Fiona Shaw

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1:36Hello and welcome to Table Manners. I'm Jessie Ware and I am here with Lenny. Hi. Who is doing all the cooking. Thank you, Mum. Yeah, I did prep yesterday. I did an otto lenghi. I saw you at the weekend. Thank you for babysitting my children. Yeah, that's fine. Can I just say, I saw Beyonce. Oh, yeah. Did you love it? Loved it. You were with my favourite Peloton instructor. She said, I'm Leanne. Peloton. And I knew exactly who she was because you told me. She said, why don't you do it, Lenny? I said I can't get the bloody shoes on. Anyway, Beyonce was... Fantastic. ...brinestone cowboy, just gorgeous.

2:12Was it really good? It was fantastic. Good vibes. She goes round on a horseshoe all round on a wire. Don't give it away, I'm going to see it on Thursday. You'll love it. I'm excited. Who have we got on today? Well, we've got a fantastic actress who is probably in everything you've ever loved. Killing Eve. Yeah. Bad Sisters Harry Potter Fleabag Yeah She's won Olivier She's been nominated for Tonys She's just a proper Proper actress Who is so wonderful And I'm so excited That we've got Fiona Shaw here today She's coming on to talk about Echo Valley Which is on Apple TV It's with Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney And she's brilliant in it But also she's also in Hot Milk The adaptation of Deborah Levy's book And she is also fantastic in that.

3:01Yeah. She plays the mother. Every scene she's in feels like she steals it. Do you know what I mean? She's wonderful. And she's coming on. She must be exhausted. I think she's been on radio this morning. What have you made, Mum? I've made something called Strata, which is basically a savoury bread and butter pudding, and it's got different fillings in. So you put them in layers with bread, and it's kind of, they call it a custard, so it's, I should make bread and butter pudding, like egg and milk and cream. So what kind of bread do you use? Sourdough. Okay. What are the fillings? Mushroom and spinach, tomato, spring onion, and Italian sausage.

3:41Ooh. With Gruyere cheese on. Oh God, it's like everything but the kitchen sink. Yeah, everything. Who knows what it is? Whose recipe is it? Tom Hunt in Feast. Oh, Tom Hunt's amazing. Yeah, so it's his recipe. And he's all about no waste. Oh yeah, he wanted me to put parmesan rind in, but I didn't. Yeah, he's amazing, Tom Hunt. So what have you done for food? I've done roasted apricots, because apricots are around, with saffron, vermouth and honey. Wow. With some yoghurt, and I can put some pistachios on top. Delicious. Yeah, I hope so. That sounds great. It's just Greek yoghurt. Well, it always does sound great, and then I'm never quite sure, because I've not made it before, but I should think it's okay.

4:24the fillings are nice so you can't go really can you Fiona Shaw coming up on the table Fiona

4:38Fiona thank you for being here thank you for having me Jessie you look so glamorous do I do you be skin just glorious it's amazing what they can do because I've just come back from Ireland where I was at the Boris Literary Festival which was great fun and I'm a bit hoarse because it's not from speaking great profundities, it's from chatting in between we're all exhausted it's lovely though. So you were in Ireland yesterday? Yeah I was there for about four days I was visiting my mum who's 99 Crikey, I'm right 99, it's good isn't it and if you say you're 99 she goes, I know isn't it awful I think it's quite scary No it's not awful, the alternative is much worse Yeah, vertical, you're vertical you're something where does she live?

5:23she lives in Cork I love Cork so she's lived there all her life she would not leave the house until luckily last summer she had a fall which we've been waiting for because we need her to have a fall so she finally left the house so she's in her home now but she stayed in the house until 98 and a half and what's the home like? is it good? where she's staying now is they're lovely people they look after her so well and funny enough she lived in a very big old house which I think is what kept her going is that there's stairs, steps and a huge drive up to the top of the gate where you have to walk up this big path and I think just walking kept her going all that time and she played the piano every night and sang and I think singing and playing the piano is one of the best things so you're in a very good profession keep singing because I think your brain is on a routine of rhythm and rhyme and I think that really is what kept her going.

6:21What was some of the most memorable songs that she used to play or sing to you? Everything I now loathe. Actually, what's very funny, she thought she was getting very modern. She played mainly operatic tunes. She'd be singing finiculi, finicula, when you're trying to do your homework, it was a nightmare. And then she'd also stop halfway through because you'd hear her playing. You'd hear finiculi, finiculi, the phone would go and she'd stop and go, oh, and you think, in your head, you think I've got to sing the last note funicular and she would go and answer hello hello and then she'd go back to it again but in in later life she got into modern things she'd sing things like I start spreading the news she thought she was being really modern I'm leaving today and she'd play those um and she would play you know anything we wanted her to play she'd play so at Christmas we all played my brother played the double bass and my younger brother used to play the flute and No, he's played the cello.

7:15You're one of those families. That family. You're that family. Not really. I mean, we do. A lot of quarrelling would go on. I'll get your elbow out of my way. But we like that. So can we talk about who was around the dinner table when you were growing up and who was cooking? And where. And where. And where. So we lived in Cork, just outside Cork, up a hill in a place called Montanotti, which are these big old houses with orchards and gardens and really wonderful houses. They're like country houses in the middle of the city. And my mother was very, very social, so she was always going out to something with my very reluctant father, who was exhausted.

7:55He was an eye surgeon, would have done days work, and she'd say, but we've agreed to go. And she was always making him go to things. So we were often left with... We had a house help called Chrissie, and Chrissie would cook for us often. So at lunch, Chrissie always did the potatoes. Sometimes she'd leave the potatoes till the evening, and we'd have the potatoes that she'd cooked earlier in the day, in the evening. So my mother was a kind of random cook. Very interesting cooking for guests. Not so interesting cooking for her children. That was... What was your favourite meal? Definitely on a Sunday, just roast chicken.

8:29Of which there were six of us. And somehow the roast chicken went around for six of us. I got a wing. It's funny. I think we always did. One chicken made do for a whole family. Whereas now you buy two, wouldn't you? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and of course they were proper chickens. They were running around in a farm some week before. And also lamb. But my granny was very good at lamb chops. I used to love the stay with my granny. And she would do lamb chops, just delicious. And I very rarely taste lamb as good as that now because you just don't get it. It had a kind of really farm flavour. So you talked about you had a younger brother.

9:04I had three brothers. My elder brother John, who plays the double bass, And my younger brother Mark. And we had a younger brother, Peter, who sadly was killed in a car accident many years ago. Oh, I'm so sorry. Who was lovely. He was a rugby player. I mean, he was a schoolboy, but he was about to play for the county. He was mad about rugby, but he was killed in a car accident. But that's many years ago. And actually, I think the good thing about my mother's age is that it soothed that pain now. I think it's so long ago, and she is so old. How old was she when he died? She must have been about 50-something.

9:39How sad. It was terrible, yeah. Terrible. I had just moved to London and I was... I had been in London, sorry. I had been to drama school, but I had just moved to the Royal Shakespeare Company. So it was my debut and it was a big deal for me, but my poor parents couldn't come. They were in a terrible state at that time. But that's a sad story. It's a long time ago. Are you a good cook? I am quite a good cook, but I am married to a Sri Lankan, so I have a lot of Sri Lankan food. So I've kind of given up on the cooking. What's the dish that she gives you? The best dish is cod cheek curry, which is really delicious.

10:16Tell me it's slightly easy. Does she say it's quite easy to make? No, she says it just takes endless hours. And of course, in Sri Lanka, there are many people to help. And here there aren't. But we live near Steve Hatt, the fishmonger in Islington. And you get the most delicious fish to send straight up from Colmore. You get delicious. So the cod cheek, you have to order it. It's just literally a series of cod cheeks. You make the curry all day, chopping and chopping and chopping in different angles. That's what they do. You chop the, whatever you're chopping, the garlic or the onion, at a different angle, depending on the curry you're making.

10:52And then you only add the cod cheeks at the very end, because otherwise they fall apart. But it's utterly delicious. Is it coconutty? It's coconutty. Have you spent a lot of time in Sri Lanka? Yes, and where the food is, of course, very, very, you know, you get, what's very good is I lose weight in Sri Lanka. even though you're eating non-stop because they really only have rice once a day. You think they eat rice all the time. Now, some people may eat rice all the time, but mainly you have rice at lunch and, of course, very little rice because you have a tiny little bit of whatever the dark, I mean, pork curry is just delicious.

11:24These blackened, they're blackened meats having been marinated in these spices and then lots of tiny things. Kaju curry is lovely, which is cashews made into curries. so you have soft curries and then these very dark curries and very bright green curries of very very cut things delicious why did you meet this wonderful Sri Lankan woman I met her in um in New York more than 10 years ago I was doing Testament of Mary on Broadway and I met her then she's a fascinating person because I'm now introduced to a whole world of Sri Lanka which has really opened up my life at the very moment that I might have been closing down my life it's been great so you wouldn't if we were coming around to yours you'd get your wife to cook for yes and it would be the cod cheek curry that would be one of the many things that you could have but you could also have i mean a roast chicken is never a roast chicken anymore because it has lots of garlic and spices in it now and of course my palate has changed because of that and so i i find now the things i used to like rather bland is that because you've married a Sri Lankan woman who uses so many spices.

12:28Yes, and I think we are naturally, I mean, England has changed, didn't it? It became absolutely obsessed with Indian food because it's richer. I mean, we I think the thing that made British food very good or Irish food was the quality of the meat or the quality, but nothing much had to be done to it. But actually, it is delicious if somebody has spent ages making the thing piquant with chilli or curry. So you've come on to talk about Echo Valley. Yes. Which you haven't seen yet. I haven't seen it. Does this happen a lot when you make films? Well I'm going to see it this evening so I think we're very near it but I did do ADR in it which is the various voicings we had to do in it so I've seen sections of it but I'm glad I don't really want to see it until I see it because the plot is so fabulous and so full of turns and twists and surprises that I just want to absolutely take it all in as a finished thing.

13:27And I don't think it's giving anything away by saying that you kind of join the film maybe 45 minutes in and then you're gone and I'm like hang on, Fiona Shaw isn't taking a part where she's popping in as a mate do you know what I mean? So you play an important role in the end or is that giving away too much? No it's not but in a very happy way I was asked to play Julianne Moore's friend and the friend really never has to carry the film you know she has to carry the film and I was really happy to do it because I just made another film actually in New York where I played a leading party a film called Park Avenue so I was very very happy to go down and do this job but it was so much more than that because she's a delightful person so we spent every day on this farm I played her friend who helps with the problem of which there are many and and I it was a very good exercise to play the friend because I didn't have to elbow anything into the film that would be a colour that would damage the film as part of the film is very very well written so I just had to play exactly the thing that they needed which is the friend and you were really brilliant I know thank you and it's a real page turner of a film you know it's really I don't know no I was it a book no it's written by did you see the mayor of easton yes well it's the same writer ah okay he's very good at plots and so yes so i i was thrilled and like you and when i read it i thought well it's just a friend and then i thought no not just a friend but it's very nice to not have to play a weirdo or anybody who is kind of odd or mad or you know like in bad sisters where i have to sort of be so ambiguous you know it was just what it is and um to play with somebody who's just a master of the camera she really is she is yeah we were talking just off um off camera off mic julia more i could i mean she's so beautiful she's so beautiful and she's aged beautifully she has yeah she she was always beautiful and she's got just as yeah she has what isabel huper has they're both tiny people she's tiny oh is she she said it's morning to me she said i didn't realize i forgot you were so tall I'm exactly the same I'm exactly the same tall as I always was I don't think of you as tall in films and then you came in and I thought, oh she's really tall Yeah but you don't think of, you know, more as small either because the camera's always meeting Oh is that what it is And I think people, you know, Isabel Huppert is very small I think people who are small their features are nearer and somehow the camera likes that Oh god this is where we've gone wrong Yeah we've gone wrong we've all got a shrink I think the camera likes you though too I think as I've got older your theory doesn't work Fiona I think when I was younger I was too animated and I was too expressive but as I'm older I'm tarder and somehow the face hangs but with Julia Moore you know I saw her this morning she just looks as fresh as a daisy and somehow the evenness of her features they've done tests on that if you have very even features your eye and your mouth the triangle that's beauty isn't it It's beauty.

16:40That's interesting that you say that you were too animated when you were younger. Well, I think it was in the theatre too, and I don't mean that the theatre is all animated. It isn't, actually. Often it's very, very focused. But something about the need in the theatre to hold the moral value of the evening, to hold the audience, who is often a thousand people, and to hold the thought, because it's important they hold that thought, a bit like music, that they must know the first phrases of music in order to appreciate the end of the music. And people who lose their memory, they can't follow symphonies because it's amazing how it's a time-in-motion study, listening to music.

17:18You think you're just listening to that bit, but actually it's the first bit that informs the last bit. And in the theatre, you are holding the audience with this language that is going to get you from the beginning to the premise to the end. in film you just have none of that responsibility you just have to play literally the moment and they will either use it as part of the beat of the film or they won't do you when was the last time you did theatre? not for 10 years now do you miss it? I do, I'm going to do a play next year are you? you tell us no I'm just going to pour one, I'm going to find one I should think people are banging the door down well people ask me to do a lot of classical work but my interest in the 80s and 90s was doing those classical plays but turning them on their heads.

18:06And I'm not sure that's where the theatre is now. There's very interesting things happening in the theatre now, which is people, often the audience, are being included in the play. I saw Rhinoceros at the Almeda recently, where there's a weird sound of the rhinoceros, but it's the audience that had to make the sound of the rhinoceros. I think there's a much more interactive thing because film and television has become the theatre, the old-fashioned theatre, in a way. so I think the theatre's having to find a much more on the hoof way and I was really interested in text and turning things upside down Are you ready to eat?

18:41Yes please What are we having? What meal are we having? Would you call it a brunch? Brunch, yeah Mum, what's this called? Strata It's a savoury bread and butter pudding But this looks incredible It does look really It does look good Mum So how did you get the sponge thing to work so well? It's bread You use bread Look at this, I had no idea I was in for such a treat This is great Would you like some salad? I'd have a little bit of salad, why not? You have a place in New York, don't you? Yeah Where do you eat, because brunch is big in New York, right? It really is And we eat in all the, you know, whatever the wonderful restaurants are that open at any moment I wish I'd brought you a list of restaurants I eat in a wonderful place but I often like I love a smoothie for breakfast so I love making a smoothie with nuts and granola and that really does me and I have a lovely balcony in New York that looks out over the river and so it's wonderful to have that so I don't go out to brunch that much now also if you are going out to dinner I am of an age where I cannot eat all day or else I will be the size of a house which I nearly am So I try not to have, I try to miss one meal.

19:59Okay, so you intermittent fast, kind of. Well, I wish I felt like fasting. It doesn't, I'm always full. But I try not to have lunch if I'm going out to dinner. And that smoothie will do you? It will do me a little, yeah. I mean, it will. I might have some tiny thing. But then the meals in New York, as you know, they kind of, they describe them so brilliantly and then something arrives. Because, of course, in New York, it's a bit like being on a ship. every single item has had to be brought into the city. It's just like a ship. You know, everything. So when they say, and we've got almonds on the side, you know everything has had to come in in a truck.

20:33So they're very proud of everything. But I've just been in Santa Fe where I've had the best cooking ever. Really? Yeah. And the name of the restaurant is Paloma. Okay. And it's New Mexican. Now, Mexican food is delicious, but when you're there for a long time making a film, as I was, I was making a cowboy film. You can get a bit sick of, you know, if you see another avocado, you're going to die. Or guacamole. But this was sort of short rib and a sort of bits of... Cooked so beautifully in this restaurant that I had to go back and have the same thing twice. You know when that happens? Because they're very keen on meat there, and if you're not a meat eater, you would probably be having a less good time.

21:17But I'm not a big meat eater, but this was so, so good. and some of those restaurants are delightful. And there, of course, the stuff is more local. You don't feel it's been flown in for miles. Let me taste this. It's really, it's like comfort. Yeah, it's really nice. I think the sausage helps. Absolutely. It's Italian sausage. This is a great brunch one because you can just bung it in the oven, right? And is it a sort of new recipe? New to you. It's new to me. I saw it in The Guardian. Oh, very good. when you were all about recipes and houses and upbringing. I'm thinking about, my mother always had these wonderful dinner parties and they were always doing things, this is way before your time, but in the 70s where there'd be things like a lime souffle was the thing to have.

22:06You know, there was a period. I remember avocados coming in. I remember any fruits from New Zealand, kiwi fruits. They were not known. And so suddenly every pudding was built with those things. I don't think I ever tasted broccoli until I was about 18. You just didn't have broccoli. We always called it avocado pear. You never... Yes, you always said avocado pear. Yeah, they don't do that now, do they? You don't see crushed avocado or squashed them. Yeah, and I remember we used to pick raspberries at a friend's house. And this woman who owned it, she used to say, three pea punnet, three pea punnet.

22:40Now that means it was a thousand years ago. You could just pick their own punnets. But they were only in the summer. We only had those fruits when you had them. We had piles of apples, so we always had a lot of apples, apple things. Did you, you used to get to lick the bowl of the lime souffle? Yeah, love that. I licked the bowl and I also loved, mum used to get this really small pot of cream that then was whipped up and I never seemed to get much of the cream and I used to think I wanted with pudding, I always wanted a little pudding with my cream. And I used to say, when I grow up, I have as much cream as I like because I don't at all.

23:16No, I've never gone to your cream because it's too dangerous. I love cream. Do you want a bit more? I do. I'm going to go and dump myself. I was staying in the Balmoral Hotel making a series for a long time in Edinburgh and I had scrambled eggs a lot. And the chef would never tell me why they were so good. Of course, on the last day I said, why are they so good? He said, I'll tell you my secret cream. I said, I've been eating all that cream all the time. But it makes scrambled eggs unbelievably good. I'm right in thinking, the bit that you have chocolate cake on your face on, is it four weddings?

23:49Three men and a lady. Was it three men and a baby? And a little lady. And a little lady. It still gives me fear that I get food on my face and somebody's not getting, it was that bit, it was chocolate cake, wasn't it? It was a tiny bit. It was on your nose and you thought they were flirting. Yes, it was such a good scene. That film has lasted, I'm amazed. People do still talk about it to me, it's 30 years ago. I still watch it, yeah. I've also watched Hot Milk. Yes. That was pretty amazing. You played... Is it Rose? Rose. A cantankerous, difficult woman. Yes. An adaptation of Deborah Levi's novel.

24:26And it... I mean, Rebecca Lankovitz is, of course, a wonderful writer as well as now a director. And so she was very good at adjusting the novel to film, I think. I mean, in that way, she understood... And she's written a lot of films, I think, so she understood, because the novel is a novel. Novels are novels, but it's very good if they can... Where did you shoot that? We shot it, it's set in the south of Spain. So these two, this mother and daughter, sort of sell up or borrow a lot of money on the back of their little apartment and they go to help the mother who can't walk. But she can walk.

25:02She says she can't walk. Why did she say that? Well, it is a condition where you think you can't walk. Yes. And she really can't walk. and she's of course holding up her daughter's life because the daughter has to look after her. And we shot it in Greece. Thank you, Mum. Oh, it's in Greece, not Spain. But it's set in Spain, so I hope you didn't notice it was Greece. No, I didn't. Well, that's very good. Whereabouts in Greece was it? Because you know Greece. We were in Marathonos, you know, just outside Athens. Okay. Well, as in the marathon. I mean, that much further out. So we were in various places around there.

25:35So we were very much near, not so far from the city, but we lived out there. and it was just, it's wonderful to make a film where you're put somewhere wonderful to make it. You know, I've just loved that. Santa Fe or Edinburgh, I've just made a film in Edinburgh, and then, you know, to be in somewhere like Greece, because I love Greece. I went for many, many years on holidays there, but just to be working there was, and the people. Oh, the people. The people, and the, you know, all the people working the film, unlike here where we've all got professions, they've all got other professions. One was a cartoonist, you know, one was a mathematician, one was, they all do other things, as well as work on films.

26:10And it makes them very rounded people. So it's gorgeous being there with them. Where did you used to holiday? I used to holiday on Idra. Oh, okay. A lot. Was that because you were a big Leonard Cohen fan? No, but I knew people who knew Leonard Cohen. Really? Yeah, I knew Marianne. So long. And I used to holiday. I've done a lot. When I did the Greek tragedies, I used to sometimes walk them off. I did a lecture and I'd walked it off by going up to the Peloponnese in wintertime, doing one of those huge walks over the mountains. So I've seen grease in many, many different... I love that. So, like, to get over, to get over...

26:50Oh, no, she's... No, no, no. What is that? Apricots, cooked with sweet vermouth, saffron and honey. They look so... The colours... Did you put them into the oven? Roasted them. For how long? 25 minutes oh that's all so you just give them a blast yeah this could work with one of your wife's curries I reckon probably could because with the saffron but also like it's a bit of a palate cleanser after it's just a little bit of something to have when it's brunch time are you a sweets person I'm very happy to eat this because it's so pure and it looks good for one it was just the apricots are in at the moment so I got fresh apricots from your little green grocer you sound like you're on a winter they're really in at the moment help yourself thank you but I love the idea of you walking off character just to kind of get them out of your system get some juice but also to kind of bid them farewell as well yeah I did in quite an epic way and in hot milk I was in a wheelchair for most of it I know I would be in a wheelchair all day because I felt it was good for the crew that I was otherwise you can't be hopping up and down so I would stay so it was just better imaginatively so I would just sit there and get my poor daughter to come and wheel me on to the cassette and then we would play the thing all day because the crew also have to adjust to the fact the person is in which and the ground was very rough so there was a lot of heaving and pulling and that was very very good but also I played someone with a kind of a twitch and I spent ages trying to get this twitch working it's very hard to do because you can do it when you think about it oh my god I couldn't do that You mustn't think about it, so I kind of trained myself into it.

28:33It was very hard to get rid of. Yeah, oh, really? I do sometimes have to debrief a bit from these films. But walking in Greece is the nicest thing to possibly do ever. I was also, I played Happy Days in Epidavros in the Peloponnese, you know, the big amphitheatre. And I think it was the first non-Greek play to be there. But Beckett is so like the Greek tragedies. So I played it buried up to my neck, no microphone, 7 ,000 people in the audience, and a bird singing. I'll never forget this bird just going, ooh, during the evening. And I played it, and of course they had it in translation on various screens.

29:14And people laughed, and they just loved it. I buried it up to my neck and did the play. And it was amazing being there. And I looked at the audience and I remember having this sort of psychic fusion, thinking, I can see them all in togas in my mind's eye. You could see them 2 ,000 years ago being in togas. This place had been buried by an earthquake. And then there was another earthquake which revealed it again, which is why they've rediscovered it. There's always a few little earthquakes. The loo in my downstairs had to be replaced because it had a crack from an earthquake. Where were you? I'm on a little island called Skopalos.

29:51Do you want some? Yes, please. Here. Oh, darling. Who's been the character that's been the hardest to let go of, that you've played? Funny enough, it's not a method thing, because usually at the end of a day, you're quite glad to shed the thing. And in the theatre, of course, you really want to shed it because you've been holding it for three hours, you know. But in my life, many years later, I don't know why, but Hedda Gabler stays because Hedda Gabler I mean I played it in the Abbey and then on the West End and then we made a television of it with lovely now gone Donald McCann and Stephen Ray played I Let Love Book and it's a long time ago but there's something about Hedda Gabler that she's not a heroine, she's a sort of disaster she marries this man she doesn't want to marry called Tesman because she has to marry someone she actually says to the judge i dance myself to a standstill judge and something about the way in which people are not heroes or heroines but are they are their own tragedy has stayed with me i don't think i'm like her at all but there's something about the middle world of just being in a house where things take ages to unfold in fact it's the last 24 hours of her life because she kills herself but i just think of hella gabber often i i it's like edna o 'brien who said not an hour goes by when i don't think of chekhov well it's not an hour goes by i don't think of ibsen but i you know chekhov was able to get that too which is that ordinary life if you can mine it you find that each one of us has a sort of hidden tragedy and hidden joys of course and there was a lovely line in that um column to a beam play i did 10 years ago where he said it you your sorrows like your dreams belong to yourself and it's so true where if you have a great sorrow a person can condole with you or soothe you but they can't feel your sorrow because it's your sorrow and the same and there's something about head of gaba that she she was never never going to get out of that marriage alive and I suppose it's a bit like I don't know T.S.

32:13Eliot saying you know people can't stand too much reality or we all live lives of quiet desperation I don't know if we do but a lot of people live lives of quiet desperation and it's worth remembering when you feel cross for somebody actually. Fiona what's he reading at the moment? So I've just read a book called A Minor Detail by Dana Shibley, who is a Palestinian writer who's written the most narrow book. It's tiny. And it's about an incident in 1948 in the desert. And then it's about this woman now who investigates that incident. And honestly, I was absolutely gripped by it. Absolutely brilliant, brilliant, brilliant book.

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34:13Last supper, Fiona. Last supper. Can we start with a starter? I recently, I think I even put it in my diary. I thought, I'll put that down. And I just can't think of what it was. I'm trying to think now, what would I like for starters? than I would like. Just to think, in what country would I like the food to be from? You can be from anywhere. Anywhere. You can have a whole day of food if you like. What do I love? Those short ribs sounded delicious. I think the short ribs would be in there. They sounded delicious. I think it may have been that very thing. As your main or your starter? That's my main.

34:45Now, a starter is a tormenting thing, isn't it? Give me a few, give me a menu. Do you have starters in Sri Lankan food? What would you start with? No. Just have everything. Everything all at the same time. What would I have? Something from your childhood, something your mum made. We're really feeding you. I'd probably get into the pudding easier. That's probably it. Okay, let's do the pudding. We'll start with the pudding. Well, I mean, I think the pudding probably would be something like apple pie and cream or raspberries and cream. You know, very basic raspberries and cream. Oh, there isn't that.

35:17The three-peat peanut. I mean, you can't do much better. Three-peat peanut. I think maybe that's about memory, isn't it? Memory and food. But I've eaten such delicious things. I think, yes, my main course would be the short rib. And on the side, a sort of mashed something, wouldn't it? It would have to have a potato, but it isn't just a potato. Maybe it's got, I'll say avocado in it, but something like that. Like gratin potatoes. Something like that. Wouldn't that be delicious? And then some delicious, you know, it has to be something like spinach or something very, very good green to go with that.

35:47Oh, you see, I like cabbage. Yes. I thought you're Irish, Fiona. I know. Can I remind you? Well, probably with that in mind, my starter, because I'm hoping that my stomach would be able to expand. Yes, it will. I think I would love something like a delicious lobster bisque, or I'd love that to start, or a fish chowder or something, because then you wouldn't have any room for the mains. No, you're thinking too literally. Yeah, or scallop, something. And what do you drink? I would drink... Do you like a nice wine? I would love... Yeah, I try not to drink with wine because it really is bad for your skin.

36:20Is it? So I normally have a gin and tonic, one gin and tonic in the evening, and that's it. Because if I'm working. What's your gin? Cinsale gin, which is slightly aromatic and delicious. There's also a phenomenal gin from Scotland in a blue bottle, which has got kelp in it. Oh. And it's called Isle of Harris gin. It's very expensive and very delicious. Oh. That's very... Which tonic? Fever tree tonic. and I love that and then I don't drink much wine but if I were drinking wine I would like I think probably a Barolo but it has to be a very good one because they're not always delicious but I worked with a composer once who brought a bottle of Barolo and he did this thing of decanting it twice so he did it like this poured, poured, poured all the air through it into a jug and then decanted it into an other jug or a decanter.

37:23And you have to have it correct. And then it tastes like multiple, multiple things. Oh, wow. Where were you? I was in London, but he was doing the music for a show I was in, and he was an Italian composer. But there's also lovely wines, anything from the north of Italy, I pretty well like, Neobolus or any of those. But there's also, if you go over to Slovenia, which is just over the mountain, There is a white wine that is called Crasno that is not particularly expensive, but because it's in the same mountaintop as produces those Northern Italy wines, it's got a kind of stony taste, flinty taste.

38:03Also, some of the wines from Sicily have that, don't they? They have a volcanic, so they're not fizzy wines, but there's a hint of something fizzy, and they're dry, dry, dry. I really enjoyed and I don't know why they're like this because it's very quite lush where we were but in Portugal I was having Rosa Vino Verde and that's got a little like mineral fizz to it too and I don't know just slyly Portuguese ones are delicious Matias Rose you don't remember that I do the flat bottle yeah and everyone had candles in it yeah in bistros bistros it was also bistro no bistros left over and you had the candles sat there and it was very dark and that was the only light and the more wax that went down it the better the best but there's also hungarian wines are very good but we don't know we don't have them enough but when i was in hungary i was in budapest doing um a series the driver there said this is the best one it had a blue label i can't remember the name but but it was really delicious wine and you can't i don't i can't get it i have friends who've just been in the Balkans on holiday and they said the Albanian wine was amazing but I was sitting in our cafe in Greece international and I said oh Yanni what's the red wine like he said this is good but it's going to be better next week and I said oh why he said the new wine is coming from Bulgaria oh my god that's bad because Greek wines are great delicious because there's but also if you're in Greece I felt the same about your Albanian story said if you're Albania there's a sort of way in which the sun, the heat, the air is affecting the way you're...

39:45And, of course, there's nothing in the wines except grapes. Yeah. And you can drink piles of it. And they're barely alcoholic, I think. That's the big thing. Is there a part that you've not yet played that you would like to play? Many. But one that's kind of slightly eluded you because you've never been in the right place at the right time, but it's something you'd really love to do. Well, there are two parts I probably have been offered, but I didn't play. and one is Cleopatra and because the language at the end of Cleopatra is so magnificent but I never felt I think when I was asked to do it it was the wrong moment I was doing something else and the other one is of course I never played Lady Macbeth because I always thought the part wasn't good enough but when I see it now because I often play smaller parts you don't need you know I've played Mother Courage and all these ones that carry the whole evening and are very long and so you get spoiled and feel that you have to be holding most of the scenes.

40:41In fact, probably I should have done that. But I don't think of film parts in that way at all. Not at all. In fact, what I'm looking for is the new directors, young directors who are looking at something at another angle. Seriously at another angle, not just, you know, but holding the integrity of the thing. That's what, or older directors who do it. You want people who have got a vision. You may have already answered this with the raspberries, but can you give us a nostalgic taste that can transport you back somewhere? A lot of tastes. I mean, I suppose, actually, if I had a lime soufri, that would take me back.

41:23A lime soufri. A lime soufri. Would that be a happy? Oh, no, a lot would be very happy. I mean, roast chicken can pretty well take you back, can't it? The smell of roast chicken. The smell of roast chicken. I love it, yeah. Yeah, just the seepy things. Yeah, I mean, plum pudding, Christmas cake. Because my mum and the lady used to help, they always made all the plum puddings. They'd make them in October and they'd keep them. What's a plum pudding? Christmas pudding. Christmas pudding. Does Christmas pudding have plums in? Well, they can. They're meant to be plum pudding. It can. Whatever fruit you have.

41:54But they used to be called plum pudding. Okay. In the 19th century where I was brought up. And then Christmas cake. So Christmas cake, even though, again, these things we can't eat much of now, but the smell of Christmas cake can make a whole world and because I went away to you know I went to university in Ireland and then I went to drama school I would go back of course pretty well every Christmas and there's a lot of Christmases not all of them because I sometimes was working in London but mainly went back is that that thing of going back and the Aerolingus hostess saying be very careful on the steps they're a bit slippy getting off you know because it's freezing cold when you arrive it's always raining is such an early off when I used to go back on the boat when I was seasick and I'd get back home from drama school.

42:36You know, I'd come back on the ferry to Cork and my dad would pick me up and I would be so seasick. But the smell of Christmas cake would just suddenly make everything, but it's safety especially. It's the spices, the cloves and everything. Feeding it with whiskey or whatever it is so that it's marinated and almost soggy. Absolutely delicious. You're right. So, yeah, theatre next year. I'm going to do theatre. I'm going to do a few films more but films are gorgeous things because they're whole worlds, but they are shorter. A play is a marvellous commitment if you can bear to make it. Westend or Broadway?

43:10Westend and Broadway, maybe. Sure, let's transfer. Thank you so much. Thank you both very much. Thank you for coming. I am full stuffed. I'm so sorry. With delicious conversation and delicious food. Good, good, good. Thank you very much. Good luck with Echo Valley. Thank you. And with Hot Milk. Thank you so much.

43:40Fiona Shaw on Table Manners is just the most delightful morning of my year, I think. I love her so much. I could sit and talk to her forever about theatre and books. I think there should be a university of Fiona Shaw. Yeah, she was lovely. And I would enrol straight away. Yeah. I hope to see Fiona Shaw on stage next year such a lovely warm person just gorgeous and so generous about everybody Echo Valley is out now it's really really good and Hot Milk is out in July Emma Mackey is fantastic in it also loved seeing Patsy Farhan as a Spanish nurse love her it's out and you should watch both of them Fiona is unbelievable in both The food was so good, Mum.

44:29Did you like it? I will make that for a brunch. It seemed like it was really, not easy, it wasn't that, but it just seemed really kind of... It was really tasty. They said you can make it the night before in one of the American books. And I thought, shall I make it last night? But I'd cooked the mushrooms, I'd done the spinach... Did that yesterday. And I did the sausage yesterday. And then all I did this morning was the tomato and spring onion, which I couldn't really taste. but you make a kind of, he calls it a custard so you heat the milk with cheese in and then add eggs. It was really tasty, thank you Tom Hunt.

45:05Yeah. And I feel like the apricots went down very well with Fiona. Do you think I forgot to put my pistachios on it? Never mind, it was delicious. We'll see you next week. Thanks so much for listening.

45:46We'll be right back.

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