The Twist of a Knife

Before I knew it, we were rehearsing in a converted warehouse in Dalston and this time I was allowed to join in. The rehearsal room was exactly what I would have imagined: a large, empty space with a triple-height ceiling and flaking walls, a kitchen area with an assortment of mugs, a kettle, tea and biscuits. Four plastic chairs were arranged in a circle for the director and cast and made me think of an AA meeting. The shape of the set had been chalked out on the bare floorboards, with traffic cones used for the doors and windows. The various props had been arranged on trestle tables. Styler’s straitjacket hung on a rail. There were more chairs at the edge of the room for the assistant director, the lighting designer, the costume assistant and various other backstage staff. The atmosphere was always highly charged … intense.

It was during this time that I got to know Ewan Lloyd and the cast a little better. I won’t say I was part of the team. I was sitting in the outer circle. But we did occasionally have a drink together once we’d finished for the day and something vaguely resembling a friendship sprang up between us.

When I’d first met Ewan, I’d assumed he was gay. He was quite effete, dressing like Oscar Wilde with a wide-brimmed hat and a scarf. If he’d smoked, I could imagine him using an ebony cigarette holder. I was quite surprised when Ahmet told me that although Ewan was now divorced, he had been married to an actress and they’d had four children.

Ewan was in his late forties and completely bald, although it looked as if he had shaved off his hair rather than lose it strand by strand. He was quite fastidious, almost prissy, when he was talking about his work and it didn’t help that he spoke with a slight stutter. He wore glasses with very thin frames and he would use them like a conductor’s baton, tapping the script or jabbing them at me when he was making a point. Maureen had shown me his CV and I had seen that he had worked in a number of well-respected theatres, although I couldn’t help noticing that his CV had become a lot thinner in recent years. He had mounted several productions with a fringe theatre company in Antwerp, but had returned to England to direct Macbeth for Ahmet.

We went out for a Chinese meal one evening, just the two of us, and after telling me about some of the plays he’d directed and the awards he’d won, he suddenly launched into an extraordinary tirade. Maybe it was the wine that did it. He’d worked all over the world, he said. He was huge in Belgium. But he had never been fully accepted in his own country. He had never been given the credit he deserved. He would have liked a spell as the artistic director of one of the good provincial theatres, but he knew that was never going to happen. Everyone was against him.

We were on our second bottle by now and I sat silently, feeling uncomfortable as the anguish poured out.

‘It was all because of Chichester. Bloody Chichester! Theatre people are the worst in the world. There’s so much malice. Everyone’s at each other’s throats. They’re always waiting to get you and the moment they get the chance, they pounce!’

According to Ewan, his problems had begun eight years ago at the Chichester Festival Theatre. He had been directing George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, starring Sonja Childs in the title role. We don’t usually see the burning at the stake. This happens offstage. But Ewan had decided to open with a striking tableau of the flames, the smoke, the great pile of firewood, the bare-chested executioner, the crowd. He wanted it to prefigure what was going to happen, to illustrate the fate of the main character.

On the opening night, it had all gone terribly wrong.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he told me. ‘It was all so bloody unfair! I did everything by the book … producer’s notes, control and management procedures, emergency plan. We’d spoken to the police, the local authority, the local fire authority … I couldn’t have done any more. There was a full investigation afterwards. I spent hours being questioned and, in the end, everyone agreed that I was in no way to blame. Of course, the play closed immediately … not that it mattered. I will never forgive myself for what happened to Sonja. It was horrible.’

‘Was she killed?’ I asked.

‘No.’ He looked at me sadly over his glass. ‘But she was very badly injured: it was the end of her career. And mine! Nobody wanted to know me after that. I had two productions cancelled even though I’d already signed the contracts. It was as if I’d lit the bloody match! And look at me now. I mean … Ahmet’s decent enough, but he’s not exactly Cameron Mackintosh, is he!’

And what of the cast?