#mark's interview

One of the authors (and actors) of the popular Sherlock Mark Gatiss series will be featured live in cinemas tomorrow as a British sovereign suffering from mental illness. The well-known game of King George's Madness is transferred from theater in Nottingham to Prague, Hradec Králové and Náchod.

Today 11:39

The NT Live Live transmission has already happened when you played with Tom Hiddleston in Shakespeare's Coriolan. Will it make you less nervous about Tuesday night?

Probably yes. At NT Live you have to forget about cameras. You can not act like a TV show. It's best to just play and not think about the millions watching you in the cinema. Even though you are reminded of, as in the case of Coriolan, when David Tennant sent me a message five minutes before the start: I'm sitting in a small cinema on Vancouver Island and watching how you play in downtown London is not that amazing?

How do you perceive yourself as a viewer of NT Live?

Filmed theater has a bad reputation because it was mostly filmed by regional television without proper techniques and looked poor. But NT Live has many high-quality cameras and can create an intimate experience. Sometimes thanks to NT Live, you can also see the stage better.

Madness was written by Alan Bennett, an active author. His novel Aleluja! in the Czech Republic in NT Live we will see in February.

I have already seen her, and I really liked the game because of the state of British health. This is not what you expect most in older authors' games.

In Britain, Bennett is a national treasure, unfortunately we do not know much about it in the Czech Republic. Can you imagine it?

People think he's a gentle, gentleman from Yorkshire. But he has a very sharp joke, and he can be quite annoyed, not least in terms of the lack of opportunities for less wealthy young people to learn. He is bittersweet, able to observe life and people, and also interested in the history he studied, especially the royal family. I recommend the novel An extraordinary reader in which the queen finds books.

Has he participated in the trials of your production?

Not that, but he wrote a letter to each of us. And he said he was looking at NT Live. Since the original production in 1991 he has not seen the game.

In 1995 a film version was nominated for several Oscars. In your role played by Nigel Hawthorne.

I once saw the movie, but every production must exist on its own. You can not play in some shadow.

Your performance has been running in Nottingham since the beginning of the month. Have you discovered anything new in it since then?

I found out how much I like George. He was not an autocrat, though he too badly tolerated when someone disagreed with him. He was kind, people liked him, they called him Farmer George, fascinated him with agriculture, and appeared quietly on someone in the porch and asked him to cultivate one or the other. He and his wife had fifteen children, and they were very happy, and they called them Lord and Mrs. King. He had no lover, which was almost unheard of at that time.

Is your performance as a crazy monarch a lot of physical?

I grew up at the psychiatric hospital where my father worked, and now I use a lot of things that I've seen as a child. George has a lot of ticks, a jerk. It's pretty tiring, especially in the days when we play the morning performances. But I like the acting challenge. Although I'm completely covered with bruises.

You were studying the role of George III. also historical sources?

I studied him at school and felt boring. Except for madness, it was exciting. I remembered that during his reign he was arguing about the power of politicians Fox and Pitt, but nothing more. Thanks to the game, people now find me more interesting and I think they will get something to learn about them. However, the art of the time is still bored with me, for example Gainsbourg's paintings seem feeble to me.

Now there is another story in Britain, and like almost every similar production, King George's madness has already come to concern itself with brexitis. Are your concepts deliberate in parallels?

You should never pressure yourself. Every night, people are laughing at the replica that America is wise. And always when I say that Ireland has shrunk on the ground of mold and decay, it sounds like I think of Britain today. We did not change anything intentionally, Alan wrote it in 1991 when he did not know about Brexitis. But it's strange how words have a different echo, depending on when you listen to them. Already at Coriolana, I was struck by the fact that some fascist regimes like the game and others forbid it.

What do you think, after Brexies, to become a British theater?

I'm afraid he'll fall into recession for fifteen years. Brexit, I think, is the worst thing Britain has ever since World War II. Everybody knows this, and yet it continues, despite all the evidence of massive corruption and interference by Russia and a number of right-wing groups. Catastrophe. As if you were cutting your neck in the evening and going to sleep, you will see how it will be in the morning.

The mistress of King George is played in Nottingham. How does it look like today with British regional theaters?

They work well in the arts, the problem is that they cut their budgets. As a student, I could see great actors and performances at the local theater, we had a cultural center in the city, where children could go dancing, painting, whatever. But when it is saved, culture is the first. Newcastle has recently proposed a 100% cut in budget for culture. Eventually they changed it to about seventy-five percent, which is still a disgrace. Councilors rely on parents to take their children to other rings. But what if he is not here? Regional theaters are still light in the dark, so it is important to support them.

NT Live can help?

If they see people in the Czech Republic, the US, Poland or Japan, they will know that good theaters are outside of London.

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