Robert Icke was born in 1986 in Stockton-on-Tees. He is a writer and theatre director and the youngest winner of the Olivier Award for Best Director. He is best known for his modern adaptations of classic texts.
What’s your earliest memory?
The family dog Biffo, who was a few months older than me, as a puppy playing in tall grass. I think I remember that.
What book last changed your thinking?
Shakespeare: apparently infinite.
Who are your heroes?
If you’d asked me as a child, I might have answered Captain Hook because of the film Hook. As an adult, I don’t know how useful “hero” is as a concept, but Peter Brook was an important friend and teacher to me, first reading his work and then, thrillingly, getting to know him. Both experiences were a wake-up call.
What would be your “Mastermind” specialist subject?
It was once Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books but I’m rusty these days. I’m not bad on Emily Dickinson’s poetry. But now, in all probability, though I’m aware that it makes me a cliché, it’s probably world drama, from Ancient Greek to about 1660.
In another life, what job might you have chosen?
Either psychoanalyst or teacher. The latter, to me, is the golden profession: almost everyone in my professional world has a great English or drama teacher somewhere long behind them who lit the touch paper on their imagination.
What political figure do you look up to?
David Nott, the surgeon who volunteers to work in war zones. I am in absolute awe of somebody of such intricate skill who’s not focused on money but on being useful in the world.
In which time and place, other than your own, would you like to live?
A theatre city where a golden age is underway. Elizabethan London. Perhaps Stratford-upon-Avon from about 1960 through the mid 1970s. I’d love to know what classical Athens was really like.
Who would paint your portrait?
Rembrandt to be shown how I really feel or Lucian Freud to be shown what I really look like. Let’s go with Rembrandt. Actually, let’s not. I really don’t want to have my portrait painted.
What TV show could you not live without?
For me, The Sopranos is a masterpiece: as near to fully achieved as any piece of art I know. But to really answer the question, it’s The West Wing, for comfort and for its belief in our better angels.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
To ask: does it really matter? I try to keep it in mind every day. But I most often realise how brilliant advice is shortly after I’ve failed to follow it.
What’s currently bugging you?
Why does everything need its own app? Life would be easier if WhatsApp andtexts and iMessages could all be in the same app.
When were you happiest?
Often, since having a child: my daughter has daily brought these great lightning bolts of joy into my life. Her laugh. Before that, it might have been at secondary school, when the school’s Jurassic supply teacher, Mrs Griffiths, would appear at the start of the lesson and 35 teenagers would spontaneously applaud and cheer in the knowledge that the next hour, under her supervision, had just metamorphosed from work to play.
Are we all doomed?
Not yet.
Robert Icke’s “Oedipus” is playing at Wyndham’s Theatre until 4 January 2025
[See also: Jordan Peterson’s prophecies]
Content from our partners
Related
This article appears in the 27 Nov 2024 issue of the New Statesman, The Optimist’s Dilemma