Matthew Kelly and Julian Clary head to Bradford Alhambra for The Dresser

“I’m desperate to work with him again and I think he would be a magnificent Lear. I think he would be a Lear in the grand tradition and I would love to direct him. I think this has given him a taste for it too,” says Johnson from his home.

The ‘this’ he refers to is one of the great stage plays of the last century, Ronald Harwood’s The Dresser, currently on a national tour in a production directed by Johnson and starring Kelly alongside Julian Clary.

The play tells the story of an aging, experienced and much lauded master of the stage in the old actor-manager tradition. Never named, he is simply known as ‘Sir’ and the play follows his efforts to cling on to his sanity while going through the physical and mental demands of playing King Lear nightly on stage, a role which ‘Sir’ considers one of the most significant and important of his long career. His humble, dedicated dresser is tasked with ensuring the show – and the leading man – goes on.

Within a couple of years of its premier at the Royal Exchange in Manchester in 1980, it had transferred to the West End, won the creative team a boatload of awards and been turned into a film starring Tom Courtenay as the loyal dresser Norman and Albert Finney as ‘Sir’. Courtenay had played the same part in Manchester in London, although it was opposite Freddie Jones as ‘Sir’ on stage.

“I sat on one of those strange seats they have on the floor of the stage at the Royal Exchange in Manchester and watched Tom Courtenay and Freddie Jones in it. It’s always stayed in one’s consciousness as one of those great, great plays,” says Johnson.

Having seen the original production, then, he knew this was an opportunity to direct one of the great plays of British theatre. “It wasn’t so burned in the memory that it would affect the way I approached it, but I jumped at the chance to say yes.”

The play in this case is only one of the things. The other was the opportunity to work with the person who had the idea to stage the production. Matthew Kelly originated the idea and suggested that Julian Clary take on the role of Norman.

The national tour is nearing its end, stopping off at the Bradford Alhambra early next month for a five-day stint on the penultimate venue of this tour.

“I think I was the third person on board, and the chance to work with one of our most experienced stage actors in Matthew made it a no brainer. He is a magnificent actor, works the stage end to end and has much the same vision as ‘Sir’.

“He is absolutely up there in the top five of all actors I’ve worked, what Ken Campbell would call ‘proper acting’. For a director, he is an incredibly powerful instrument and a really great leading man.”

It’s worth listening to Johnson on this, no slouch himself when it comes to an impressive theatrical record.

His award-winning plays as writer include Dead Funny and Insignificance and he has also adapted The Graduate and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for the stage. He is a director of impressive renown.

Although Kelly trained as an actor before becoming a television presenter, there are those for whom he might still be the man who presented starry Saturday night TV shows.

Those who have been lucky enough to see him on stage in the last two decades will know Johnson is not dealing in hyperbole with his praise of the leading man.

What of the play? Harwood became on Oscar winner for his screenplay for The Pianist in 2002, but received his first nomination for The Dresser 20 years earlier.

“It is absolutely superbly structured. The act two structure is perfect and the storytelling of that act is just immaculate,” says Johnson. "The characters are also just so finely drawn and they also seem to come on stage at the exact right time – and then leave at the perfect time.

“I think some of that is down to the fact that he was writing about something and someone he knew (the play is reputedly based on Harwood’s time working as a dresser for Sir Donald Wolfit).

“You need to hang your costumes on people that you know. Everyone in the play is based on someone that Ronnie Harwood actually knew. It’s just a really golden piece.”

While Matthew Kelly and Julian Clary will help to give the production a wide appeal, it stands on its own for those who love serious theatre. “Theatre audiences like to see the life of theatre depicted on stage. The idea of the mirror facing the mirror.”

There is, clearly, a lot to recommend the production, but for director Johnson there is one aspect that stands high. Matthew Kelly. “I suspect that ‘Sir’ might be his greatest performance so far. I watched him in rehearsal and performance drawing great succour from that grand tradition of theatre history.”

The Dresser was first staged on March 6, 1980, at Manchester’s Royal Exchange, transferring to London’s Queen’s Theatre a month later. The play was nominated for an Olivier Award that year.

The Dresser, starring Matthew Kelly and Julian Clary, Bradford Alhambra, February 8 to 12. Tickets 01274 432000 or bradford-theatres.co.uk

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