Veteran director Christopher Morahan tells Laura Davis about the new stage version of the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

THE man who stunned Everyman audiences with his version of Pinter’s The Caretaker last year is returning to the theatre for a brand new show.

No, not Jonathan Pryce, who played lead Davies with such skill that he appeared to actually become him.

It’s the play’s director Christopher Morahan, who is working on a new stage version of working class novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.

The Caretaker recently completed a successful run in London’s West End and discussions about taking it to another theatre are ongoing.

However, Morahan has ideas about giving it immortality.

“I’d like to make a film of it,” he announces, perched on a seat in the Liverpool Playhouse’s rehearsal studio during his lunch break.

“With the same cast if they’re free – certainly with Jonathan.”

If a film was to be made then Morahan would be the person to do it. As well as a celebrated theatre career, which includes the role of deputy director of the National, he was head the BBC plays department from 1972 to 1976.

He has also directed many big screen productions including 1980s caper Clockwise, with John Cleese as the uptight and unfortunate headteacher.

In 1967, he was asked to create an abridged version of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists for BBC2, to which, oddly enough, his father owned the screen rights.

“He had considered making a film of it,” explains Morahan, 80, “but he was getting on and he was happy for me to direct it.

“He was a working man in the days of the Depression in 1931/32,” he says of his father, an architectural sculptor and artist.