Director Tim Luscombe tells CHARLES HUTCHINSON why Amadeus is a story for our times.

TIM Luscombe has never forgotten encountering Amadeus, Peter Shaffer's study of man coming to terms with mediocrity, in the original London run.

"I remember seeing it in 1979 with Simon Callow, Paul Scofield and Felicity Kendal in the company and it made a huge impression on me," says Tim, who is now directing York Theatre Royal's summer production of Amadeus and its account of Viennese court composer Antonio Salieri's envy of the young upstart, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

"The main theme was the thing that interested me: the fact that we find ourselves settling for being mediocre after we start out thinking we shall climb mountains, and then find that won't be the case.

"That's what he so brilliantly dramatises: a subject that's not talked about very much as the delusions we all have are something we struggle with privately, when we contemplate how we're not great and face up to our mediocrity."

It would be stretching the point to draw a parallel with Tim's own experience at the Theatre Royal.

After all, since graduating from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre in 1986, he has worked with Dame Judi Dench, Jude Law, Joanna Lumley, Joan Collins and Kenneth Branagh; directed plays on and off-Broadway, in Tokyo, Stockholm and Amsterdam; been nominated for a Lawrence Olivier award for his London work; founded the London Gay Theatre Company; and had his play EuroVision produced by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber at the Royal Court. In other words, he is a high achiever, and yet he faced initial disappointment at York last year.

"I had met Damian artistic director Damian Cruden a couple of times in London; we talked about jobs and I applied to be resident director about a year ago. I was interviewed for the post, and I wasn't selected - but then Damian rang me later to offer me Amadeus," says Tim.

Directing Amadeus hardly represents mediocrity of course. The film spin-off won five Oscars and the play is a magnificent piece of theatre. "If you're going to be in a rehearsal room for a month or more, I'd rather spend it with someone who writes really well, someone who is not frightened theatrically. Shaffer's writing is modern and yet redolent of earlier centuries, and that's fun to play with and it's daring too," Tim says.

Twenty four years on from its debut, Amadeus resonates even more with the obsession of our time: the pursuit of fame. "That was something that occurred to me this morning. When Salieri talks of fame through excellence and of finding himself embalmed in fame, it struck me that the subject of celebrity is much more on people's minds, with the rise of the paparazzi and the rise of reality TV shows. Once you wanted to be famous for being good at something; now at 15 you can just aspire to be famous," says Tim

"Yet we all struggle with being contented with what we are, and actors struggle with that more than most, battling with that thing of wanting fame."

Here Tim's train of thought turns back to his first experience of Amadeus. "I remember being comforted at 18 by that thought of Salieri absolving us by becoming the patron saint of mediocrity," he says. "Jesus died for our sins but Salieri's death seemed much more useful for us as we can't ever get away from being mediocre."

Rest assured, Tim Luscombe will be endeavouring to make Amadeus anything but mediocre at York Theatre Royal.

Amadeus, York Theatre Royal, July 18 to August 9. Box office: 01904 623568.

Updated: 11:11 Friday, July 11, 2003