Born in South Africa, David Lan trained as an actor before gaining a PhD in social anthropology at the London School of Economics. He has been a writer in residence at London’s Royal Court theatre (1995-97) and was artistic director of the Young Vic from 2000 to 2018, when he received the Laurence Olivier special award for his role in productions such as The Jungle and The Inheritance. Lan’s memoir, As If By Chance: Journeys, Theatres, Lives, is published by Faber on 20 February.
1. Music
I caught this in New York, where I’m producing at the moment. It’s “Wow!” modulated a hundred different ways. It kicks off with James Baldwin (“artists are here to disturb the peace”), then dives into Madame X’s recent adventures (“As you all know, I moved to Lisbon to become a soccer mom”), features her hits old and brand new, stops off for a thrilling fado section, then for the all-female Orquestra Batukadeiras from Cape Verde. It whirls to an end with the first lady of the brave and the crazed encircled by a chorus of black women intoning “I’m not your bitch!”, herself hurling out the coda: “Have we made ourselves clear?” Yup.
2. Book
Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour by Peter Tinti and Tuesday Reitano
One of the last shows I produced at the Young Vic was The Jungle, which recreates the Calais refugee and migrant camp. As preparation I read many of the recent books about the vast currents of people desperate to escape conflict and the degradation of their lives. This one contains the most adventurous analysis. The title says it all: if you leave your home because otherwise you’ll starve, you’re a migrant; if it’s because bombs are falling on your village, you’re a refugee. Those who help you cross borders may be criminals profiting from your defencelessness, but it may be those same thugs who save your life.
3. Place
Golborne Road, London W10
Golborne Road (off Portobello Road, North Kensington) was once part of the great forest of Middlesex; today you won’t see too many trees. It’s a laid-back, apparently accidental intersection of Portuguese, Spanish, Moroccan and English cuisine, art, patisserie, old furniture and street market, all in the shadow of thebrutalist Grade II*-listed Trellick Tower, designed by the Hungarian-born Ernő Goldfinger.It’s a great weekend hangout. There’s a grilled fish stall that spirits you back to the Jemaa el-Fnaa in Marrakech. My favourite local restaurant is Zayane, run by the Mortell family from Casablanca: their tagines sizzle almost all the way to the last bite.
4. Film
The Wild Pear Tree (dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2018)
Ceylan makes the kind of film where you go, “No, honestly, I can’t face a three-hour, glacially slow, landscape-driven work of genius that opens out into being about everything that matters in the modern world. C’mon let’s see Psycho one more time.” But then you think, “If I don’t watch Once Upon a Time in Anatolia or Winter Sleep tonight, maybe tomorrow Armageddon will arrive and I’ll die the poorer for it” – so you do and you have the best evening of cinema you can imagine. The Wild Pear Tree is his latest invisibly crafted submersion into the psyche of contemporary Turkey. It’s as folksy and civilised as Tolstoy.
5. Dance
Message in a Bottle, Peacock theatre, London
Do art houses die when they lose connection to the street? Probably. Contrariwise, street artists are keen to blast their way into art houses, if only because a box office is a more efficient way to earn a living than passing round a hat. For two decades, Sadler’s Wells’s Breakin’ Convention weekend has been a revelatory festival of hip-hop, the spectacular dance form born on the streets of the Bronx in the 1970s. In Message in a Bottle, choreographed by Kate Prince to old favourites by Sting, the exuberance of the street is all there, but in this tale of the journeys of three refugees, the young dancers’ heartstopping technique ripens into emotional resonance and meaning.
6. Fashion
Maybe 35 years ago I saw my friend, the actor Roger Rees, in a show. I’ve no memory of the show but I do remember he was wearing stylish black jeans. I’ve been wearing black jeans ever since, not in homage to Roger, but because it means I can wear the same trousers wherever and whenever. The idea of clothes that draw attention to yourself is repellent: surely the point of couture is to enable you to disappear. Occasionally I have to go to some formal do and get out the tux, but all the men are wearing the same monkey suits, so you can disappear just as effectively.
