![\"David](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768806489_3_64ce109be56ceea0d7f4eb381757b1cddf9ee9b3.png\")
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April 11, 2026 \u2014 9:56am<\/p>\n
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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n Save this article for later<\/p>\n Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime.<\/p>\n Got it<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n When a celebrated British actor asked three eminent Australians why their country produced so many successes in theatre and film, one word stood out.<\/p>\n \u201cGrit,\u201d said Suzie Miller, the playwright, whose Prima Facie was a global sensation and whose Inter Alia is a box office smash in London.<\/p>\n Miller was speaking alongside actress Cate Blanchett and director Kip Williams at the Australian High Commission in London on Friday night, where they shared their love of theatre and their tales of finding work far from home.<\/p>\n The host of the panel conversation, David Harewood, president of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, said he was stunned at the long list of Australians who had achieved so much overseas.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes you can see clearer from the margins,\u201d said Blanchett, when she reflected on her early years of trying to succeed from a distant country.<\/p>\n When she arrived in London, she said, she felt she had to overcome a kind of handicap because of the way she spoke and the country she was from.<\/p>\n \u201cI was tolerated culturally, and it was brutal,\u201d she said. \u201cI mean, I still worked, but I worked hard. I thought, I\u2019m going to have to prove myself because I\u2019m not necessarily invited to the table. I\u2019m from the colonies.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s many people, Australians in the room, who would have felt the same.\u201d<\/p>\n The discussion was held at Australia House \u2013 an ornate building on The Strand that has a side hussle as a backdrop in films including the Harry Potter series \u2013 to mark another milestone in Australia\u2019s ascent of the London stage.<\/p>\n Blanchett is nominated for best actress in British theatre\u2019s annual Olivier Awards on Sunday night, for playing Arkadina in Chekhov\u2019s The Seagull, while Miller is nominated for best new play with Inter Alia.<\/p>\n Williams was feted at the Oliviers two years ago when his play The Picture of Dorian Gray won two awards, including best actress for Sarah Snook.<\/p>\n Hosted by Australian High Commissioner Jay Weatherill, the event was also a partnership between RADA and its Australian counterpart, the National Institute of Dramatic Arts in Sydney. Blanchett, Miller and Williams are all NIDA graduates; its chief executive, Liz Hughes, gave the vote of thanks after they spoke.<\/p>\n Miller summed up why Australia seemed to be over-represented in world theatre in terms of its size.<\/p>\n \u201cI sometimes think it\u2019s down to, kind of, old-fashioned grit. It\u2019s hard to live in Australia. It\u2019s hot, it\u2019s difficult, you\u2019ve got to fight for yourself a bit,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I think that is the skill set that you need in this industry. You have to get down and do the work.\u201d<\/p>\n All three shared their thoughts on the high-wire act of theatre. Williams described rehearsals as a combination of \u201cthrill and terror\u201d because every day was a leap of faith. When things went well, said Miller, her overwhelming feeling was relief.<\/p>\n Blanchett suggested public debate could learn from some of the raw honesty of a rehearsal.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I love about theatre in rehearsal rooms \u2013 and we don\u2019t actually find it in everyday life very often \u2013 is that kindness is not a way of evading a problem, and oftentimes you can\u2019t,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to be brutal with one another, and respectful. And that atmosphere exists in rehearsal rooms, and I wish it existed more in public life, where we can have brutally honest \u2018come to Jesus\u2019 conversations without the Jesus bit.\u201d<\/p>\n After the pandemic, Williams said, the theatre industry needed to work even harder to bring people back to live performance following several years when people had to stay at home.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really forced you, as theatre makers, to consider why you\u2019re asking an audience to come into a theatre,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The answer, he said, was to create an experience that audiences cannot get on Netflix or TikTok. Although he did not say this, he has clearly taken this approach with The Picture of Dorian Gray and his latest production, Dracula, which is now being staged in London with Cynthia Erivo playing all 23 roles.<\/p>\n Miller summed up the reason that theatre can still electrify an audience in a world when it is easy to stay at home or watch a mobile phone screen.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been gathering around fireplaces for the whole of civilisation \u2013 well, before that even \u2013 and telling stories as a way to make sense of our world,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd, actually, when you take the fireplace and the assembly away, we lose something, we lose something very, very human.<\/p>\n \u201cGetting that back has actually been something that people have come back to the theatre for \u2013 because they appreciate that now.\u201d<\/p>\n On that concluding theme, those in the room did something else people in London have been doing for the whole of their civilisation. They chatted over drinks.<\/p>\n Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what\u2019s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"Theatre](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/a6ebbe923dc0809500f33055ab8baecb163d55db4ccc9cd2c26a084208b6a37b.jpeg\")
Theatre director Kip Williams, actor Cate Blanchett, playwright Suzie Miller and British actor David Harewood at Australia House, London, on Friday.Jenny Magee<\/p>\n![\"David](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/64ce109be56ceea0d7f4eb381757b1cddf9ee9b3.png\")
David Crowe<\/a> is Europe correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"April 11, 2026 \u2014 9:56am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-599280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}