Your article (The rudest things they ever said about the Guardian, 11 May) refers to Steven Berkoff’s face-to-face threat to kill me. The incident was prompted by my Guardian review of Berkoff’s 1979 Hamlet performance, which I described as “fatally miscast”.
The article says Berkoff’s threat – which I saw as mild-mannered though slightly spooky – was “reportedly considered so serious that police protection was felt necessary”. That is untrue. This much did happen: I was interviewed by a detective from Holborn police station, and the Daily Express’s gossip column wrote a sensational story with Berkoff’s Hamlet poised with a dagger. But that was as far as it all went. I never feared for my life or a lesser attack. I admired, and still admire, Berkoff as an actor and director, and his anger subsided after some time. He apologised, and I did to him. Recollecting the incident now with amusement, I feel I was hot-headed in my use of the word “fatally”. It does not belong in the world of theatre criticism.
Nicholas de Jongh
London
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