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Richard, I can still smell The Crucible months after seeing it. The incense filled the whole theatre…

It’s one of those things you become acclimatised to night after night. Actually, we did a lot of work with sensory triggers in the rehearsal room. Samantha Colley, who played Abigail, always washed her hair with the same shampoo and that smell became very familiar to me. I deliberately didn’t wear any aftershave because I felt Proctor shouldn’t smell of anything other than the farm. I’m not sure if the smells will be quite so prominent in the cinema screening! Maybe we should go round with bowls of incense…

You should do a Sensorama screening

Well, Richard Hammarton, who did the soundscape, worked in the rehearsal period with a frequency that made the seats vibrate. There was a sort of sonic pulse underscoring a lot of the play. The raked seats in the stalls would vibrate. I liked the idea that the audience were being attacked in that way.

Tell us about how The Crucible was filmed

It was done over three nights so they had three chances to capture what they needed. Digital Theatre came in early and sat in lots of different seats so they could see the best angles for shooting. They ended up with six camera positions and a top shot, looking down at the stage. The only difficult thing was the scene where I take off my shirt to wash. We didn’t want to lose that for the film because it says something about seeing a man stripped back and vulnerable. But hiding a mike cable on my body was difficult – we ended up having to tape it down my side.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Samantha Colley as Abigail, centre, and Richard Armitage as John Proctor in The Crucible. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

What makes Proctor such a good role?

He’s a flawed character, a man in his prime who finds himself – manoeuvres himself, really – into an extremely difficult position where he is at odds with his community, with god and ultimately with himself. He is on trial with himself. He believes he’s made a grave mistake and doesn’t know how to find his way back. The only way he can do that, ultimately, is to go to his death. Arthur Miller is placing his own heart at the centre of Proctor – it’s akin to what he thought he would have to do in the McCarthy trials. He was watching his friends and colleagues cave in and name names or sacrifice themselves and become exiles, leaving America.

How is the play relevant today?

Even when Miller was writing it, he knew the allegory would become retrospective. It’s not about the 1950s, it’s almost not even about Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. Any culture finds a relevance for it. It has been performed in so many different languages. It speaks to any culture – which unfortunately is every culture – that manages to suppress its own people through the law and a line of religious belief.

It’s a very physical performance. How did you find your way into the character?

Yaël Farber, our director, guided us towards a physical extension. We did a lot of physical labour to try and re-create the world of Salem. These people had built their own Jerusalem with their own hands. Part of my research was going to Salem and learning about how difficult life was for them.

At three and a half hours, it was a draining production for the audience and the actors. You must have been knackered

It’s such an enigma. Before the two-show day, I thought: “How am I going to get to the end of this?” And then I’d find myself at the curtain call of the second show thinking: “I don’t know how I got here.” The play just carried you with it. Some people came away feeling like no time had passed at all; some felt the toil of that three and a half hours. It’s become an industry standard that we can only just about bear a one-hour first act and a 50-minute second act. It’s the same with the three-and-a-half-minute song. Anything longer than that and we get twitchy. Our concentration span is becoming conditioned. Yaël was commended for the transitions between the acts, which in traditional productions would be called scene changes. But she took the time to create imagery and allow the society to function, which was very important.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Physical extension … Richard Armitage, Adrian Schiller, Jack Ellis and Natalie Gavin in The Crucible. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

You’d been away from the theatre for quite a while. It was a pretty full-on comeback

I hadn’t realised quite how long it had been. It was around 12 years. Last time I was on stage it wasn’t in any capacity of responsibility and people weren’t really coming to see me. I was a spear-carrier, I could have cruised and coasted – not that I did! This was a whole different idea. My agent and I had been searching for a piece of theatre to do for six or seven years – all the way through Spooks. We just couldn’t find the right director, the right venue, the right thing. And the longer the gap is, the thing you choose becomes much more significant. Then along came The Crucible.

You started out in musical theatre didn’t you?

Yes – I didn’t stay in it for very long. I started with a song and dance training and went to a lot of open auditions. I worked my way into an ensemble, so I was a hoofer really, but it became very apparent quite quickly that I was in the wrong scene. I was always being told: “Smile and look like you’re enjoying yourself.” And in my head I was thinking: “Well if I was enjoying myself, I would be smiling.” I decided to go and get a classical training. On my days off I’d go to the RSC and the Barbican and the National and sit thinking that’s what I wanted to be doing. I went back to drama school at 22.

So you won’t be signing up for a Hobbit musical…

The question of the musical comes back time and time again. I tarry with the idea but there are so many other things that I’m interested in exploring. There are too many other things to do. It’s not a genre that I enjoy very much – it’s just not my cup of tea.

What’s up next for you in the theatre?

I’m definitely going to work with Yaël again – I don’t know how soon that’s going to be. But we are planning another production. We want to really expand and explore something we touched on in The Crucible. But I can’t say anything just yet...

The Crucible is broadcast on 4 and 7 December in the UK and Ireland, and in other selected territories in February 2015

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