And that’s how we met.We’re very much parts of the same whole: we can be in the same room and be completely alone We’ve never fallen out – it would be unthinkable. We’re both hopeless in affairs of the heart; he’s even worse than I am. His game is sticking women on altars, and, of course, an altar is a very uncomfortable place on which to be.What Griffith doesn’t know about acting you can forget We both go very much our own way. He calls it being out of step, but I think everybody else is out of step. We’d love to do Lear together, but we doubt if we ever will – who would finance it? Neither of us would be either welcome at or willing to go to any of the subsidised companies. For openers, who wants to live in all that cement?Griffith very intelligently saw which way the theatre was going – whether through instinct or intuition or whatever, I don’t know. Probably a mixture, plus a great deal of cunning because he is a bitter, twisted Welshman.
He is so Welsh he will invariably preface anything he says by saying, quite unnecessarily, “I’m Welsh.” I mean, what else could he be? So I imagine that that twisted mind worked things out, and, like Dennis Potter, he became very much a man of our time. He saw that television was a very important instrument for drama and realised that he had this beautiful gift as a storyteller, and he decided that he would both write and be all these extraordinary people he has portrayed in his documentaries.I mean, he’s the most popular historian of our day, he writes these beautiful plays about historical events and he plays everything – Baden-Powell, Gandhi, Michael Collins. He’s the most extraordinary raconteur – the effect is hypnotic.He’s one of the bravest men I’ve ever known. Once, he wanted to make a film on the Magi, so he popped into Iran with a television crew literally hours after the Ayatollah had returned. When they found themselves lined up by the revolutionary guards, fellows with dark glasses and Kalashnikovs, and Griffith started giving a speech saying, “Now, listen my ducks, you may think that in Iran you have a moral dilemma, well let me tell you that in Britain, in Britain, the moral dilemma is greater by far.” And the crew were saying, oh my God, shut him up, we’ll all be shot.
They finally did get him out.His film on the life of Roger Casement earned him a death threat from the UVF. But it’s not a question of Ireland or Iran, Griffith’s a moral philosopher, a shape-changer, he’s in Merlin’s lot, a bit of a Magus himself. He hasn’t mellowed with the years, he’s got more spiky.I haven’t read his autobiography, he hasn’t given me a copy – he’s too mean I gave him a copy of volume one of mine. Volume two will be finished as soon as he lets me off the hook – I should be writing it now instead of doing this interview We have very different working methods. Mine is a highly disciplined, ordinary way of approaching anything. He has a licence to be a dilettante – before he puts four words down on paper he has to go to Goa, or somewhere, under the sun, in a dhoti.Above all, I’d describe him as the staunchest of friends. For Griffith the word “love” is a verb – or it’s nothing.KENNETH GRIFFITH: I remember the details very vividly I was doing a television play about a gang of teddy boys.
I was the leader, but by the third day of rehearsals I only had eight of my gang of nine and I said to the director: “Where’s this other chap, then?” (I have to emphasise that I take my work very seriously and when I’m working no one dares drop a book or a newspaper – or they’ll get a bit of lip from me.) The swing doors suddenly opened, and there was what appeared to be a tall young tramp. He looked down at us and said, “Sorry I’m late, darlings.” Now remember, he was a small part player, and there is a certain hierarchy in the theatre and you don’t get out of line. Then his eyes fixed on me, he came thundering down the stairs, picked me up, kissed me (we’d never met) said: “I think you’re bloody marvellous,” put me down, and retreated to a corner – where, unlike the other young actors, who went off to gossip or play pinball, he sat with his long legs draped over a chair, his eyes never leaving me He had one little scene with me and I suggested we run it Bang! He gave a performance which was devastating. I knew immediately that this was the most formidable competition I’d ever come across.I felt as if I had just met the young Edmund Kean I had no doubt whatsoever. It wasn’t only his acting ability, because acting ability and who you are are indivisible. It is very ignorant of people who admire an actor and complain about his private behaviour, because they are not divisible. Whatever drives them to interest and excite people while performing is what they are.
