By Baz Bamigboye
Published: 02:57 EST, 11 April 2014 | Updated: 09:32 EST, 11 April 2014
Andrew Garfield, who plays Peter Parker - aka The Amazing Spider-Man - certainly knows how to win over a tough crowd.
Just before I met Andrew for lunch in Soho, he'd been talking to some youngsters, aged from two years to 20.
He told me they'd asked him all manner of things, including: 'How do you pee in a Spider-Man suit?'
Winning over a tough crowd: Andrew Garfield speaks to children at Kids City in Brixton, South London on Tuesday
It was a good question, because the bathroom situation caused him no end of problems when he was making his first Spidey picture. 'They actually created a fly this time, which was very nice,' he revealed.
So there you have it: the spider has a fly.
Andrew enjoys interacting with people outside of the film world when he's promoting pictures (his new one, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, opens here on Wednesday). He sees it as giving something back, and his enthusiasm is genuine.
On Tuesday, he visited Kids City in Brixton, South London, an after-school set-up. He arrived in full Spider-Man costume, handed out some pizzas, did a bit of painting, shot a few hoops, then scooted away. 'I flung the suit off, and came back as Andrew Garfield, all the while apologising for being late,' he said.
The kids liked that.
He was taking a bunch of them to last night's world premiere gala; he said it makes the tour promotion schedule bearable - more of a mission, less of a slog - if he can visit schools and children's clubs.
It also reminds him of the 'skinny, sensitive kid in the playground' he used to be. He'd always liked reading Spider-Man comics, but his relationship with Peter Parker and his alter ego deepened when he was at junior school in Surrey.
Shooting hoops: Andrew wears his Spidey costume to play basketball
'I like to say I was thankful to my school bully, because without him, I wouldn't be in this position now,' he said.
He was, he admitted, a sensitive soul. 'I thought that was a weakness, but I realise now those sensitivities can be a real strength. Today I celebrate my sensitivities.'
The emotional and physical bullying he suffered was a 'defining experience you never forget. I have not forgotten who bullied me, but I'm not going to name and shame them.
'I know now that it goes on everywhere, and I also have more understanding of what makes a bully. They've been bullied before.'
Today's bullying takes different forms, he added.
'There's so much cyber-bullying on the internet. I hope parents realise what their children have access to.'
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is surprisingly sensitive, too: full of humour and pathos, with a slab of sadness. I welcomed the laughs, too, which had an authenticity about them. Andrew explained that for the scenes when he was in costume and wearing his mask, he and the writers had free rein with dialogue.
In post-production, he could ad-lib with abandon. Sort of. The comic actor Patton Oswalt was brought on board to help with jokes, and they work terrifically in the movie.
At some point, Andrew said, he would like to do more theatre. He appeared in a scorching Death Of A Salesman on Broadway with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman two years ago.
I saw it twice, and the thought of it still moves me. As it does Andrew.
He won't speak about Hoffman, an actor he idolised. 'I don't really feel the need to blurt it out to the world,' he said.
He won't speak about his private life, either, although it's no secret that he and his Spider-Man co-star, Emma Stone, are partners in real life, as well as in reel life.
Despite this, I pressed ahead and asked whether they intended to marry some time in the break between summer and when he makes a film with Martin Scorsese.
'I don't want to talk about my personal life with... however many people read your column!' he exclaimed, the remark softened by a smile.
On Tuesday night, he donned make-up and a mask and, for one night only, took part in the Punch Drunk stage show The Drowned Man in Paddington. 'No one recognised me,' he insisted.
'I'm not recognised much in life, which I appreciate in this age where we're so fame-obsessed. It's gone bonkers.'
Frocks away! Suchet gets a makeover
David Suchet missed dressing up to play Hercule Poirot on ITV, so he plans to don a few flowing gowns ... as Lady Bracknell.
The award-winning star will play Oscar Wilde's hilarious and terrifying creation in the playwright's comic gem The Importance Of Being Earnest in the West End in June 2015.
Suchet told me: 'I couldn't resist trading in my moustache for her heels; and murder and mystery for laughter.'
In an email he added that after playing 'an extraordinary character like Hercule Poirot in wonderful stories for so long, I always knew it would be a challenge to find another character as extraordinary to play. I also wanted comedy. Lady Bracknell is both.'
Indeed she is. I've seen Maggie Smith and Judi Dench play her to perfection. I've also seen Brian Bedford play her in New York in a production that travelled from the Stratford Festival in Ontario.
Not so long ago, Stephen Fry fancied doing a Bracknell, but that's still at the handbag stage.
The production with Suchet will be directed by Adrian Noble, a former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He last worked with Suchet when he was an assistant director at the RSC, back in 1980. Suchet played Bolingbroke to Alan Howard's Richard II.
Noble said it was a 'great gender-blind' idea from producer Kim Poster to cast Suchet.
'David's playing the role as written,' he told me. 'He will be Lady Bracknell. He won't be playing her in a camp way. That's not my plan nor David's plan at all.'
He noted there had been many recent successes of gender-blind casting, citing the example of the spellbinding production of Julius Caesar at the Donmar, where an all-female cast was directed by Phyllida Lloyd.
Noble, who's also helping Kate Bush to prepare for her upcoming concerts, predicts a lot more of this kind of thing. 'It works both ways and allows classic plays to be looked at in a different way.'
The Importance Of Being Earnest has a preview start date of June 24, but the theatre won't be named for a while.
Kim Poster will produce the show with Nica Burns, chief executive of Nimax, which runs several houses in the West End.
Watch out for...
Lesley Manville plays Helene Alving in Ibsen¿s Ghosts
Lesley Manville's Helene Alving, in Ibsen's Ghosts. Her performance - the best interpretation of the part in years - has been captured on screen.
The play, adapted and directed by Richard Eyre, was originally staged in London at the Almeida theatre, and then moved to Trafalgar Studios.
It won much acclaim, and goes into Sunday's Olivier Awards at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden with six nominations.
The drama has been filmed by Digital Theatre, and will be broadcast through Cinema Live on June 26 at 200 cinemas. Visit website westendtheatreseries.com for more details about participating venues.
Tim Pigott-SmithGOTT-SMITH, Margot Leicester, Oliver Chris, Lydia Wilson and Richard Goulding, who are all great fun to watch in Mike Bartlett's 'future history play', King Charles III.
It's deliciously provocative - and smart, with Bartlett's verse spoken as if it could have been penned by the Bard.
The play imagines the Prince of Wales on the throne. His central policy is to back Press freedom. All the cast was spot on the night I caught it in preview, though director Rupert Goold was still cutting bits here and there.
The play opened officially at the Almeida theatre last night and there's already chatter about a transfer - but who knows where, or when, because there's not a free house available.
Moira Buffini's very funny play Handbagged - starring Marion Bailey, Stella Gonet, Lucy Robinson, Fenella Woolgar, Neet Mohan and Jeff Rawle - imagines some wry and wicked conversations between Her Maj and Mrs Thatcher. Ms Buffini and director Indhu Rubasingham have tightened it since it ran at the Tricycle (of which I am a trustee), and it plays like a dream at the Vaudeville Theatre, where it opened yesterday.
The National Theatre erected The Shed as a temporary studio space when they shut down The Cottesloe, to refurbish it, before re-opening it as The Dorfman. But I reckon the NT should keep The Shed if they can. I can't imagine the play Home, Nadia Fall's outstanding piece of social drama, being anywhere else. It seemed very much, well, at Home in The Shed with its sublime cast: Michaela Coel, Jonathan Coote, Seth Elton, Gershwyn Eustache Jnr, Kadiff Kirwan, Ashley McGuire, Danny Sapani, Grace Savage, Antonia Thomas and Toby Wharton.
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