Romola Garai is an actor and director who got her first break whilst still at school when she was cast opposite Judi Dench in a TV production of The Last of the Blonde Bombshells. She has worked in TV, film and theatre in works including I Capture the Castle, The Hour and Inside I’m Dancing. Her film-directing debut was the feminist horror Amulet in 2020.

Last year she was nominated twice in the Olivier awards for both her role as Annie 3 in The Years and as Briony in Giant at the Royal Court. Until 23 May she can be seen onstage as Nora in a new adaptation (written by Anya Reiss) of Ibsen’s The Doll’s House at the Almeida in North London

So Are We: León and Lightfoot

I’ve just booked tickets to see León and Lightfoot’s new piece, which is premiering at the Royal Opera House in June, and I’m really excited. I’m not familiar with their work although they’re very influential choreographers. I really love contemporary dance. There’s something about being in a space where you’re experiencing beautiful images and music, but it’s non-narrative, which I find really restorative. I think because I work in narrative artforms there’s something about it which really releases me. One of the pieces is set to the music of Philip Glass, who is one of my favourite composers, so I’m excited for that too!

Tracey Emin: A Second Life 

I’m looking forward to seeing this exhibition at the Tate Modern. It will be amazing to see such a hugely varied career that has spanned so many years and whose rebelliousness, intense vulnerability and unashamed emotion has been so inspiring to me through my life, and has left such a huge impression on so many female artists in so many different forms.

Víkingur Ólafsson

My husband gave me a beautiful LP by the pianist Víkingur Ólafsson a few years ago. So as a treat for our anniversary, I booked tickets to see him play in concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. He was playing the music of the Czech composer György Kurtág and it was an extraordinary evening. I don’t know a lot about classical music. It always felt like this kind of huge massive thing that’s impossible to access, but it was a really incredible evening, with this extraordinary highlight of the final piece being played by the full orchestra, who were dispersed within the audience, so the music was coming from all different directions. It was transcendent and so beautiful.

Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

One of the books that I’ve enjoyed the most this year is my long overdue reading of Long Island Compromise. It is that extraordinarily rare thing – a genuinely funny book. It’s also full of wisdom, sadness and a profound reflection on family life as it pertains to a Jewish family, but also to the universal experience of generational trauma, and how each generation defines itself in opposition to the other. I could not possibly recommend this book more highly; she is a great genius, I think.

Heated Rivalry

I realise that there are probably very few people left in the world who haven’t seen Heated Rivalry but I honestly couldn’t think of anything that I’ve watched on TV that I’ve liked as much as this in so long. It is so profound to see people fall in love. It’s like we’ve become addicted to all the bad things about people and we can’t stop watching all the bad stuff we do. It's all so warped and messed-up, because human beings are amazing, and I loved this show because it showed that. 

I loved the characters' passion and their humour and their recklessness and capacity for love. I thought the performances were all so brilliant. Intimacy work is challenging and emotionally complex in ways that most people don’t understand and I thought these actors were so extraordinarily committed and brilliant in all of their scenes. And the show was brave and moving and funny – maybe a wild fantasy, but I felt it had a lot of truth in it too. It was a truly great love story and I wept at the end.