The Pope may be too frail in body and mind to go on, but not director Jonathan Miller. About to open a revival of Rutherford and Son in Halifax, he has been in headline-grabbing mode for the past couple of weeks. First it was about young directors who update classics, and now he's saying British theatre is ageist and he isn't being offered directing jobs because of his age.
It's certainly the case, in lots of areas, that theatre is a young person's game. Many of those who work in arts administration, marketing and press are youngsters – often on their way to better-paid jobs in other sectors. Teenage playwrights from Shelagh Delaney to Anya Weiss are not uncommon. The myth of young genius is a prevalent one in the theatre. It sometimes seems we want our playwrights to have exited the womb waving an immediately stageable first draft.
There are plenty of schemes aimed at young playwrights, but far fewer opportunities for those who take up writing after 30, or for mid-career playwrights who often discover they are no longer quite as welcome as they were. We in the media like nothing more than to run features about the young, gifted and (preferably) photogenic. Meanwhile, the number of roles for older actresses in the 21st century remains shockingly low. It's why productions such as the recent all-female Julius Caesar at the Donmar are so important. And though I didn't love April de Angelis's Jumpy, it was great to see a role written by an older playwright for an older actress that was red-raw and meaty.
But directors? For a job that requires so much stamina, directors are notable for how long they manage to go on. Sir Peter Hall is still at it in his 80s, Alan Ayckbourn is still writing and directing in his 70s, and thank goodness Max Stafford-Clark shows no signs of stopping. Indeed, many directors do their best work in their mid-40s and after. If you look solely at the National Theatre, the combined age of the people directing seven productions over the next few months adds up to more than three centuries. Hardly whippersnappers.
While there are plenty of examples of those who made it big young, including Peter Brook, Sam Mendes, Thea Sharrock and Polly Findlay, directors are as much made as born. The hugely talented Blanche McIntyre, who last year won the Critics Circle most promising newcomer award, is 32 and has dozens of credits to her name; but the best is surely yet to come.
I saw Miller's last two theatre productions – The Cherry Orchard in Sheffield and Hamlet in Bristol – and both were excellent. If his Rutherford and Son revival is as good, there seems no reason why he shouldn't carry on until he's 100. If the job offers don't come his way, he should do what young directors at the outset of their careers do: create his own projects. Or give something back by sharing his accumulated wisdom with a younger generation through mentoring.
When it comes to director demographics, the worrying issue isn't age so much as the continued dominance of men and the white middle classes. There are small signs of a shift in terms of gender, but university-fee hikes and the recession mean access to the profession is likely to narrow rather than broaden. That's more of a concern than any single individual's job prospects, however distinguished they are.
