"Richard Eyre asked me back to the National Theatre for his final production as artistic director - a new play that was scheduled to transfer to a West End Theatre. That offer conflicted with another more attractive one from his successor.

"I was particularly excited by Trevor Nunn's plans for a NT company of actors, playing for extended periods with its own repertoire. Initially I was to be in three productions, one of them a long-awaited new play by a major British dramatist. This did not materialise. Nor did the permanent company. Meanwhile I became the only actor to have worked at the National Theatre for all four of its artistic directors."

— Ian McKellen, October 1999

Trevor Nunn CBE and Sir Richard Eyre on the terrace of the Royal National Theatre