Interview: Ian McDiarmid, actor

Ian McDiarmid, born in Dundee, has spent most of his life outside Scotland. Here he talks to our reporter about why he had to leave his home city – and the drawbacks of his most famous role

• McDiarmid, pictured at the National Theatre in London. Picture: Graham Jepson

AMID the stark concrete slabs that give London's National Theatre complex the feel of a multi-storey car park, Ian McDiarmid and I find a quiet perch to chat about his long career as one of Britain's most esteemed actors. Here at the National he's appearing in Ibsen's epic Emperor and Galilean, playing the prophet Maximus.

Uncut, the play runs for longer than your average working day, but then it was never meant to be staged. This production, directed by McDiarmid's friend and former Almeida colleague Jonathan Kent, has been whittled down to three and a half hours, but it's still a massive undertaking. "Ibsen calls it closet drama, but so was Peer Gynt and so was Brand," says McDiarmid. "But unlike those two, this was never staged in his lifetime. They did the full nine-hour version in the 1980s, but no-one touched it until now, so here we are making history."

Everything McDiarmid says sounds especially luscious, for his amazing voice would entrance even if he read out his shopping list. It's a gift, he acknowledges, when asked where and when received pronunciation replaced his native Dundonian cadences.

Laughing, he says: "I sound a bit more like a Dundonian when I am in Dundee, which I'm not very often. I've lived in England for over 30 years, so I suppose that's where the pronunciation comes from but, as I say, it moves. I've always been interested in the sound of a voice, and indeed, in the Scottish and English vowels. But as far as the voice box, that will be hereditary. My father had a very strong, resonant voice. As a child he was made to go to elocution lessons. Occasionally there used to be those evenings, when people would be invited around to sing or recite, and I would listen to him be prevailed upon to do various pieces of poetry. He was very good, and I remember an uncle, really just a family friend, who knew I was interested in acting, said to me, 'You'll never have the voice of your father.' That's probably true, except I have more experience of actually using (my voice] than he did. But it's instinctive, it's genetic."

Fans have an opportunity to hear those mellifluous tones on Wednesday, on Radio 4, when The Pickerskill Reports returns for a second series.

McDiarmid reprises his role as Dr Henry Pickerskill, the retired English master of Haunchurst School for Boys, who recounts stories about his most memorable students. Pickerskill is sweet, but a strain of sly sarcasm keeps the scripts tart, so it's never twee. It's written and directed by Andrew McGibbon who, with his comedy hat on, has worked with everyone from Rory Bremner, Bob Monkhouse and Harry Shearer, to John Sessions and Bill Nighy. In a parallel life as a celebrated drummer, he's recorded with Morrissey, My Bloody Valentine and Chrissie Hynde. McDiarmid is full of praise for McGibbon.

"The great thing about this series is that Andrew – who's a completely fascinating person – directs it from the microphone. He attaches this microphone to himself and moves around with it. We do it all in his house, and go to different rooms for different acoustics. The atmosphere is great. Serious work gets done quite a lot, I think, in congenial surroundings, which tend to make you laugh. That's how we rehearsed Emperor and Galilean, laughing most of the time, in a play not noted for its comedy aspects."

Next month McDiarmid turns 67 and, as he says, he's lived outside of Scotland most of his adult life. I once read that he's always felt more European than Scottish, and wonder why. "I suppose it was a kind of frustration about being in Dundee, not about being in Scotland – that was alright – but Dundee seemed to me very narrow. My clich was narrow streets and narrow minds. I'm sure that was more about me than it. The streets have broadened now, and so have attitudes. I had a great interest in German theatre, Brecht and all that, and I liked the notion more that I was a European than that I was a Brit. It appealed to me. I was a kid, but it felt as though there was a wider horizon than just this island that I was confined to, or indeed this part of the island that I inhabited."

As an incomer myself, I find Scotland quite parochial at times. Does he? "Oh, it can be, but things have changed. When Vicky Featherstone asked me to join the board of the National Theatre of Scotland I said yes immediately because she's terrific, and their aspiration is international. They entirely attend to the national, in all sorts of unexpected ways, but their aspiration is international and was from the beginning."

With a mischievous twinkle, he continues: "I quite like the fact – this will be controversial – that she and John Tiffany are both English. I thought that was very good for Scottish theatre. Not that there aren't some very talented Scottish people around – in fact, she employs a large number of them – but again, that there would be no narrowness of thinking. She's always looked at a broader canvas. It was very enlightened of the board as it then was to appoint her. What's good about them, now that I've got to know them – and they're almost all Scots – is their broadness of outlook, too, and their determination to support her vision. Which is a vision, it's not just that dead word people come up with now and again. She's got a proper aspiration for what theatre can do."

He's also impressed by Alex Salmond. "I think he's done a very good job. In fact, he's done a job, and nobody else seemed to be doing one. So I'm very pleased that he's had a majority, which he deserves. My vote's down here, so I'm impartial, but I'm not a nationalist, and a lot of Scots I know aren't, although they think a devolved government is a very good idea, and perhaps it would be an even better idea if that government had more powers.

"But as far as breaking off, again, it's the opposite of everything we were talking about earlier. We need to spread out and be more inclusive. Once the word nationalism enters the conversation, it always makes me slightly nervous. I don't think anything grotesque would happen, but that kind of self-obsession and solipsism isn't healthy, and it's not necessary. But all power to the devolved Scottish Government. They have been a great supporter of the arts, and the National Theatre in particular. They've really gone out of their way to ensure that no unnecessary pain is caused, and the same cannot be said for the British government."

McDiarmid has worked in most media but considers himself first and foremost a theatre actor, saying that the medium chose him, rather than the other way around. He is, however, most famous around the world for playing the evil Emperor Palpatine, in George Lucas's Star Wars films.

Last summer, when we met at a lunch hosted by Andrew O'Hagan, whose novel Be Near Me McDiarmid adapted so brilliantly for the stage, I was warned not to mention the Wars. And indeed, wandering down George Street after our meal, I saw him rebuff a fan's plea for an autograph.

Now, I discover, it's not that cut and dried. He's far from hostile about Star Wars. The problem isn't the film franchise, but some of its fans. When McDiarmid was in New York, in 2006, he had an unnerving run-in with fans who pursued him back to his hotel and caused trouble. He was advised not to sign any more memorabilia, which mostly wound up on eBay anyway.

"It's not about disowning the role, far from it," he says. "I'm very pleased to have played it, I had a great time, and it's done a lot for me, in lots of ways. And I like working with George. It's just the relentlessness of it, though it's sort of stopped, now.

"But if you'd come half an hour earlier, there were three young guys with photographs, and I assumed they were all from Star Wars. But one actually had a picture of me in The Prince of Homburg, the last play I did, and I said, 'OK.' And somebody had their autograph book, and I signed that. I tried to explain that I'd made a rule, and said, 'I'm sure you're not going to sell it on the internet,' and all those sorts of things. But it can be a sort of racket, and I don't like it."

• Series two of The Pickerskill Reports begins on BBC Radio 4 at 11:30am on Wednesday 27 July. Emperor and Galilean is in repertory at the National Theatre, London, until 10 August. For dates, times, and tickets, visit www.nationaltheatre.org.uk