Viv Hardwick talks to Kathryn Hunter and Paul Hamilton about the stage accident which caused a commotion as the Royal Shakespeare Company prepared to bring its annual season to Newcastle.

TITLE role playing Anthony and Cleopatra star Kathryn Hunter spoke about the shock and upset she experienced as her co-star Darrell D’Silva suffered a hand injury when a gun went off during the run-up to the Royal Shakespeare Company work which tours to Newcastle Theatre Royal the week after next.

Asked not to go into too much detail about the incident, which put D’Silva in hospital in April, Hunter says: “It happened in a technical rehearsal with a prop gun that was a mistake. When it was handed to him he thought it was unloaded and so, there’s a very strict policy, about how to handle guns.

“It was just a mistake about whether we’d finished the scene or not. It was very shocking and upsetting. I think the main thing is that after (accident) support for Darrell was very present from everyone from Michael Boyd to the executive directors to cast members of the company, everybody. Accidents happen.

“The press night was delayed by about two-and-a-half weeks which was a bit strange. One never wants to see these things happen in future but when something happens, and it happens for a reason, which seems a facile thing to say, then you have to decide on a basic human level how to respond.

Darrell’s a musician as well, he’s a saxophonist.”

D’Silva was next on the interview list, but he failed to appear leaving Hunter to set the scene for this modern-day look at Shakespeare’s tragedy featuring recent uniforms and, of course, military hardware.

Egypt is characterised as a place of pleasure, playfulness, sensuality and, politics in which Cleopatra goes to war with Ceasar after an alliance between her and Mark Anthony creates a fusion of worlds almost akin to the Cameron-Clegg coalition.

“In the end it’s a love story really and extremely radical as a piece of writing, extraordinary.

There is an adulterous content.

How radical is that? It can be full of betrayals and that’s what is so fascinating because love is not one gorgeous colour that stays.

They’re constantly betraying each other and coming back and forth and forgiving. Then in the end, in her act of dying, as well as defying Caesar it’s the final act of commitment to Mark Antony.”

Hunter also features as the Fool in King Lear and she feels the fact that she’s always been quite flexible is helpful in creating a character who is boylike.

Born Aikaterini Hadjipateras the Olivier award-winning English-raised actress and theatre director trained at RADA where she is now an associate. She’s renowned for her physical theatre work, but found a wider audience by appearing in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

On playing the latest in a series of “male” roles, 52-year-old Hunter feels that the option of playing male or female gives her far more options than most actors.

“I guess I’m drawn to other genders as well... and sometimes the writing is more exciting being a man to be frank. If the choice was that or the sexy maid I’d prefer to play the old father or something.

“It was more about becoming a child that speaks the truth rather than the old, wizened, bitter Fool who says bitter things which are uncomfortable. His job is also to entertain so I have been looking for a lightness,” says Hunter who is delighted that the audience spots the obvious emotion between the king and the only courtier refusing to indulge the monarch’s madness.

“We never know why the Fool leaves. Sometimes he’s hanged, but what struck me at the very beginning was something said to Kent about him being a fool for following someone who is on the road to hell. So this theme of loyalty and betrayal was very much at the top of my mind and comes back again and again ‘do you stay with someone who is going down’...,” Hunter explains.

There were schoolchildren in the audience when I attended her performance at Stratford and Hunter speculates on what the impact of the relationship between Lear and his court might have on the respect that the youngsters have for their parents, particularly their fathers.

“How much respect do children have for their parents, and parents for their children, and what is that is that bond? I think that is something that is very relevant and right now. The respect from children has to be earned as well and maybe Lear hasn’t found it, but even so things go a bit far.”

Hunter also points to the fact that today’s elderly people are living longer and “what do you do with them? Do you think ours is a culture of youth or is it youth driven? I think it is.”

■ Romeo and Juliet runs until Saturday. King Lear, October 5-9.

Anotny And Cleopatra, October 12-16. Hamlet, Oct 8-9. Tickets: £12- £45. Box Office: 08448-112-121 theatreroyal.co.uk rsc.org.uk