Edward Hall Sets RSC Record Straight???

Director Edward Hall has spoken publicly about his controversial departure from the Royal Shakespeare Company in March, when he quit the Stratford Edward III at the start of the rehearsals. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph to promote his new production, Rose Rage, which opens this week in the West End, Hall said that his departure "had been inaccurately spoken about". According to the young director, son of RSC founder Sir Peter Hall, "when I was trying to produce Edward III, there was a degree of confusion and disorganisation within the company that made pulling into focus a production I'd been thinking about for three years very difficult. I was expected to start rehearsing without the full cast and I seemed to be the only person who thought that was unacceptable." While he says he holds no rancour, Hall maintains that "I didn't get what I was promised" and he found "the notion that I left that show in order to do a commercial production (the Bill Kenwright-produced revival of Somerset Maugham's The Constant Wife, now at the West End's Apollo Theatre) insulting, preposterous and slanderous". In the article, Hall also largely ruled himself out of the running to succeed Adrian Noble as RSC artistic director - "I've moved on, really.... I'm busy with other things." Chief amongst those is his own all-male Propeller Theatre, the company behind Rose Rage, which Hall considers the highlight of his career. For more on that and Hall's other views on theatre and directing, be sure to check back for Whatsonstage.com's own 20 Questions interview with the director next week.

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