Where are you now and what do you see?
I’ve just returned home to London and I’m surrounded by boxes of books to unpack and not enough shelf space to put them on.
What are you reading?
Robert Harris is great Amnesty, about the hunt for the men who carried out the execution of King Charles I. This is an interesting reminder of Restoration London and the early American colony in New England. Then there is disturbance, Henry James’ final novel about how American magnates sought cultural artifacts from the dispossessed British aristocracy during the Golden Age. He originally wrote it as a play. I read aloud in the bath. AND Blueberry Finn (In the underground!)
Who is your favorite author and why do you admire them?
Having directed the Royal Shakespeare Company for the past two decades, you won’t be surprised to know that this is Shakespeare. The amazing originality of his paintings never ceases to amaze me.
Describe the space in which you usually write…
Surrounded by books, a bright ground-floor study with floor-to-ceiling windows and imperial yellow walls. By the fireplace is a bust of my late husband Tony, actor Sir Anthony Sher KBE. It was created by artist and friend Richard Sharples shortly before his death. It’s a painfully subtle portrait, raw, vulnerable, even angry. It is made from “grown” copper and has an organic appearance, like coral or lichen. Richard started work before Tony was diagnosed, but changed the design when he found out.
What fictional character do you like the most?
Maybe Alfred J. Prufrock T. S. Eliot? “No, I’m not Prince Hamlet, and I shouldn’t / be a servant who / to increase the advance starts a scene or two.”
Who is your hero outside of literature?
This is a duet. John Hemings and Henry Condell, the men who collected the first tome after Shakespeare’s death. Without them, we would only have half of Shakespeare’s plays.