ralph richardson and ian mckellen. and judi dench.n gielgud and all these people, and the writers, pinter and stoppard... most of them, god save them, were still here until a few weeks ago. my point is they we re a few weeks ago. my point is they were perhaps that their creative height in the late 605 and early 705 and we don't seem to be generating a new generation of people are equivalent in stature.” new generation of people are equivalent in stature. i don't think that's true. wait a bit. there's some extraordinary people coming up. but they have to... a writer has to 5ay, but they have to... a writer has to say, ok, in orderto but they have to... a writer has to say, ok, in order to pay the mortgage i've got to write a television series, i hope to god they'll accept it. he has to do that before he writes his play. certainly if his play has more than three or four character5 he's going to have a terrible time getting it on at the moment, at the moment. but theatre's changing all the time, always has done. usually they say theatre'

they do, ian mckellen, judi dench, patrick stewart. all of a sudden age if i may say so. a certain age! i don't think... my daughter wants to bea i don't think... my daughter wants to be a leading stage actress. she feels to do that she needs to be a leading film actress. she is right. so many reasons, box office attractiveness, obviously, selling more tickets if you are known, you also have kind of a magnet that actors gather around in a good way, when they feel there is a community centred around a couple of people. this but rebecca was nine, eight, rising nine when she came with me on channel 4. and i knew then, i swear to god, i knew then that she was an actress, not a child actress. a child actress is noble and splendid, but he or she does what you tell them. and what's interesting about a real actress when small is a kind of immediacy. a final point on rebecca. there's this word, nepotism. you notice it in theatre, an awful lot of people who are in it and successful in it have parents or other members of family who are also in it. if i may say so, you didn't underli