Samuel Barnett is a Tony- and Olivier-nominated actor who broke through in Alan Bennett’s acclaimed play The History Boys and reprised the role of Posner in the 2006 screen version. He played the title role in detective comedy sci-fi series Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency alongside Elijah Wood. He’s currently playing Jonathan in the sold-out musical adaptation of Pride at London’s National Theatre, based on the true story of gay and lesbian activists amid the 1984 miners’ strikes in South Wales. The show has been so successful that it’s transferring to the Bridge theatre from 12 November until May next year. During these long runs, says Barnett, culture is “what keeps me going”.

My husband is the artistic director of Nottingham Playhouse so we’re up there a lot. I’ve been to this restaurant twice now. They have a seasonal, locally grown, zero-waste ethos and they do this tasting menu that has flavours that I’d never tasted before. Every single course was like a flavour explosion. I've always responded to stories. I really loved the narrative of being at Alchemilla because, with every course, they would come and give you the story behind the dish. The service is amazing. And you’re not paying London prices for it as well.

I read the His Dark Materials trilogy when I did the theatre show when I was 23. I then read it again in my 30s and again in my 40s, and now I’m reading these prequel and sequel books – I’m halfway through the final book of the trilogy. I’m saving it till I finish Pride because I’ll need a pick-me-up. It’s a world that’s very close to ours, except our souls take the form of external demons outside our bodies. Philip Pullman is famously an atheist and agnostic, and it’s not about tearing religion down, but it is about what connects us as human beings. I find the books incredibly moving.

It’s one of my favourite podcasts – it’s a different story every week and it’s all true. What I love about it is that it’s narrative-driven. It’s not cosy crime; it’s not gratuitous. There are very few “dead women” episodes. There’s nearly always a wider worldview within each story. I absolutely love the presenter Phoebe Judge: she has an extraordinary cadence and sometimes she’ll do interviews with the people concerned, sometimes it’ll be historical cases. But there’s nearly always a wider overview. Every story has a point to [make about] today.

I’m not big on social media. I don’t really like it. But I came across Rob Pointon on Instagram. The stuff that I really like are these very ordinary street scenes of houses and cars parked along the road, and then he changes the perspective on it. So if it’s looking up a hill, he will extend the picture all the way up into the distance. If it’s going around a corner, he will create this kind of optical curve. He changes really ordinary-looking scenes into something incredibly beautiful. I’m not big on art: I can stand in front of a painting and feel cold and not see the narrative. But his street scenes reminded me of places I grew up, the terraced streets in Whitby in Yorkshire, so they really touched me deeply. 

Another artist I wanted to mention is Rebecca Foster. My dad died of Covid really early on in 2020. We also share a birthday, me and my dad, so I turned 40 in lockdown three weeks after he died, and of course I didn’t get to see him, and it was awful. But the following year, it was going to be the first anniversary and I kept saying to my partner: “We didn’t get a funeral, I didn’t get to honour him.” On my birthday morning, I unwrapped this painting that my husband Adam [Penford] had commissioned from Rebecca Foster, of a photograph of my dad. She’d done it in this grey-blue, impressionistic rendering of him, and I lost my shit. It was the most perfect gift and way of honouring him. I don’t know if it's things like that which have unlocked something about art and paintings for me – now I can see the story in it much better.

I saw a very early version of The Play That Goes Wrong when it was in a tiny studio, Trafalgar Studios, and I never laughed so much. And then I saw the big glitzy West End version. Then at one point I was asked if I wanted to be in it, but I couldn’t do it. And I’ve followed them ever since. A couple of weeks ago, my mum and stepdad were down in London to see Pride and there was too much illness in the cast so we had to cancel, and so I took them to see The Comedy About Spies. I wept with laughter. What I find so funny is they're completely stupid with wit and joy – their shows are essentially bouffon and clowning. They also have a lot of heart. I think that’s the thing that all of these picks have in common for me: they all have heart.

Pride is at the Bridge theatre, London SE1, from 12 November

Interview by Kate Hutchinson