Dominic Dromgoole Q&A: ‘It is absurd and disproportionate how much great dramatic writing has emerged from Ireland’

Tell us about your new book. What was the inspiration and how did the idea evolve?

Being a veteran of 350-odd first nights in the theatre has left much scar tissue of joy and pain — that must contribute. Taking that mileage and using it to give a little insight into some of the big nights from history seemed a sound idea.

What is your favourite first-night story from the book?

No favourites is the law in all things from family to work to art. Too many great stories to create hierarchies.

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And from your own career?

As above. Prejudicing any one moment diminishes the others. Enjoy every sandwich.

You’ve directed and produced many Irish plays, from Friel’s Philadelphia Here I Come in Dublin to Sebastian Barry’s White Woman Street at the Bush Theatre in London. How would you assess those writers?

What a privilege, and what a tradition. I’ve directed Shaw and O’Casey and Frank McGuinness too with delight. It is absurd and disproportionate how much great dramatic writing has emerged from Ireland. I write in the book how a sense of the sacred is necessary in all great theatre or public art. Even if the issue is its absence, there has to be a ghost from the unseen world to give each moment heft. That is present in all these writers and in the Irish tradition.

Handel’s Messiah famously premiered in Dublin. What can you tell us about that?

An extraordinary moment, 900 people crammed into the Great Music Hall on Fishamble Street. So that they could all squeeze in, the women had to go without their hoops and the men without their swords. Make of that what you will.

Your father Patrick directed the first production of Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane. How did that go?

Like a firecracker. Not sure how well they got on. Orton inscribed a first edition for my Dad with the quote, ‘I got over it though. You do, don’t you?’ That’s the story of many working relationships.

You were artistic director of the Globe for many years. Which Shakespeare play or quotation best sums up the current British regime?

When we are born, we cry that we are come/To this great stage of fools.

Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage?

Many. I used to do a week a year with two friends — Shakespeare, Hardy, first World War poets, Byron, Coleridge, John Clare, William Cobbett — walking, thinking, talking cobblers, pints. Very enjoyable.

What is the best writing advice you have heard? Or what advice would you give to your younger writing self?

The first achievement with writing anything is getting to the end. That was from Maeve Binchy and is hard to beat. I didn’t really have a younger writing self; it all came very late.

Which of your books are you proudest of, and why?

No favourites, but a sneaking pride in the latest, because the stories are good ones, and I think it demonstrates that art matters.

Who do you admire the most?

Anyone who does their job well, with good cheer and good grace.

You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish?

Of the UK? Abandon Brexit and apologise profusely. Of the whole shebang? Outlaw anonymity on social media.

What current book, film, TV show and podcast would you recommend?

Looking for Theophrastus by Laura Beatty is the book. The Man in the Hat is the film, a playful odyssey through France with Ciaran Hinds in a Fiat 500 (full disclosure, I produced it). I’m bewildered by television at the moment — it is too much of a good thing. The RTÉ documentary on Maeve Binchy this year gave me more pleasure than anything else. Podcasts are similarly bewildering.

Which public event affected you most?

Obama’s election was one of the few moments in my life I could share with my daughters with an unabashed assurance the world was showing its better face.

The most remarkable place you have visited?

We took Hamlet to every country in the world and that took me to some remarkable places — Hargeisa in Somalia, Irbil in Iraq when Isis were only 65km away, Kiev on the night before their elections.

Your most treasured possession?

I travel fairly light. My honour, I suppose.

What is the most beautiful book that you own?

I was in quarantine in China earlier this year and my daughters made me a little booklet with 40 pages of handwritten quotes which they or I love. Modest and mighty.

Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party?

My three daughters all write and are the best company. Shakespeare natch. And I’d bring Maeve back and she and Gordon Snell could entertain us all.

The best and worst things about where you live?

Neighbourliness is the best. A fresh scourge of junk is the worst.

What is your favourite quotation?

Heigh ho — tis naught but mirth. That keeps the body from the earth. (From Francis Beaumont’s Knight of the Burning Pestle)

Who is your favourite fictional character?

Horatio. What a friend.

A book to make me laugh?

Broadsword Calling Danny Boy by Geoff Dyer is pretty unbeatable.

A book that might move me to tears?

Middlemarch is completely unbeatable.

Astonish Me!: First Nights That Changed the World by Dominic Dromgoole is published by Profile Books