Jonathan Miller on neurology, drama, religion, and Hamlet

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Jonathan Miller on neurology, drama, religion, and Hamlet

01 Feb 2009

Speakers: Jonathan Miller

Mark Lawson makes the point that Jonathan Miller is a man of many talents, but refers to himself as a Director only. Miller explains how the variety of his career has mostly occured through ‘unsolicited invitations’, taking him from opera to theatre to the BBC. Miller explains that his original and number one ambition was to be a neurologist, the profession in which he initially trained, and one which provided him with his skills as a director. Lawson asks Miller about artistic disputes that he has encountered and about his controversial opinions on verse. Miller believes the emotions and the thought contained in the verse are far superior to the verse itself. He refers to himself as a revivalist director, looking at plays of the past and in looking at what people do between birth and death, maintaining that this is the only worthwhile subject of for theatre. Lawson and Miller compare science and drama productions, and their legacies and importance for society: “to attend to the negligible and to make them considerable is the function of the performing-arts, the function of fiction and the function of most interesting psychology.” Miller explains the difficulties he faces in the theatre from ageism and an averision to networking, to intimidation and criticism. Lawson directs Miller towards the notion of being Jewish, something which Miller describes as Jew ‘ish’. He is Jewish but he feels his identity is just as much wrapped up in Camden, London and Britain as it is in being a Jew. He moves on to discuss the relationship between Christianity, in its various forms, and Judaism, all three of which Miller calls ‘dotty’, believing as he does in anthropocentrism and intentionality over religion.