John Lithgow

In the case of...

Dahl's side of the argument, the argument is polluted by anti-Semitism.

But he's right on occasion.

He's like a broken clock.

And the audience, I mean, up on the stage, you can almost hear their anxiety trying to grapple this.

Mm-hmm.

I deliberately don't quote it in interviews because it has such power in performance, but it is something he literally said.

It's an unspeakable turn of phrase.

And it's like, it is the moment at which

people see the very darkest side of Dahl, and they see it very clearly, and it's right near the end of the play.

So in a sense, the whole play has been building to that moment.

My challenge in playing the role is to spend the whole play motivating that moment, almost explaining that moment, explaining it emotionally as much as politically.

Well, that was my way in.

He had a very hard life.

There are several elements.

You know, when you ask yourself what makes him hate like that, the various clues I found had to do with his upbringing and his experiences.

He was born a Norwegian of a Norwegian family, but that family lived in Wales.

His father had been brought to Cardiff to work in the shipping industry.

But off he went to English boarding schools at Repton.

He was an outsider from the get-go trying to get on the inside.