Simon Callow
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What early memories shaped Simon Callow’s love of theatre?
Gather ye rosebuds, while ye may, There's a new guest waiting, with quite a lot to say. So I'm going to shut up and say welcome to another episode of Rosebud. We do indeed have a very special guest for you. Cue the music, they're ready.
This week we've got an actor on Rosebud. One of my favorite actors. He's also one of my favorite writers and one of my favorite people. I've known him for quite a while. Not that well, but we have a number of interests in common. Chiefly, I suppose, Oscar Wilde. I'm president of the Oscar Wilde Society, and he has played Oscar Wilde on stage. I think we were most recently together when we were in Paris. Paris last year, at the Per Lachaise Cemetery, where Oscar Wilde is buried, and We were together, мі with my wife Michel. uh he with his husband Sebastian, there at the tomb of Oscar Wilde, a hundred and twenty five years to the day, in fact to the hour, since the death of Oscar Wilde. So Oscar Wilde very much informed his youth
He is gay, but Uh, that is worth saying, only because I think uh when in the nineteen eighties He became one of the first high profile British actors to come out as gay. He described it as his biggest act of activism. But I think of him principally as a writer. Because he's written some wonderful books. Being an actor, which was an exploration of the craft of acting he wrote when he was very young. But I have his biographies of Orson Wells, of Charles Lawton, and Both of which I have devoured. the Austin Wells is three volumes so far, there's more to come. Uh he's written about Wagner. I have that book. I've not opened it. I'll confess that, because music is enormous to him, not so big to me. But Dickens and Shakespeare he's written about them 'cause he's played Dickens.
He's played Shakespeare. Have you guessed who he is yet? In the theatre, his breakout moment was when he appeared as Mozart in Amadeus at the National Theatre at the end of the nineteen seventies. Famous, of course, for a number of film roles, a room with a view, four weddings and a funeral, with that wonderful reading of the Orden poem. Stop all the clocks. Shakespeare in Love, which I saw again just before Christmas, and he's brilliant in that. Howard's End, Morris, all those great merchant ivory films, and of course uh on theatre television. Have you guessed who he is by now? It's Simon Callow. And we're really gonna talk today, I hope, not about the stuff we all know about, but you know, the stage and movie career, but about his origins, what made him the person he is.
I particularly want to hear about an actor called Michael McLearmore. If you don't know who he is, Well, you're going to discover more. He was an extraordinary character. And extraordinary characters are part and parcel of the story of Simon Callow. So enough from me Let's cue that music and introduce you to Simon Callow, author the Actor Director Commander of the Order of the British Empire. And a very interesting human being. Keep the music.
Simon Philip Hugh Callow. Born I hope I've got this right, fifteenth of june nineteen forty nine. Indeed. The question is, what Simon, is your very first memory? Well I think
my very first memory and and I I I'm sort of suspicious of memory generally, but anyway, I think my very first memory is me tottering down the hall of my grandmother's house in a shantung shirt, running towards my grandmother, who was the sort of salvation of my life, and uh uh just the joy of of going into her room to see her. Um That's it. And uh there's no real kind of punchline to the memory at all. It's just that there she was, this extraordinary, copiously built woman, um who I uh utterly uh understood and understood me utterly, and uh uh uh uh uh who um I see more and more and more i i is the foundation for the basic optimism optimism and joie de vivre, which I still flickeringly maintain in my dotage.
Mm-hmm.
So where was this and who was this lady? What was her full name? Who was she the mother of? And why did she come to be the central figure?
It was in Streatham. in London, where I was born.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What early memories shaped Simon Callow’s love of theatre?
0:00–10:38
2
How did Simon’s two grandmothers influence his optimism and artistic drive?
10:38–19:53
3
What was Simon’s experience at the London Oratory Grammar School and how did it spark his literary and dramatic interests?
19:53–30:05
4
Why did Simon choose Queen’s University Belfast and what role did Oscar Wilde play in that decision?
30:05–38:15
5
Who was Michael McClearmore and how did his mentorship impact Simon’s early career?
38:15–48:49
6
What motivated Simon to write to Laurence Olivier and how did that lead to his National Theatre job?
48:49–58:45
7
How have love, family and loss shaped Simon’s personal and professional life?
58:45–1:08:05
8
What key life lessons does Simon Callow share about embracing life and storytelling?
1:08:05–1:16:46