Great movie. I love finding good French films to watch. I use blockbuster's movies by mail and I get them about once a week.

Oooh, Marina Hands is in it. I'd like to see her in something. She apparently inherited her mother's talent. I worked with her father (Terry Hands) in 1976, 79 and 84. She was a cute little girl then. I gather she is still cute. LOL!

Did you watch Tell No One on DVD? It sounds great.

Yes, on DVD, on a rainy Sunday afternoon, after a lovely lunch, on my friends' lovely new big flat telly. I still have the square, fat kind. A perfect Sunday! Marina Hands is very beautiful indeed, and good in the movie, in an understated kind of way, although it must difficult for any actress to not be overshadowed by Kristine Scott Thomas. What did you work on with her father?

Well, maybe. But I think I shall give it a miss; having just watched the boring Belmondo and Reggiani in the tedious Le Doulos I have come to the conclusion that, with a very few exceptions, French gangster films are no fun without old stone-face Gabin.

It's not a gangster film! It's a pacy plot-rich-mystery-thriller-with an emotional twist to it!

Oh, OK. It’s a long story, but here goes: I met Terry Hands in 1973. After spending several summers in Stratford-upon-Avon, watching every single production there and getting to know some of the actors, I had written an article in Les Nouvelles Littéraires about the Royal Shakespeare Company (where he worked as a director). Someone had pinned it on the stage door notice board of the theatre that summer and TH wanted to meet me – mostly to practise his French. LOL! I spent the following year in S/A trying to get a job with the RSC. I ended up as a dresser – not quite what I was hoping so I went back to Paris in 1975. The following year, TH’s production of Henry V (which I’d seen at S/A) was to be performed at the Théâtre de l’Odéon. The day of the company’s arrival in Paris, I went to the theatre to say hello to my friends and was instantly hired to act as a dresser and general interpreter (no one had thought they might need one!).

Unbelievable as it may seem, *exactly* the same thing happened in 1979, when the RSC came back to the Odéon to do Coriolanus. This time I worked more closely with TH and the lighting designer. It was a scary and exhilarating experience: everything to do with lighting was done by hand then and, by the time curtain rose on the first night (with an audience full of French and British dignitaries), the French electricians (who had to operate the ‘jeu d’orgue’) only had a few pages of the ‘lighting plot’ to work with. I had to dictate the translation for the rest of the play *during* the show; luckily, we didn’t have time to think about what would happen if the performance caught up with us. I provided support for the rest of the Paris tour (which included translating the pre-show announcement that Alan Howard had laryngitis and the part of Coriolanus would be played by Charles Dance – the dismay of the audience was audible: no one knew who CD was at the time). After touring other European countries, the RSC were due to perform in Brussels. I somehow knew they would have the same problems there so I decided to join them. I couldn’t describe the welcome I got: the Théâtre National hadn’t provided an interpreter either.

In 1984, I was hired again – this time officially – to work specifically on the lighting, on Much Ado About Nothing, at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. The lighting plot was computerised now and that should have made things easier, except it didn’t (for various reasons) and I ended up working 40 hours non-stop with the lighting crew and TH before the first performance. After that, I was asked to cue the French electricians during the shows.

Although the first night of Much Ado is a bit of a blur, I do remember being introduced to Marina Hands: she was eight or nine years old and the spitting image of her mummy, Ludmila Mikaël; she still is.

Oh, wasn't it? Sorry, I just assumed. Was it a film noir? Anyway, Le Doulos was ROTTEN.

Bela, one word: wow!

LOL! I have been unbelievably lucky sometimes and worked with wonderful people.