RSC doesn’t need stars, it makes stars. And it’s true — all the greats of British theatre made their names at the RSC.”

If this is to continue to be true — if, indeed, the RSC is to survive as something more than the managerial pantomime it has been — the “core values” of which Doran speaks so passionately have to be revived and protected. This involves redefining the place as less of an arts company and more of an institution. Performing Shakespeare, as Doran insists again and again, is a tough, disciplined matter. Dreams of hyper- democratic ensembles in which actors are Hamlet one day and a spear-carrier the next are nonsense. This is a hierarchical business involving an elitism of talent. And speaking verse is as hard a craft as playing the violin. Shakespeare is not an opportunity for self-expression, he is a mountain to be climbed. All of this is an affront to large parts of contemporary British theatre, but, happily, it is what Doran, in gentler terms, is saying.

“I’m not a director who believes greatly in concept — certainly not concept with a capital K and an umlaut. That’s just ego to me. I think the plays are great in themselves. You’ve got to find a way to serve them up and be accessible. But accessibility is not about packaging them so that they are dumbed down. It’s about allowing all the greatness and complexity to be available.”

But will he stick to it? Might he not be seduced, like the other big theatrical directors, by showy musicals or Holly- wood money? “Well, I’d like to make a bit more money. But I know there’s that Daldry-Mendes thing where you’re just given a ticket to direct a big film. I think that’s complete bollocks. I think Stephen and Sam had that ambition from the word go.”

Two things now need to happen: Doran and Boyd need to keep their nerve, and somehow the RSC needs to start managing itself sanely. The world will then be a less hilarious place for luvvie-loathers like me. But Shakespeare will, at least, have survived another generation.

The Taming of the Shrew and The Tamer Tamed open at Queen’s Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, W1, on January 14; All’s Well That Ends Well transfers from the RST to the Gielgud Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, W1, on February 18