Overview

Since his successful spell running the National Theatre, Richard Eyre’s career as a director of film, theatre and opera has made him a leading cultural figure and a hugely respected commentator on the arts. This book collects over fifty short pieces written by Eyre about people he has known and worked with, ideas he has struggled with, things that have moved, delighted or infuriated him. He writes with candour, perceptiveness and charm, and always with an eye for the telling anecdote or the revealing detail that betrays the inner life of his subject. Here we encounter Arthur Miller recounting to Eyre the events of the first night of Death of a Salesman; Harold Pinter overheard in a characteristically pugnacious exchange; Judi Dench racing clockwork chicks across a table, her face ‘illuminated by demented glee’. Here too are Alan Bennett, Kate Winslet, Margaret Thatcher, John Mortimer and Marlon Brando, each of them brought vividly and unforgettably to life in the space of a few hundred words. Eyre also includes pieces about the monarchy, about the Iraq War, about Alzheimer’s Disease (from which his mother suffered), about his love of climbing (from the comparative safety of his armchair), and about the relationship between music and sexuality. What Do I Know? is a book that tackles serious ideas with a light and often mischievous touch, and it confirms Eyre’s place as one of our foremost writers and cultural statesmen. 'Richard Eyre's writing is illuminated by all he has achieved as the consummate director of our age. He is the wise and gentle expert on the human heart.' Ian McEwan 'The best book I have read so far this year... I will be very pleased to come across another book that is as engaging, intelligent, sensitive and beautifully written as this one... Eyre knows pretty much everyone in the world of the theatre, is acutely aware of politics and has a depth and breadth of knowledge and understanding of film, music, literature and fine art that marks him out as a modern renaissance man' — Drama Magazine 'Highly intelligent and thought-provoking... gets right to the heart of what it means to be an actor... spectacular and highly entertaining... something for every theatre addict to enjoy' — British Theatre Guide 'Entertaining and informative... [Eyre] writes wittily and compellingly' — The Stage 'A superb collection… definitive, gorgeously written and devastatingly acute… a lifetime in the arts, and the institutions that matter, has rarely been so valuable, revealing or funny' — Michael Coveney, WhatsOnStage

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9781848424180

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Reviews

'highly intelligent and thought-provoking... gets right to the heart of what it means to be an actor... spectacular and highly entertaining... something for every theatre addict to enjoy' - British Theatre Guide 'entertaining and informative... [Eyre] writes wittily and compellingly' - The Stage 'a superb collection - definitive, gorgeously written and devastatingly acute - a lifetime in the arts, and the institutions that matter, has rarely been so valuable, revealing or funny' - Michael Coveney, WhatsOnStage

Author Information

Richard Eyre is a theatre director, writer and former Artistic Director of the National Theatre (a position he held from 1988 to 1997). He worked for ten years in regional theatre in Leicester, Edinburgh and Nottingham (where he commissioned and directed Trevor Griffiths's Comedians, which later transferred to London and Broadway), and then became producer of BBC TV's Play for Today. In London his theatre work as adapter includes his versions of Jennifer Dawson's novel The Ha Ha, Sartre's Les Mains Sales, Ibsen's Hedda Gabler and Ghosts at the Almeida Theatre and the West End. His original play, The Snail House, was staged at Hampstead Theatre in 2022. He became Artistic Director of the National Theatre in 1988, and has directed numerous productions there, including Guys and Dolls, The Beggar's Opera, Hamlet, Richard III, King Lear, Night of the Iguana, Sweet Bird of Youth, Racing Demon, Skylight, The Absence of War, Napoli Milionaria, La Grande Magia, White Chameleon, The Prince's Play, John Gabriel Borkman, The Invention of Love, The Reporter, The Observer, Welcome to Thebes and Liolà. His other theatre work includes Hamlet, Edmond, The Shawl and Kafka's Dick at the Royal Court; Amy's View, The Judas Kiss, Mary Poppins and Private Lives in the West End and on Broadway; The Crucible on Broadway; The Last Cigarette and The Pajama Game at Chichester and the West End; Vincent in Brixton, Quartermaine's Terms, Betty Blue Eyes, Stephen Ward and Mr Foote's Other Leg in the West End. His opera work includes La traviata at the Royal Opera House; Manon Lescaut at the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus; Carmen, Werther and Le nozze di Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera. His film and television work includes The Imitation Game, Comedians, Country, The Insurance Man, Tumbledown, Suddenly Last Summer, The Ploughman's Lunch, Iris, Stage Beauty, Notes on a Scandal, The Other Man, Henry IV Part I and II, The Dresser and Changing Stages, a six-part look at twentieth-century theatre which he wrote and presented. He has published four books, including National Service, a journal of his time at the National Theatre, which won the Theatre Book Prize, and What Do I Know?, a collection of essays about people, politics and the arts. He has received many awards for theatre, television and film, was knighted in 1997, and became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2011.

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