Stage Door Jonny

Having barely seen each other since they appeared in a play together in 1992, Jonathan and David roll back the years ... in Noel Coward's dressing room ... shortly before he commenced his warm up for the evening performance of James Graham's Best Of Enemies ... on his birthday. David Harewood, we salute and thank you! In the first of this two parter, Jonny and David have a no holds barred con...

Ever skipped school to appear in a George Bernard Shaw play in New York? No? Well, that's exactly how Ethan Hawke's theatre career began as a 13-year-old - which spawned an adoration of the stage that has endured ever since. In the second act of his interview with Jonathan, he also talks about joshing Bobby Cannavale, Freudian motivations, the high watermark of his professional career, and hi...

Polymath alert! Actor, director, documentary maker, producer and novelist Ethan Hawke joins Jonathan to revel in his passion for theatre - and lifetime in it. When not failing to make Alessandro Nivola and Emily Mortimer's coffee machine work, Ethan recalls riling Tom Stoppard, an uplifting chance encounter with Mark Rylance on a snow-swept New York street, the sequel he wrote to Annie on first se...

Jonathan's latest guest is the great Phylicia Rashad. In 2004, Phylicia became the first black woman to win the Tony award for Best Actress, and picked up another for Best Featured Actress this year. In addition to her fine work on stage and screen, she is the dean of Howard University's Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts. Jonathan met her at the Atlantic Theatre in New York,...

The second part of our chat with Damian Lewis is studded with reminiscences about his late wife, Helen McCrory. Damian speaks openly and beautifully about the play on which they fell in love, their contrasting experiences at drama school, and the time he watched her walk mesmerisingly onstage in Uncle Vanya, pour a cup of tea, leave without saying a word and have the audience in the palm of her ha...

Aside from containing a massive spoiler about Edward Albee's play The Goat: Or Who Is Sylvia - you have been warned - Jonathan's chat with Damian Lewis is an entirely safe and wonderful space to explore the highs and lows of life on stage. As well as asking, despairingly, 'why do we bother?!', Damian discusses the perils of duelling with Ralph Fiennes, the tantalising news that a return to theatre...

In part two of Jonathan's conversation with Sam Mendes about his life in theatre, we hear the story of his stewardship of the Donmar Warehouse, the loneliness of the director, what his secret weapon is (according to the late Natasha Richardson), Mike Nicholls and the little man on his shoulder - and the end of that anecdote about Jonathan competing for Sam's favour with Tom Hollander for the part...

The titan of theatre that is Sir Sam Mendes joins Jonathan for a waltz through his stellar career and their 35 year friendship. In part one of this enlightening chat, Sam reveals who promised his 9-year-old self to 'see you later, big boy', the unfortunate reason the apples that feature in The Ferryman were forever glistening, why he needs to channel his inner David Essex, and which production of...

In the very first episode of his podcast about life and life in theatre, actor Jonathan Cake heads to New York City to speak to his friends Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick and John Benjamin Hickey about their lifelong relationship with the form. We discover the roles that continue to haunt them for better or worse, where and when they experienced their worst on stage disasters, and why Sar...

Actor Jonathan Cake is here to tell you about a brand new podcast about theatre, life, and life in the theatre - featuring some of this finest exponents of the form of this (or any) generation ... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.