Theatre

David Lan holds court in the old auditorium

There’s no stage door.

ST The front and back of house deliberately overlap. So there’s a picture we had early on of two people having a cup of coffee, while two techies walk past with a sheet of 8x4 because they are crossing from one auditorium to another.

DL We had that in the old building. Also, that people who are mostly day people and people who are night people should overlap.
Is that why you’ve built a secret passage directly from the administration offices to the upper balcony of the theatre? Feature continues

DL That’s really important.

ST It’s a very cheap building. It cost less than £7 million to build. But you’ve got to be careful. You don’t want a building that feels uncomfortable or a mess.

DL It’s now a permanent building, but it’s still got that anarchic, temporary feel. Do you think we would have built it differently if we had had more money?

ST I’d like to think we would have encouraged you not to spend it. The low budget has driven it in the right direction. I hope it’s prevented it being pompous or pretentious or over-finished or elaborate. There’s nothing opulent about it.

And you’ve offset the simplicity of the materials with the views and the use of light.

ST Which are free. And the life of the building is free. If you set up the conditions whereby the building will generate its own vitality, that’s the ultimate interior decoration.

It’s on time, it’s under-budget and you say you’ve had no rows.

ST That sounds so saccharine and obnoxious! But there was never a sense of going in completely different directions.

DL We want to do another one now.

‘Tobias and the Angel’ opens at the newly revamped Young Vic on October 11 (020 7928 6363).