Original at
The Independent
(article no longer available)
'I saw him on stage and felt I knew him already, as one does with God'
By Peter Hall
23 May 2000
As a young, virtually unknown director, if I offered John
Gielgud a part and he didn't want to take it, or couldn't, I
would receive a handwritten note in the most exquisite
script, thanking me for asking him and saying: "What a pity
... John Gielgud!" These days you're lucky to get a refusal
from an agent. But that sums up the huge generosity of John,
and explains why he inspired such loyalty.
The first time I saw him, he was starring as Hamlet in
Cambridge. I was 12, and I felt I knew him already, as one
does with God. I first met him in the 1950s, when he was a
very close friend of my friend, (the director) Peter Brook,
and he was terribly funny and terribly generous, not
offputting at all. There was a tremendous freemasonry in the
theatre, which I think there still is, but he, with Ralph
Richardson and Peggy Ashcroft, was one of my staunchest
supporters during the time I was opening the National
Theatre.
I think it's forgotten now, but his work at the Vic in the
1930s, then with his own company, was trailblazing. He was
not an old-style actor wanting inferior actors around him so
he would look the star, which was what happened in a lot of
companies. He wanted to be around people who were
better than he was. He believed in that kind of humility. His
companies were very happy places, with one humorous
qualification - that mercurial mind meant as a director he
was always changing it. "Come on from the other side,"
he'd say. "Why?" the actor would ask. "Because I'm bored
with this side."
He was easy to direct. But you had to be on your toes. It
was like working with a thoroughbred horse - he would run
down any road to see what was at the end of it. It was
wonderful but exhausting. He would go anywhere and do
anything. He was like quicksilver. He was faster thanhis
audience, constantly reassessing himself.
The immediacy of his work was because he was such a
great improviser, but within carefully imposed limits. He also
had an ability to change with the times. If you listen to the
records of how he spoke Shakespeare of the 1930s, he was
doing it differently by the 1970s. It's subtle, but he moved.
He kept up with the times. I'm not even sure if he was
aware he was doing it.
He was a wonderful friend. He loved gossip and he loved
political stupidity. And he loved crossword puzzles. Working
with John, by five to 10, just before we began rehearsing,
he'd have finished The Times crossword.
I visited him until about a year ago, and hadn't seen him
since, because of being abroad. That has been the most
distressing part of hearing (of his death). But he was blessed
and thank God (he had) the ability to go on working to a
very late age. That's wonderful, because John lived to work,
he really did.
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