Time Out at 40

See all Time Out's 40th birthday London heroes

Who are your London heroes?
‘Thomas Coram was a hero. I mean, I didn’t like that play very much, "Coram Boy", I thought it was a waste of a subject, and it’s an extraordinary subject. Hogarth painted Coram – he was a naval captain and he made his money shipping sugar back to England – and the picture is of this late-middle-aged man with a wonderful kindly face. He established an orphanage in London because it was a scandal, seeing abandoned babies dead at the side of the road, often in the winter.’

What’s the biggest thing that has happened in your field in the past 40 years?
‘I think that Mrs Thatcher attempted to reverse the assumption, that I’d always grown up with, that the arts would be subsidised. So her assault on the theatre and its defeat I think is probably the most significant single event.’

What’s your favourite place or thing in London?
‘The Royal Court Theatre.’ Feature continues

What’s your personal favourite moment in London?
‘I remember going to meet Stella [Feehily, his girlfriend, and a playwright] once on the top of Primrose Hill very early one morning. That was a very good moment.’

What is the future for theatre in London?
‘I think the most significant moment of the last 15 years has been the influence of journalism – verbatim theatre has obviously bitten off a whole chunk of material – and the digestion of that. I think its absorption will be important. I think also it’s significant that a number of writers, two of whom are in this room: Mark [Ravenhill] and Stella [Feehily] – Rebecca Lenkiewicz would be a third – don’t just depend on realism. That there is a surrealism, a kind of eccentricity that marks out writing.’

See all Time Out's 40th birthday London heroes