The first question I ask Charles Dance does not go down well. I was under the impression that he wasn’t a great fan of theatre, but he briskly sets me straight. “Where did you read that?” he demands, his fruity voice as precise and cultivated as Laurence Olivier’s. “I’ve always said I prefer doing film, which I do, but if a play goes well it can be amazing.”
He does, though, refuse to indulge the actorly habit of waxing lyrical about the magic of the stage. Instead he finds theatre exhausting. “I tend to do the heavy stuff. Long Day’s Journey into Night [in the West End in 2000]; Shadowlands [also in the West End, in 2007]. Slogging my guts out for eight shows a week for six months. Both those shows had performances on Boxing Day,” he adds, evidently still in shock. “Can you imagine anyone wanting to spend Boxing Day seeing Long Day’s Journey into Night? Give me a break".
There will be no Boxing Day performances for Dance’s new play, August Strindberg’s excoriating marital drama Creditors, unless it transfers, which is not inconceivable since it has already sold out its upcoming run at the Orange Tree Theatre. Why did he want to do it? “You ask as though I had all these options in front of me. When in fact there was nothing [else on the table]. But I did think if I was going to do another play I’d better get on and do it now.”
He’s enjoying wrestling with Strindberg’s slippery, acid-dipped portrait of a marriage, in which he plays Gustav, who gaslights his sexually insecure friend Adolph into believing his new wife, Tekla (Gustav’s former wife), is cheating on him.
"There is certainly something a bit Andrew Tate about Gustav,” he agrees, when I ask about Strindberg’s infamous misogyny: Strindberg often wrote contemptuously about women and ridiculed many of his female characters in his plays. “But all human life is in these three acts. And it’s great to be working on something that doesn’t involve making a silk purse out of a pig’s ear, which a lot of the time is an actor’s job. More often than not on TV.”
For someone who is rarely off our screens, Dance is pretty disparaging about contemporary television. On screen he excels at playing austere, upper-crust tyrants: the villainous Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones, which won him a new audience, or the faintly sinister Lord Mountbatten in The Crown.
He is perhaps best known for his nuanced portrait of Guy Perron in the British Raj-set 1984 TV epic The Jewel in the Crown, and, by chance, Creditors reunites him with two of his former co-stars, Nicholas Farrell and Geraldine James. “But if you watch The Jewel in the Crown now, it feels very slow,” he says. “Scenes are allowed to play out. These days you need to grab audiences within 10 seconds. There is such a hunger for product.”
Dance thinks television lacks intellectual ambition. “We tend to follow America. Shopping malls. Highly processed food. And TV has gone the same way. The streamers are chucking out stuff but the quality is slipping, and an awful lot of TV underestimates people’s intelligence. The culture has changed. These days you get banks of seats on set with the word ‘producer’ on the back. You think, ‘Who are these people? What do they actually do? And the answer is bugger-all.”
What about the BBC? “It is in a parlous state. At the slightest whiff of scandal or misspeak, they think, ‘Oh no, we are going to lose the licence fee.’ It’s running scared. Obviously we still need public service broadcasting, but we also need an alternative funding method that isn’t dependent on advertising. The problem the BBC now has is that I’d say the majority of people very rarely watch it. It’s a great shame.”
Dance has a hearty, convivial way of speaking that involves emphasising the final syllable of each sentence, the verbal equivalent of slapping one’s thigh. He is forthright and refreshingly frank. Yet the imperious air he brings to so many of his characters is not an act. He has a disconcerting way of suddenly fixing you with an implacable stare, like a challenge.
The Jewel in the Crown was a pretty damning critique of a subject close to Dance’s heart, namely British imperial ambition, and it’s not long before he brings up the situation in Gaza. “I’m a bit obsessed at the moment with what’s happening in the Middle East,” he says. “Anyone with a conscience should be. Even if [the war] stopped tomorrow, there would not be peace in the Middle East until the Balfour Declaration is unpicked. France and England need to announce: ‘Sorry, we f----d up’.”
I start to object that the Jewish people need a homeland, but he cuts across me. “It’s very complicated. And no, indeed [there wasn’t anywhere for them to go]. But it’s very apparent the mess that was created.” What does he think of the recent controversy at the Royal Opera House, in which a member of the chorus was reportedly sacked after unfurling a Palestinian flag during a performance of Il Trovatore. “Did it do any harm? Don’t think it did. Whether it did any good I don’t know, but at least it keeps the question alive.”
The Jewel in the Crown, which was made by Granada, turned Dance into a star, transforming him from a jobbing unknown into a heartthrob at the age of 38. Despite there being a slight air of gentleman’s club about Dance, he comes from a working-class background and never went to drama school.
He was entirely unprepared for fame. “I didn’t know how to handle it. The requests came in to do publicity and I did everything from Women’s World to Knitting Weekly. You couldn’t open a paper or a magazine without seeing me. So that was a lesson learnt [about over-promoting oneself].”
His new-found reputation as “the thinking woman’s crumpet” was both a bonus and a curse. “I was interviewed once by Michael Winner for a film version of Alan Ayckbourn’s A Chorus of Disapproval. We were driven half a mile in his Bentley from his home to a restaurant for lunch. And then he said: ‘Ayckbourn tells me you’re a matinee idol. He’s not too keen on that.’ I said: ‘Oh, OK.’ And that was that. I saw the film – and Jeremy Irons had got the part.”
Dance turned down a screen test for James Bond at the behest of his agent, who thought it would typecast him still further and therefore hinder his career. “And she may have been right, although I also wasn’t ready for Bond. I had the confidence but not the experience, I would have f----d it up.”
Is it time for a ginger Bond, does he think? Dance’s hair is still flushed strawberry blond. “I don’t see why not. Although when I played Maxim de Winter [in ITV’s 1997 adaptation of Rebecca] they said they couldn’t possibly have a ginger Maxim. Why on earth not? It’s ridiculous.”
‘I’m a bit past it now, aren’t I?’
Dance has undeniably aged well. His lean, sculpted facial features have retained their shape, his cool blue eyes still penetrate. He seems to have always worn his pin-up status relatively lightly. “I think I’m a bit past it now, aren’t I? But it was a bit different back then. These days the majority of young actors are in the gym. Of course there are certain shows for which, when you take your shirt off, there had better be something worth looking at. But there’s a point at which you think – that’s a gym body. This is the result of someone taking a lot of time pumping up.”
That said, Dance clearly hits the gym himself. In 2020, photographs of the then-74-year-old strolling on a beach near Venice with his Italian producer girlfriend Alessandra Masi (they met in 2018; he was previously married to Joanna Haythorn between 1970 and 2004), revealed a distinctly rippled chest. “But I want to work for as long as I am able,” he argues. “So I try to keep fit without going to extremes.”
Dance’s route to acting was highly unusual. He was brought up predominantly in Plymouth by his mother, who came from what the actor calls “the service class”, and his stepfather, after his father (who was already in his 70s when Dance was born) died when he was three. He studied photography at art school but was also given informal acting lessons in a room above a pub by “an Englishman who looked like Samuel Beckett and an Anglo-German who looked like Bertolt Brecht”.
They taught him for two years and Dance, who isn’t given to introspection, lets slip that he came to regard them as replacement father figures. “But they also taught me an awful lot about acting. At the end of one class, one of them said to me: ‘You really aren’t very good, are you? See you next week.’”
He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in the late 1970s and has maintained a prolific career partly thanks to his seemingly pathological inability to turn down a part. “I didn’t come from a wealthy family. I need to earn money. And it always felt a bit laissez-faire to turn down work,” he says.
He gives the impression in interviews of feeling he has never quite fulfilled his promise, but when I ask him which roles he wishes he had played, he str. uggles to answer. “Hamlet perhaps. Although when I was at the right age to do so, I probably didn’t know enough.” It’s not too late for King Lear, I suggest. “Oh God. Crikey. I’m not sure about climbing that mountain, to be honest. Learning the lines for Strindberg is hard enough.”
As Dance reminds me, he has nothing else booked in the diary after Creditors beyond the second season of Netflix’s The Day of the Jackal, in which he plays the corrupt financier Timothy Winthrop and which begins shooting in January. “But that’s how it’s always been,” says Dance. “It’s the same for all of us. Talk to Judi Dench, she’ll tell you. We’re all racked with paranoia. We all think ‘They are only here to see me fail’. We all want to be loved. And anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.”
(c)telegraph.co.uk/theatre/whattosee/charles-dance-interview-james-bond/
Press night
reviews
It is quite a coup to persuade an elite trio of performers to play this venue for five weeks and their names secure a sold out run as it opens, and there is no doubt that the audience are suitably impressed. In such a small venue, the audiences faces are lit as much as the cast on the four sides of the stage and as the play proceeds, you naturally catch their enraptured gazes. We can all see the insecurity, fear, anger, and concern in Farrell’s eyes; we can see the sparkle, joy and tears in James’s eyes; and we can see that Dance, with his rich voice, still attracts admiring looks from many in the audience.
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The real joy of the production is the proximity to three such prestigious actors and how they embody these complex period characters, though you do catch occasional stumbles over lines and on press night, a broken earring! It is another hit for the Orange Tree and another feather in Littler’s directorial hat.
Dance is, of course, a master at embodying charm with a touch of malevolence, though he is perhaps a touch too urbane for a classics master who was always too parochial for Tekla. Tekla doesn’t appear until at least halfway through and James is tremendously vivacious and graceful, who could easily have any man she chooses to set her cap at.
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It’s a privilege to see Dance, Farrell and James at such close quarters, though why we should be particularly engaged by their characters is another matter.
Why do I say a privilege? Well, it was because what the audience saw was a starry acting masterclass by three of our most distinguished actors, Charles Dance, Nicholas Farrell, and Geraldine James.....
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I repeat, it was a privilege to see, close up, these wonderful veteran stage actors, give authentic and articulate readings of the play. I loved all the performances but was particularly impressed by Farrell, who always delivers, and who I last saw making the most of a rather unrewarding part in The Deep Blue Sea. Here he was, at once, touching and comically pathetic. James’ performance is both strong and delicate, and sensitively nuanced, while Dance is a devilishly smooth Machiavellian schemer and manipulator.
Three charismatic and deservedly famous actors: Geraldine James, Charles Dance (reunited for the first time since their Jewel in the Crown days) and Nicholas Farrell (Chariots of Fire) star in this revival of Creditors.
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The actors’ presence in London’s premier quasi-rural thespian retirement hub has guaranteed a sell-out run: tickets have been hoovered up by those nostalgic for their 1980s heydays. So, has the challenge of exceeding inevitably high expectations been achieved? Emphatically yes, and any reservations around selecting pensionable players for such an energetic piece are absolutely blown away. The casting is impeccable.
Dance is suave, dastardly, cutting and irascible as Gustav, hectoring and prevailing on Adolph to take a firmer line with his wife. The ice blue gimlet gaze is deployed to kind, cajoling and terrifying effect. In Tekla’s absence he subtly, ruthlessly, manages to set himself up as Adolph’s career saviour....
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Brenton’s iteration supplies the material for a true acting masterclass: perfectly calibrated, with absolute synchronicity between the players.
Dance’s Gustav is tall, immaculate, and as sharp as a sword: like Iago in Othello, he never raises his voice, instead planting doubts that cut deeper with every word. At one point he even pulls Adolf’s crutch away, momentarily letting him stand unaided — a chilling image of false empowerment that prepares him for a more devastating fall.
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This Creditors is a lean, riveting one-act drama — intimate, intelligent, and devastating. Strindberg’s century-old exploration of love, jealousy, and revenge still cuts to the bone — especially when performed with such subtlety and commitment.
Charles Dance’s suave Gustav has a steady gaze; he seems in total control, but just watch his hands, perhaps he isn’t really so sure of his success.
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This production engages every minute, and though an early night is well worth the journey to Richmond if you can find a ticket, it is listed as sold out.
Vocally every note is struck by the trio: dynamics rise as if orchestrated. Physically the swivels are delicate but with Dance there’s a deadly energy, nicely contained. A light-toned Machiavel, he notably shifts timbres when addressing Farrell and James, and back.
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Dance’s register shifts subtly from addressing a man with avuncular crudity, to the intellectuall challenge of James.
I’m referring of course to the holy trinity of Geraldine James, Nicholas Farrell and Charles Dance. Acting royalty, they bring Strindberg’s play vividly to life. Drawing on a lifetime of theatrical knowhow, they gel together to create a dramatic experience that is thrilling, disturbing and profound.....
Charles Dance, standing erect and talking commandingly to the shaking and vulnerable Adolf. We are meant to decode his crutch as both a physical and a psychological prop, I take it.
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But it’s done with finesse, nuance and a lightness of touch which makes this production an absolute must-see.
The Times
A sense of event comes from the reunion of Charles Dance, Geraldine James and Nicholas Farrell...
Back on stage after an absence of 17 years, Dance remains a magnetic presence, eyes flashing with amusement and menace between barked half laughs.
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Exploring how people use each other up in love and art, this Creditors –.... – leaves us in debt to Littler, Brenton and the remarkable cast.
This chilling portrait of private lives deserves a long public one.
"Charles Dance is gripping”
Charles Dance stars in this solid, straightforward take on Strindberg’s study of insecurity and coercive control
I can think of very few Off-West End theatres that could lure an acting trio of this calibre. All seasoned veterans of stage and screens both big and small, this marks the first time all three have appeared together since TV’s The Jewel in the Crown in 1984. They bring an air of sophisticated savagery to August Strindberg’s insidious and bitter drama of two men and the woman caught between them.
Brenton and Littler dial down the melodrama and even bring a measure of humour to the early exchanges as Dance toys with Farrell like a cat with a half-dead mouse, alleviating Strindberg’s industrial strength angst and rendering the dark stuff more effective as a consequence
I hardly need add that all three are consummate performers - the impeccably tailored Dance circles his prey like a cross between Iago and Mephistofilis as he dismantles Tekla’s reputation to her gullible husband;
If a few opening night nerves were evident, it is still a rare treat to see three terrific actors at close quarters in a beautifully realised production of one of Strindberg's finest plays. And hats off to the maker of the small sculpture of the reclining nude that delivers an erotic charge that, once revealed, lingers throughout the play.
It's a shame, as the trio are spectacular to watch. Dance is masterfully poised as Gustaf; confidently measured with a touch of real menace. His toying with Farrell’s Adolf is like a cat prodding at an unsuspecting mouse.
The trio have wonderful stage presence, magnified by the intimacy of the Orange Tree set-up and do a magnificent job with what is very average material.
Dance glides about Louie Whitemore’s simple but evocative watery-blue and white set (inspired by Strindberg’s paintings). Farrell writhes in contortions of anxiety. James counters both of them with her grace and warmth. What emerges loud and clear is the still resonant destructive nature of misogyny and warped masculine pride. But the difficulty is that the self-absorbed characters grow wearisome, even given the subtlety of the cast......
What makes this production fly is the casting of Charles Dance, Geraldine James and Nicholas Farrell, reuniting them from the legendary TV series The Jewel in the Crown (has it really been 40 years!), and it's a joy to see these three, always reliably brilliant, actors, up close and at the top of their game.
The play isn't, but its central villain Gustav (Dance) is undoubtedly an off-the-scale woman hater and while his rants are jarring to modern ears they're no doubt not untypical of his time and class.
Dance as you'd expect is magnificently steely and runs through the gullible Adolf like a knife though butter. If anything, he seems way too confident for the cuckolded classics professor he plays. Farrell, in a wonderfully physical performance, perfectly embodies the needy, narcissistic, artist, whose selfishness is all-consuming
The roles here are usually played by much younger actors but his decision to cast it 'age-blind' works perfectly as this trio provide a masterclass in performance.
Game of Thrones's Charles Dance, 78, reunites with his Jewel In The Crown co-stars for the first time in 40 years, for a geriatric love triangle
Dance was once the tawny lion of the screen; and more recently terrified a whole new generation of TV viewers as Game Of Thrones’ ruthless patriarch Tywin Lannister.
Here, though, he looks more like a snowy owl. For reasons at first unknown, his character, the twisted trickster Gustaf, makes it his business here to gaslight a supposed friend, an artist called Adolf (Farrell), persuading him he is suffering from epilepsy because of ‘sexual excess’.
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Best not to reason why, but simply to accept Dance’s tall, suave and freckly old-timer, toying with Farrell’s credulous Adolf.
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And the big revelation late on about Gustaf’s real identity and motivation is more puzzling than shocking.
Still, you can’t help but be fascinated - and a little chilled - by Dance’s rheumy, blinking stare, coldly fixing his trembling quarry.
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Nonetheless, casting actors in their seventies diminishes the erotic tension of a play originally imagined for actors in their thirties, and intended to make them sweat with carnal fear and desire.
Dance plays the part of a charming disrupter with his usual flair, his now-trademark grandiose self-assurance and easy humour prompting sprinkles of laughter from the start. Farrell seems similarly at ease, matching his friend’s authority with a lighter, hesitating air.
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