Patrice Chéreau on English actors, the theatre, and his homosexuality

The Guardian went to meet Patrice Chéreau who is in London to rehearse the first play he has ever directed in the UK. It's a coup for the Young Vic. The play he is rehearsing is I Am The Wind, a spare, concentrated two-hander written by the Norwegian Jon Fosse.

He talked about working with English actors:

They are very disciplined, very open, and because of the condition of the English theatre, they work very quickly. In France, we have a lot of time. Actors there like to wait for inspiration to arrive.”

About French and English theatre:

France is the country of the directors; here, you are the country of the writers.”

And about being gay and how it has affected him as an artist:

I'm not really interested in knowing what it affects. I never wanted to specialise in gay stories, and gay newspapers have criticised me for that. Everywhere love stories are exactly the same. The game of desire, and how you live with desire, are the same.”

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.