. - so harold pinter wrote the screenplay. - right. - and the director was a german director who had directed the tin drum his name is volker schlöndorff. - [evan] yeah. - and natasha richardson whom i had known as a child oddly enough, was the central character. and pinter had written a voiceover for that character and she played against the voiceover she recorded it and everything. - [evan] right. - and then the director took it out because he was in his minimalist phase. - so her approach to the part was assuming that this voiceover - [margaret] exactly. - would be in the movie. - and then she thought that her performance was flat. - am i remembering that pinter at the time, he started on the film but also sort of stopped at one point? - i don't remember that part. - [evan] yeah. - i remember i was the what shall we say. i was the only person who knew what they had for breakfast if it wasn't in the text. - [evan] right. - so i could give them you know inside tips like what kind of socks they never actually asked me about, they asked me other things and i was on the set for part of

stephen smith has been to the harold pinter theatre to meet him.se morning duties to your father. andrew scott's hamlet wears his fencing gear almost as if it was a straitjacket. but father lost his. he says the production he leads looks at hamlet‘s plight in a very contemporary way. the thing that feels the most timely is the relationship with mental health. it's a story about a young man whose father has just died and everybody in his family is saying, move on, move on, you're the prince, we don't have time. your mental health is not important. and so because he is at the centre of the state, something rotten develops at the state of denmark. and that's what's very important. i don't think you can play hamlet in the sense, you can'tjust put on this antic position and make it is apparent to everybody that your lunatic in inverted commas because that's not the way mental health presents itself. that's what's been very gratifying. people can relate to what grieving is. i think we're on a very exciting time in the world about what we understand in me