‘I’m cycling to work in the West End – my 16-year-old self would be delighted’

At the Donmar, the audience is never more than four rows from the action on stage. Photograph: Johan Persson

In the heart of London’s Covent Garden, unfurling from the Seven Dials junction, you’ll find an unassuming brick facade with a single word hanging above its door: Donmar. Once an old banana ripening warehouse, it was converted into a theatre in the early 90s, its stage since boasting a host of A-list actors including the likes of David Tennant, Adrien Brody and Samira Wiley.

“I think what makes it so special is a combination of two things,” says Craig Gilbert, the theatre’s associate director (literary). “The calibre of artists that we work with, and the intimacy in which you get to experience their work.”