Tom Morris interview

By Serena Davies 1140AM GMT sixteen Mar 2010

Roving resourceful eye Tom Morris in the Bristol Old�Vic Photo Andrew Crowley

There arent majority cities in England where you get in a cab at the station, ask for the internal theatre, and the cabby starts revelation you about the stirring performances. But cave did on the approach to the Bristol Old Vic, not long ago taken over by Tom Morris, formerly join forces with executive at the National Theatre in London and the man who had the thought for the all-conquering melodramatic version of War Horse.

Morris is dynamic to captivate audiences who competence not routinely come to a theatre. In his initial season, that began late last year, hes programming kick fighting and folk singers to one side A Country Wife and Caryl Churchill. And, as piece of his �20 million restoration project, hes fluctuating the entertainment of the 18th-century meeting house behind to the strange 1766 figure projecting 3 metres in to the assembly - partly so it can have gigs in it as well as theatre.

War Horse at the National Theatre Laurence Payne Rosamund Pike talk Wallace and Gromit one man and his dog Britain at War War by the eyes of an Ascot family, 1939-46 A minor, and the joys of exemplary song

But the the fool around that Morris is directing, his initial at the theatre, that my cab drivers vehement about. Its a version of Romeo and Juliet set in an old peoples home, where the lovers are octogenarians (played by Sian Phillips and Michael Byrne). The cab motorist loves the thought since "the main thing is the about love it doesnt have a difference what age you are." Morris, when we encounter at the theatre, explains that, indeed, he hasnt had to shift as well majority of Romeo and Juliet to have it fit his plan. Hes combined a voluntary "which helps us in to the world".

He says hes finished this quirky take on Shakespeare since hes meddlesome in how "some kind of banned has grown about what comparison people are authorised to feel and behave. It seems utterly touching and transgressive in an peculiar approach to brave to concede people who are comparison to tumble in love."

Morris, 45, the hermit of Chris, the scathing satirist, is voluble, intense, a small nervy, and rather less asocial than his sibling. Hes incredibly vehement about receiving over the reins of the Bristol Old Vic "Its an extraordinary job."

The entertainment has lost income in new years, notwithstanding the story - the the oldest ceaselessly operative entertainment in the nation - so all eyes are on him to see if he can spin it around. And Morris is formulation to pull on Bristols alternative culturally cutting-edge venues to do so.

Morriss melodramatic mantra is "collaboration". His tastes are catholic, and often risky, but they can furnish a little of the majority inspired, resourceful entertainment in Britain today. He incited around border venue the Battersea Arts Centre during the Nineties, bringing in musty experimentalists such as the Cornish association Kneehigh, and producing dermatitis hits such as Jerry Springer The Opera. Then Nicholas Hytner brought him in to the National Theatre, where he nurtured productions such as War Horse.

Decriers protest that his nervous investigation can furnish misses as majority as hits not all favourite the energetic-but-bizarre A Matter of Life and Death. But but it he wouldnt have got a hardly well known puppet association Handspring Puppets to emanate the enchanting relocating animals of War Horse.

And, far from jolt off tradition, Morris says hes plunging in to it.

"For me, all comes behind to Shakespeare," he says. "What excites me about entertainment is that it is an unexplainable talented diversion in between a organisation of people on entertainment and a organisation of people in the auditorium. And Shakespeares entertainment is built on that understanding."

"Imaginative game" the difficulty is that the utterly a downy concept. And on the day I visit, Morris and his colleagues are intent in a sincerely dumb one. Folk-band Bellowhead are personification a unison in the theatre, during that Morris and others will contemplate how to emanate a mise-en-scène for the concerts of a destiny Bellowhead tour.

I watch the gig with Morris, who takes me on a windstorm debate of the seats as we do so. Always hes seeking at the audience, rapt in an endearing approach with how majority theyre enjoying it.

Like Bellowhead, theres something a bit nomadic about Morris, with his nervous resourceful eye, and his jaunty perspective to regressive taste.

"My ardour is for a kind of entertainment where the live-ness of the eventuality is what defines it," he says. And, as Bellowhead set up to that kind of overjoyed frenzy you usually find in live performance, I simulate that the Bristol Old Vic might shortly not know whats strike it.

"Juliet and Her Romeo runs from Mar 10 at the Bristol Old Vic. Tickets 0117 987 7877

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