The theatre and film actor on staging a pair of Julian Barnes stories, playing Emperor Palpatine, and finding peace in isolation
Ian McDiarmid, 77, has distinguished himself as a theatrical all-rounder. He made his name on stage as an actor of incisive authority and is internationally known as Emperor Palpatine in the Star Wars films. Between 1990 and 2002, he ran – with Jonathan Kent – the Almeida theatre in London with tremendous flair. He is touring a one-man show, The Lemon Table – his adaptation of a pair of acerbically funny Julian Barnes stories: one about Sibelius in old age, the other about a sixtysomething concert-goer with zero tolerance for coughers, chatterers and mobile-phone users.
What first drew you to Julian Barnes’s stories?
I recorded The Silence for Radio 3 for an interval in the Proms in 2004 and thought there was dramatic potential in it. I had a nice letter from Julian Barnes encouraging me to think about it more. But it wasn’t until two years ago, pre-pandemic, that I came across the book again at home and hit upon a second story, Vigilance. The attraction was not only that both stories have first-person narratives but that I would not have to alter the words because they’re perfect. Julian has his own music. His words are rhythmic, precise and roll off the tongue. And the stories are funny – I thought there might be a way of combining them on stage. I talked to Michael [Grandage, the show’s co-director with Titas Halder] and he said: let’s see what we can do.
