Richard Wilson On … Being ‘Born to Play’ Malvolio

On stage, Wilson has appeared most recently in Whipping it Up, What the Butler Saw, Peter Pan, Waiting for Godot and Uncle Vanya, and his directing credits include Primo, Mr Kolpert (for which he won a TMA Award for Best Director); and The Woman Before, Rainbow Kiss, Playing the Victim, Where Do We Live, all at the Royal Court where he was an associate director under Ian Rickson.

In June 2010, Wilson will revive Polly Stenham’s multi award-winning 2007 debut play That Face (premiered at the Royal Court) at Sheffield Crucible, where he was recently appointed an associate director under new actor-turned-artistic director Daniel Evans.

RSC chief associate Gregory Doran, who has directed you in Twelfth Night, has said that Malvolio is a part you were “born to play”. How do you feel about that?

Greg isn’t the only person to have said it, unfortunately – it’s not a great compliment to be told you were born to play a grumpy old puritan. Greg first asked me to play Malvolio years ago and I said, yes of course, not thinking clearly. Then it took a long time before he decided to do Twelfth Night. Last year, when he said he was finally going to do it, I told him, don’t feel duty bound by a request you made years ago. But he said, I want you to play it.

Whether anyone is ever really born to play a part or not, I don’t know. I can tell you it doesn’t make the rehearsal process any easier when you keep being told that. Once it was announced, even members of the public would come up to me and say, “you were born to play that part, Mr Wilson”. I don’t know why people think that. I was brought up in a Scottish Presbyterian household, which I suppose is quite helpful in a way, in terms of knowing what the background to the character might be. And, I suppose people make associations between Malvolio and Victor Meldrew – although, to be fair to the public, they don’t ever say that. I never looked for similarities between the two characters myself: I mean, they’re both a bit grumpy, but they are very different people.

The other problem with Malvolio is that it’s one of the most famous parts in the Shakespeare canon. When I eventually said yes to Greg, I thought, “what are you doing? You are going to be compared and contrasted to every Malvolio, many hundreds of them.” It’s a no-win situation. I’m only beginning to enjoy the experience now, because I was very scared of it at first, petrified really.

The reason I haven’t performed with the RSC before is because they haven’t asked me! I have been asked to work there in the past, but mainly as a director. It’s a wonderful company, enormously supportive and very well organised. But I don’t have any plans to return to the RSC. Partly because I’m doing others things and partly because I have nothing in my mind. Although I’m very pleased I did Twelfth Night, I am not dashing back to Shakespeare. My main interest in drama is new writing.

Certainly as a director, I’m always looking for new writing. That was one of the ways Daniel Evans sold me the idea of becoming an associate director at Sheffield. I was an associate director at the Royal Court under Ian Rickson for six or seven years. When Dominic Cooke took over, the regime changed, which is fair enough. It’s very exciting to be involved with new writing at another theatre and to be directing again, because I was missing it very much. Daniel has never run a building before, but he is very inspirational and he has an image for Sheffield that seems to me to be a very grounded and positive one.

I am keen not to act on stage for awhile, certainly not this year. I’m finding eight shows a week quite a task. But I do love doing theatre. It’s something most actors like to go back to every now and again, because that’s where the real communication with an audience is. Each performance is for that audience alone, and that is very special.

Twelfth Night opened on 22 December 2009 (previews from 19 December) at the West End’s Duke of York’s Theatre, where it continues a straight run through to 27 February 2010. Prior to London, it ran at Stratford-upon-Avon’s Courtyard Theatre from 21 October to 21 November 2009 (previews from 15 October). Gregory Doran’s production also features Nancy Carroll, Alexandra Gilbreath, , James Fleet and Richard McCabe.