Hall wrote in his diaries: “I think, now, from my own point of view, that it was a mistake to leave the RSC.” He added that, “in a sense, ever since I left the RSC I have felt that I lacked a true home.” And yet Hall refuses to wash the past with romance.”The house was lovely, but there were 12 other people living in the back purlieus. I think for the first few years Leslie was very happy there, but it was very difficult for her; actually, I think coming to Stratford was probably what ruined my first marriage I was terribly happy here, but I was also very unhappy But I don’t look back. I’m happier now than I’ve ever been, largely because of Nicki (his fourth wife) and the children and the new baby (three-year-old Emma). And the work.”He has worked with each one of his talented tribe of six children (including Emma, who made her acting debut in his film Jacob) and recently wrote the screen play of Sacred Hunger with Nicki. Having just finished his first Hollywood film, Never Talk to Strangers, he is boyishly excited by the possibilities of film – “the piecing together of the jigsaw puzzle until there comes a moment when the material tells you what it is”. He will spend autumn making a two-part film for Channel 4 (co-produced by his eldest son Christopher) in St Lucia, and the Peter Hall Company production line continues with Alan Bates in The Master Builder.

Then there’s a “very subjective” film about childhood he wants to do, Lear (which he’s never done) and much more. “I’d like to have another 30 or 40 years…” Not long ago, being frantically busy was a financial imperative created by having several families to support and educate; now it’s a way of life “A chemical thing, I think,” he says. “I’m addicted to adrenaline.”Certainly, he no longer wastes energy regretting his decision to leave the RSC. “Everybody feels that when they leave the RSC they are leaving home, but one of the things about home is you’ve got to leave it Ten years is a long while.

If I’d stayed it would have been a very bad thing for the RSC and for me, too, probably. I’d made the RSC, done the “Wars of the Roses”: there was a lot of achievement. I had three very hard years towards the end when the Arts Council was trying to get the RSC out of London and back to Stratford so that we didn’t have two national theatres. I’ve always believed passionately – and still do – that you must have two national theatres, and I certainly don’t understand why idiotic Tories don’t understand that artistic competition is important. But then they’d sooner have no art at all…”Suddenly a glimpse of Hall the politician emerges, reminding you how he persistently put his head above the parapet and made rowdy and eloquent noises on behalf of the arts when he ran the National Theatre for 15 years throughout the Seventies and Eighties. They are so cheap (under pounds 100 to pounds 200) and in such slight demand that they are seldom seen at auction. Also largely unwelcome to auctioneers is Etruscan ware of 6th-7th century BC, and the chunky pots of the third millennium BC Minoan civilisation and second millennium BC Mycenaean.

A typical example might cost you pounds 50.Gratifyingly, however, the “state of the art” stuff at the show seemed just as flaky and buggy and generally dismal as it is in Dixon’s. Yesterday’s business is unlikely to be the end of Clark’s summer spending spree, as he prepares to lead Forest into the Uefa Cup as well as mount a championship challenge.”I’ll have to wait and see what money is available after we have paid out for the two lads, but I would anticipate being able to strengthen the squad further,” Clark said. Wares from Pompei’s souvenir shop are particularly beguiling, but there are as many fake antiquities in circulation as there are real ones. Go to reputable dealers, who will supply a certificate of authenticity.If it is sheer antiquity rather than aesthetics you are after, start with Mesopotamia and Egypt, around 4000-3000BC. Coarse red polished Egyptian domestic bowls of the period, with characteristic black rims or tops are sold by Mr Martin for pounds 500; Cypriot black tops of 3000BC for pounds 120; and Palestinian pots, of 3000BC or earlier, for pounds 100.For classic Greek shapes, cheaper than original Attic products, go for pots from southern Italy made under the tutelage of Greek colonists in the 4th century BC, a century after the flowering of Attic pottery.

A fine 41/2in kantharos (cup-shaped, with loop handles) might cost pounds 300 from Mr Martin; an 8in bell krater with decorative figures, pounds 500; a 91/2in with figures pounds 1,200; and a decorated 11in at pounds 2,000 – his highest price for an antiquity.Mr Martin put a pot similar to his pounds 1,200 specimen in Bonhams’ April sale where it was estimated pounds 900-pounds 1,000 and fetched pounds 1,430. It goes to show that antiquities are not always cheapest at auction. London’s West End dealers tend to charge more than auction prices and smaller dealers like Mr Martin less.The same sale showed undecorated wares are still out of favour with established collectors, especially if made in southern Italy. A 12in- high 4th-century BC black-glazed krater with minor repairs, estimated pounds 700-pounds 900, failed to sell.My own favourite is the expertly potted and charmingly decorated small 4th-century BC Hellenistic kantharoi from the Daunian region of Italy. Supplies from abroad to British dealers have declined dramatically in the past six months because British Customs, allied with Scotland Yard’s Art and Antiques squad, have been seizing consignments.Antiquities have been in free circulation for millennia. Britain, as a non-signatory to the Unesco convention prohibiting the transportation of unregistered antiquities, has hitherto allowed free entry But times have changed. The dealers, auctioneers and collector I visited were outraged and jumpy – who would the police pounce on next? For every Art and Antiques squad horror story of hieroglyphic stone slabs ripped with chainsaws from Egyptian pharaohs’ tombs, they had one about impoverished Near Eastern peasant farmers forbidden to dig up crockery from ancient graveyards the size of football pitches.Some dealers reckon that Scotland Yard’s ear has been bent by a coterie of archaeologists who believe that only museums should own antiquities and that collectors are no better than looters.Agreement could take years.