One of the most comforting experiences in a lifetime spent making plays happens when a stranger approaches and asks one to direct “our next production”. Somehow they’ve heard that one is halfway competent, they’ve believed the rumour and they’re desperate. Imagine the boost it gives one’s ego.

There was a time (I blush to admit) when the approaches and offers came so frequently that I could afford to be choosy. A posh university group were miffed beyond measure when I resigned from their production before casting began because they neglected to nominate my Stage Manager within the stated time.

Out of the blue, during our time in Holland, came an approach from a Dutch amateur group who had been selected by their municipality’s twin-town committee to take a Dutch play to England, there to perform it in English. Now, that may seem a simple job-brief until we ease the clog onto the other hoof: imagine, with your innocent group of English (and therefore resolutely non-linguistic) amateurs, translating something by, say. Tom Stoppard into French and preparing it for performance in France to audiences of French people… just imagine the result. (Just imagine the logistics!)

But my lot were up for it. They gave me a copy of the play translated by an American.

It was so bad that it gave me adequate reason for declining their very kind offer. Apart from its ugly phraseology, the action sprawled and squirmed disjointedly in all directions at once and it ran for about four hours. On the same evening of my refusal, the group’s committee arrived en masse and unannounced at our house to argue their case. They were so keen that I lay down a modus and they accepted. First of all, we abandoned the translation and met the author of the novel on which the original Dutch play had been based. Eventually, we performed the play in London, St. Albans and Oxford, as well as running the thing many times on their home turf. It was a miraculous team effort…

…but that’s not the story I set out to tell.

The incident I wanted to describe occurred one evening when we were hard at work in rehearsal. You may recall that I believe Love and Discipline to be the most important ingredients in any recipe for good Theatre. To be successful, rehearsals must each have a purpose and be attended only by the people they involve. There can be no spectators, so I was not best pleased when the door slammed open and a small terrier-like person strutted in, yapping and snarling. He was not on our team, but my burly Stage Manager gawped at him open-mouthed, obviously intimidated by his presence, so I told the intruder to shut up and get out, which he did and we continued rehearsing. Now…

…I knew that a lady onstage at the time of the interruption was married to some sort of a politician, from whom she was separated, but I had never met her husband. She was such a lovely person, so hard-working and imaginative, that I thought he must be mad and apparently he was. When we took our coffee-break, I learned that he was the General Secretary of the Dutch equivalent of our beloved B.N.P., the Centrum Partij, who at that time were actively campaigning to have all foreigners (especially, I think, the British) thrown out of Holland.

That was about twenty years ago, so it was a pleasure to be reminded of the incident when the lady in question rang me one evening quite recently.

It led me into a train of thought about the effect that “partners” have on any production. I refer to “‘er indoors’ (to coin a phrase), or possibly “’im indoors”, the other half not involved in our production. Ignore them at your peril, but don’t get involved with them, that’s my advice. (Yes, I know it’s a contradiction.)

One becomes practiced at spotting the signs. They become apparent from the moment the discontented team-member walks into the rehearsal room and usually consist of no more than a frown that shadows a usually sunny visage. Sometimes, however, trouble at home results in an unannounced absence or a show of petulance and bad temper. Whatever… handle with care.

In theory, the absent partner should have no influence on our work, but I’ve got this notion that it would be possible to write a full-length novel about every production in which I have ever been involved. I scan the entries on my Theatre CV and pause here and there at random to think back to the circumstances, about the play itself, how and where it was presented and who was involved. It’s jolly well TRUE, every one of them would yield a long and entertaining yarn about all the characters and their adventures as we worked our way from play-selection to after-show party and beyond into repercussions and afterglows.

And it’s amazing how much of the action would involve influences from outside the team – other halves especially.

Ideally, every member of every team should be so delighted with their recent experience that they cannot wait to begin work on the next production, but often one is surprised – on checking around to gauge who is likely to attend one’s next casting session – to hear those awful words, “Well… I’ve decided to take a break for a while…” Not many minutes pass before one deduces that someone at home is feeling neglected, put-upon or maybe has tired of helping with line-learning. Sometimes, that invisible individual is hopping mad or jealous. Decisions have had to be made.

Usually, I’ve known ‘the other half’, but not always and there is a limit to how much one can become involved with the private (or business) life of one’s team-members. I’ve observed how one can guess what parents say about one in private by how their children react to one in public. That rule is also applicable to grown-ups, especially other halves; it’s pleasant to be greeted warmly on being introduced to someone’s significant other, but there have been times when I have been treated brusquely by a scowling lout or loutess. Indeed, once, a French marshal arts expert who was affianced to one of my leading ladies lurched forward to jab me in the chest and enquire, “Do you fancy my wife… sexually? HUH?” (I’m depending on you thespians out there to do the gallic drunken slur for me.) His wife was a beautiful young lady about whom I could not lie, which amazingly seemed to appease the shambling frog. I confide that to have justified his suspicions would have afforded me unparalleled delight, but one learns lessons and makes rules early in one’s career; to break them would indeed be foolish.

How glad I am to have achieved a state of such decrepitude that an accusation of philandering would now constitute an unjustified compliment, but there were times in the past when …

… recently, when chatting with one of my own daughters, I was charmed by her expression of utter disbelief when I told her that I had had just one physical lover in my entire lifetime. She blinked and queried my statement, so that I found it necessary to mention a few encounters that tested my moral resolve for a while, but then found myself confirming what my daughter already knew: that I would never undermine her Mum’s faith in me. Now, I know that sounds sanctimonious, but I’ve always prided myself on being slightly out of step with convention – I’ve never been a follower of fashion.

When we met, my wife was made fully aware of my dedication to Theatre and my pursuit of perfection in Theatre, but she said nothing about her own theatrical experience or ambition. We had been married for about eighteen months when I noticed among our books a copy of ‘Time and The Conways’. I had never been involved with that play and was even more confused when I noticed that it was market up for a female part. Then it all came out: she had made a decision to say nothing about her wealth of experience in amateur theatre for fear that it became a focus for my interest in her; can you understand that? No, neither can I and I’ve now been trying to work it out for more than forty-five years.

Naturally, we joined forces immediately and can trace our marriage from one production to another (in a manner of speaking). Particularly, I remember a 29-year-old mother of three children playing a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl CONVINCINGLY … (then again, she had played the part before, when she was sixteen). There have been awards for Best Supporting Actress without adjudicators knowing just how supportive this particular actress had been.

She swears that I’m tougher with her in rehearsal than I am with any other actor, regardless of sex (no, I won’t re-phrase that statement, which is fairly accurate), but I could never be accused of favouritism. There is much more to tell about this lady, but she’ll only deny it all and get embarrassed.

We made a commitment to each other at a time when people understood that word, so I get confused when absent people resent its application to the few weeks of a production schedule.

Jonah was a very experience director, teacher and writer who sadly passed away in February 2006. He was also the author of the highly successful "Playmaker - The Craft of Directing Plays (The Way I Seen It)".