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‘I’m a person who walks on eggshells’
The Observer A hit comedy career plus a Palme d’Or for straight acting should be enough for anyone. Not ex-Kevin and Perry star Kathy Burke. Now directing a new Sam Shepard play, she talks about demons, heroes and life as a ‘smoking humanist’ Three years ago Kathy Burke began throwing plates. She turned over a few tables. ‘I called up a friend and just screamed down the phone at them,’ she says wide-eyed, as if surprised by the memory. There was, though, something familiar about this burst of anger. ‘I used to be terribly aggressive in my twenties,’ she says. ‘But I thought I’d sorted it out.’ Clearly she hadn’t.…
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Opening the gates to Hell
Thursday was the opening night of Kathy’s new play. She’s directing the European premiere of Sam Shepard’s The God of Hell, a strong criticism of the current Republican administration in power in the US. It’s at the Donmar Theatre, from 20 October to 3 December. Box Office: 0870 060 6624. To tie in with it, she’s been interviewed in The Observer today. Quite a long piece. And interesting in that Kathy talks about going to see a therapist, as well as how deals with the job, works with people, why she dislike acting (again) and other stuff. I’ve stuck it in the Media section. No reviews as yet.
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Back to her roots
Media section updated with an interesting interview with Kathy about The Quare Fellow and her approach to directing, posted on the York Theatre Royal website. Plus an Observer piece written by Kathy herself about the project got off the ground (note the imaginative subs who used the same headline “Kathy comes home” as an Observer feature almost exactly two years ago).
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Kathy comes home
The Observer When I first decided to take off the tap shoes and concentrate on theatre directing, Dominic Dromgoole got in touch to ask if I’d like to do something with Oxford Stage Company. My reaction was negative. What I enjoy most about directing is the chance of working things out with the writer, plus I need their approval and I like the chat. I didn’t want to work on dry, old plays written by the dry, old dead. Luckily for me, he ignored my ignorance, phoned back a year later and said: ‘What about The Quare Fellow by Brendan Behan? It’s not been done for 20 years, bit neglected.…
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Kathy comes home
…and brings Nigel Slater with her. Her kitchen may be full of Waynetta’s fag smoke and cockney vowels, but actress Kathy Burke is no slob when it comes to cooking, and an even bigger surprise – she’s a vegetarian The Observer ‘The night my dad died, I found myself in the kitchen at three o’clock in the morning, making fried egg sandwiches with tomato ketchup. The thing is, I had to go to the all-night to get the plastic bread and the ketchup because I never eat that sort of crap. It was something I hadn’t done since I was a kid – you know, making myself a white-bread fried-egg…
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Meet the romantic lead in the new Merchant-Ivory film. (Just kidding)
The Observer Common sense and Equity unemployment statistics prove acting is a madly competitive business. Yet the way actors tell it, this same profession breeds nothing but solidarity, tolerance and mutual admiration among its members. Only occasionally does someone break rank. In a letter to the London magazine Time Out last October, replying to comments made in an interview by Helena Bonham Carter, the actress Kathy Burke wrote: ‘As a lifelong member of the non-pretty working classes, I would like to say to Helena Bonham Carter (wholly pledged member of the very pretty upper-middle classes): shut up you stupid c-.’ But The Observer has enough scruples about printing the f-word, let alone the c-word.…
